Faculty Accolades

Viterbi professional awards and achievements

USC President Steven B. Sample and Provost C.L. Max Nikias have earned IEEE’s 2008 Founders Medal and Simon Ramo Medal, respectively.

Sample, an electrical engineer, was honored for his “outstanding contributions in the leadership, planning and administration of affairs of great value to the electrical and electronics engineering profession.” The IEEE cited his “leadership in higher education and the engineering profession” as well as his “pioneering contributions to consumer electronics.”

Nikias, former dean of the Viterbi School and a fellow of the IEEE since 1991, received the organization’s 2008 Simon Ramo Medal for significant achievement in systems engineering and systems science or technical leadership in a major innovative engineering project. Nikias’ citation emphasized his outstanding leadership and pioneering contributions to integrated media systems for the entertainment industry.Learn More >>

Andrew J. Viterbi, the legendary engineer, academician and entrepreneur who gave the school his name, added another world-class award to his imposing list of honors.

Viterbi, the USC Presidential Professor of Engineering, is the inaugural winner (along with Irwin Jacobs, his co-founding partner at Qualcomm) of the James Clerk Maxwell Award, a joint prize of the IEEE and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The Maxwell Award is given “for groundbreaking contributions with an exceptional impact on the development of electronics and electrical engineering.” His Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, presented the award to Viterbi.Learn More >>

John O’Brien, a professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, who is also senior associate dean for academic affairs, was elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America for his contributions to the understanding and development of photonic crystal devices and technology. Fellowship in the OSA is limited to 10 percent of the membership of the 91-year-old organization. O’Brien was also designated a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Lasers & Electro-Optics Society this year. His research interests are in nanophotonics and photonic crystal devices.Learn More >>

Satwindar Sadhal of the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Department was named the 2007 winner of the James Harry Potter Gold Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The Potter Medal is awarded for “eminent achievement or distinguished service in the science of thermodynamics in mechanical engineering.”

Sadhal was cited “for advancing the fundamental thermodynamics of phase change and interfacial phenomena with seminal research on heat-mass transfer via droplets and bubbles and their fluid dynamics in natural and industrial systems, and for lasting contributions to mechanical engineering through teaching and archival literature.”

Jerry Mendel of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering has received the 2008 Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.Learn More >>

C.C. Jay Kuo, of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, and Stefan Schaal of Computer Science were recipients of research grants from the Okawa Foundation, extending the Viterbi School’s long-running success in obtaining those foundation grants.Learn More >>

Iraj Ershaghi, a professor in the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, added the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ Western North America Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award to his many honors.Learn More >>

Najmedin Meshkati of the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering won the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society’s Oliver Keith Hansen Outreach Award for his work on the human factors of complex technological systems and for his efforts to enhance public awareness of critical human factors issues.Learn More >>

James Moore, II, chair of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was elected to the leadership of the Council of Industrial Engineering Academic Department Heads. Moore assumes the presidency of the council in May 2008.Learn More >>

Amy Rechenmacher, an assistant professor in the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has won a highly competitive National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her work in granular behavior and geotechnical engineering applications.

The $400,000 award will support Rechenmacher’s research over a five-year period beginning July 1, 2008. The award, among the highest of honors for young faculty members, supports early career development for teacher-scholars whose research shows promise. Rechenmacher is the fifth civil engineer in the Sonny Astani Department to receive an NSF career award

“Amy’s research addresses one of the top unanswered questions in science: how does granular material behave?” said Jean-Pierre Bardet, chair of the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “That question touches on some of the most fundamental science and engineering problems in this field, such as building and improving our infrastructure, improving our ability to predict earthquakes, and better understanding other seismic events. We’re very excited that she’s received support to advance her research in this field.”

Rechenmacher, who studies the mechanics of granular flows, won the CAREER award for her proposal, “CAREER: The Kinematics of Localized Failure and Flow in Granular Materials.” The research will address the behavior of local flows in three contexts: in shear bands, or fractures, that appear in dense sands and cause them to slip or collapse; in fault gouges, which are crushed and ground-up rock produced by friction between the two sides when a fault moves; and in the laboratory, where researchers image dense granular flows in an attempt to understand the thermodynamics.

The grant will allow researchers to image granular flows of real materials in three dimensions for the first time.Learn More >>

Professor Barry Boehm of Computer Science earned some enviable recognition. A special symposium was named for him at the 29th International Conference on Software Engineering; Northrop Grumman hosted a dedicated symposium on his contributions to software engineering; and a special Barry Boehm track was held during the annual Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training.Learn More >>

Elaine Chew of the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering was selected as a Radcliffe Fellow by Harvard University.Learn More >>

Jesse Yen of the Biomedical Engineering Department won a Coulter Foundation Early Career Award for his work in developing novel ultrasound transducers that can image tissue in three dimensions.Learn More >>

Yong Chen, who joined the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering last year, won the Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award from the Society of Manufacturing Engineering in recognition of his innovative work in rapid prototyping.Learn More >>