Samueli Endowed Fellowships Awarded to Eight Graduate Students

Dec. 23, 2019 - Eight engineering doctoral students have won 2019-20 Henry Samueli Endowed Fellowships. Two students in civil and environmental engineering, four in electrical engineering and computer science, and two in chemical and biomolecular engineering received the awards, which recognize academic achievement and potential for future success.

Henry Samueli, co-founder of Broadcom Corp., funds the fellowships, which are open to master’s and doctoral students. The number of awards and the support amount vary each year.

The Samueli Endowed Fellowships are competitive, rather than need-based, helping the school to recruit and retain talented graduate students. The awards are based on students’ academic records and research accomplishments, and are open to all majors, covering fees and stipends for the academic year.

This year’s winners are:

Jawad Fayaz, civil and environmental engineering

Undergraduate degree: Rashtreeya Vidyalaya College of Engineering/India, civil engineering

Adviser: Farzin Zareian

Research interests: performance-based earthquake engineering, ground motion analysis, seismic analysis of bridge and building structures

Irene Martinez Josemaria, civil and environmental engineering

Undergraduate degree: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, civil engineering. Master’s degrees: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, civil engineering/structural engineering; UCI, civil engineering/transportation systems engineering

Adviser: Wenlong Jin

Research interests: transportation systems, technology innovation to improve traffic flow, and transit design and operation. Development of models and control strategies to reduce traffic congestion in the new era of autonomous and shared mobility, both at the freeway level and at the network level 

Enya Li, chemical and biomolecular engineering

Undergraduate degree: Tamkang University, Taiwan, chemical and materials engineering

Adviser: Szu-Wen Wang

Research interests: determining optimal delivery strategies for better immune response in creating effective cancer vaccines

Sean Aaron Blofeld Perea, chemical and biomolecular engineering

Undergraduate degree: University of Arizona, chemical engineering

Research interests: biotherapeutics and drug delivery/development

Mikhail Mikhailovich Savastianov, electrical engineering and computer science

Undergraduate degree: Saint Petersburg State Mining Institute (Russia), electric drive and control systems. Master’s degree: National Mineral Resources University (Russia), electric drive and control systems.

Adviser: Keyue Smedley

Research interests: power electronics, battery chargers, low-voltage direct-current distribution systems

Yaoyu Cao, electrical engineering and computer science

Undergraduate degree: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, electrical engineering. Master's degree: University of Southern California, electrical engineering 

Adviser: Payam Heydari

Research interests: RF/millimeter wave integrated circuits and systems for high-speed wireless communication

Md Omar Faruk, electrical engineering and computer science

Undergraduate degree: University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, applied physics, electronics and communication engineering. Master’s degrees: University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, applied physics, electronics and communication engineering; Norfolk State University, materials science 

Adviser Ozdal Boyraz

Research interests: DBE (degenerate band edge) lasers, plasmonic sensing, si photonics, quantum computing, neuromorphic computing

Ehsan Hafezi Asl, electrical engineering and computer science

Undergraduate degrees: Isfahan University of Technology, (Iran), electrical engineering and mathematics

Adviser: Filippo Capolino

Research interests: Microwave circuits and optical devices based on exceptional points of degeneracy – points in which two or more eigenstates (positions, definite momentums and definite measured values) coalesce.

- Anna Lynn Spitzer