Celebrating Faculty Achievements and Contributions to Engineering, Science, and Technology

Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos, dean of The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, and professor of electrical engineering and computer science, received an honorary doctorate from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece (NTUA), the first distinction of its kind given by NTUA in nearly 20 years.

Mark Bachman, G.P. Li, and Fan-Gang Zeng, a team of biomedical engineering professors, as well as Keyue M. Smedley, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, were honored at the UC Irvine Innovations ceremony held by the Office of Technology Alliances and the 40th Anniversary Committee, in recognition of their significant contributions to the University as inventors and creators.

Michael W. Berns, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman professor of biomedical engineering, developmental and cell biology, and surgery, and co-founder of the Beckman Laser Institute at UC Irvine, was awarded the 2006 Biomedical Optics Lifetime Achievement award at SPIE’s International Symposium on Biomedical Optics.

Ahmed M. Eltawil, assistant professor and Henry Samueli Faculty Fellow of electrical engineering and computer science, Fadi Kurdahi, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Young Hwan Park, an electrical engineering and computer science student, are the recipients of a 2006 Best Paper award from the International Society for Quality Electronic Design in honor of their paper titled “System-level SRAM Yield Enhancement.”

Daniel D. Gajski, The Henry Samueli “Turing” Endowed Chair in Computer Systems Design and director of the Center for Embedded Computer Systems, has been presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Oldenburg, Germany in recognition of his contributions to the areas of embedded systems and design science.

Medhat Haroun, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, was awarded the prestigious 2006 Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Payam Heydari, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is the principle investigator of a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation given to establish an infrastructure for research on broadband wireless/wireline communication circuit design. Michael Green, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and Ahmed Eltawil, assistant professor and Henry Samueli Faculty Fellow of electrical engineering and computer science, are co-principle investigators for this project.

    Heydari also won the 2005 Darlington Best Paper Award from the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society for his journal paper entitled “Analysis of the PLL Jitter Due to Power/Ground and Substrate Noise.”

Syed Jafar, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was recently awarded a CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation for his research in wireless networks, titled “Capacity of Wireless Networks with Side Information –Theory and Applications.”

Hamid Jafarkhani, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and deputy director of the Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing, together with his student, Yun Zhu, received the 2006 IEEE Guglielmo Marconi Best Paper Award in wireless communications, given in honor of their paper, “Differential Modulation Based on Quasi-Orthogonal Codes.” Jafarkhani was also presented with a UC Irvine Academic Senate Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research.

Abraham Lee and William Tang, professors of biomedical engineering, in addition to Bruce Tromberg, director of the Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic, and professor of biomedical engineering, were all inducted as Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Martha Mecartney, professor of chemical engineering and materials science, was recently awarded a National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research grant of $400,000 for her research on “The Role of Crystallographic Defects in Ceramic Superplasticity.” She also received a U.S. Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need award.

Amelia C. Regan, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and computer science, received a 2005-06 UC Irvine Academic Senate Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Service.

Stephen Ritchie, professor of civil and environmental engineering, is the new director for UC Irvine’s Institute of Transportation Studies, and will serve a five-year term effective September 4, 2006. The ITS specializes in developing state-of-the-art solutions to contemporary transportation problems.

Scott Samuelsen, professor and founder of UC Irvine’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department, and director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center, was recently named an American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow, a prestigious distinction honoring his many career contributions to the mechanical engineering field. He was also recognized as one of the “10 to Watch,” by the Orange County Register, which identified 10 individuals predicted to help shape Orange County’s next 100 years.

Brett Sanders, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, released a computer simulation of the dam-break flood that occurred March 14, 2006 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai following the failure of an earthen dam supporting Ka Loko Reservoir. The simulation showed the path and timing of flood waters that moved across

Kuhio Highway

and into Kilauea Bay.

Masanobu Shinozuka, distinguished professor and chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department, was presented with the American Society of Civil Engineers Robert H. Scanlan Medal in honor of his many accomplishments and contributions to the area of engineering mechanics. This marks the seventh distinguished award Shinozuka has received from the ASCE since the beginning of his honorary membership in 1993. He was also elected an honorary member of the Japan Association of Earthquake Engineering.

Andrei Shkel, associate professor of biomedical engineering and director of UC Irvine’s MicroSystems Laboratory, received a $1,250,000 DARPA sub-award for development of the world’s first micromachined gyroscope based on spin-polarized nuclei precession. This DARPA program, called Navigation Grade Integrated Micro Gyroscopes, supports the development of novel micro- or nano-engineered devices capable of sensing rotation rate with navigation-grade performance.

William Sirignano, The Henry Samueli Endowed Chair in engineering and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Sustained Service Award for his “outstanding sustained contributions to the Institute, student education and community service over the past decades.”

Soroosh Sorooshian, distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering, has been invited to join the U.S. National Committee for the International Hydrological Programme, which is recognized by the U.S. National Commission for the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as the civil and environmental engineering department’s committee representative. He was also recently appointed as vice chairman of a new federal advisory committee that is being established by the Department of Energy to oversee, review, and approve two scientific synthesis and assessment reports addressing climate change science issues.