Four Viterbi School Faculty Win NSF CAREER Awards
Assistant professors at the USC Viterbi School have recently won four highly competitive National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development awards. The awards, which include five-year grants of approximately $400,000, are one of the highest honors for young faculty members and support early career development for teacher-scholars who are most likely to become future academic leaders.
The four Viterbi CAREER winners are Igor Devetak of the Department of Electrical Engineering, David Kempe of the Department of Computer Science, Ellis Meng of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Maria Yang of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
“This is extraordinary news and confirmation that the Viterbi School’s faculty is continuing to grow in stature,” said Dean Yannis Yortsos. “I offer my warmest congratulations to all four of these very distinguished young academics.”
Igor Devetak
Devetak works in the area of quantum information theory, and is especially interested in classic information theory as systematized by Claude Shannon. His goal is to expand classical information theory to include quantum information systems. His project is entitled "A High-Level Framework for a Unified Treatment of Quantum and Classical Information Theory and Thermodynamics," and he hopes to accelerate the creation of quantum cryptography systems and eventually quantum computers.
In a groundbreaking paper published in 2003, Devetak set forth a novel rigorous proof for determining information capacity of quantum information channels, as Shannon had done classically for now-standard digital electronic channels.
Devetak received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 2002. Before coming to USC in January 2005 he completed a post-doctoral research appointment at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center.
More information can be found at:
http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2006/news_20060307.htm
David Kempe
Kempe is an algorithm researcher and programming team coach. His award will underwrite five years of research on modeling epidemics in networks. The abstract of his project reads as follows:
“Epidemic phenomena in networks occur when an infectious disease, computer virus, behavior, piece of information, or innovation is disseminated in a highly decentralized and parallel way along the links of a social or computer network. Epidemic phenomena often have a strong effect on society.”
Kempe is one of the organizers of the USC Programming Contest for Viterbi students. Prior to coming to USC in 2004, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. in 2003 from Cornell University.
More information about Kempe’s award can be found on the web at:
http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2005/news_20051213.htm
Ellis Meng
Meng is an expert in bioMEMS (microelectromechanical systems) fabrication. Her research involves developing biocompatible polymer microsystems that can seamlessly communicate and interact with the body’s natural chemical and electrical pathways. Her award will support her effort to develop novel microfabricated neural interfaces that may one day help to repair damage and restore lost functions in people who have suffered central nervous system injuries.
“These MEMS devices integrate both microelectrodes and microfluidics on a single platform and facilitate multi-channel, multi-modality flows in both directions, which has never been accomplished before,” she said.
Meng, who received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, is also associate director of education and diversity programs in the Viterbi School’s Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems (BMES) Engineering Research Center.
More information about Meng and her project can be found at:
http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2006/news_2006022426042.htm
Maria Yang
Yang’s project, “A Design Data Analysis Approach to Early Stage Design Process Modeling,” will determine models and measures for the conceptual or formulation phase of the engineering design process.
“Decisions that are made at the very early stages, when a product is still just an idea, will have a strong impact on the later phases of design,” Yang said. “The challenge will be to come up with measures and a model of that process across industries and product types.”
Yang will document a wide variety of design processes in such industries as aerospace, automotive, and consumer electronics. Gathering text, sketches, and prototypes drawn from design artifacts and documentation, she will determine models and process measures that will eventually serve as indicators of potential design outcome.
More information about her award can be found at:
http://viterbi.usc.edu/news/news/2006/news_2006022826150.htm 
