This fall, the Ming Hsieh Institute (MHI) in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering announced the selection of five outstanding Ph.D. students as 2011- 2012 MHI Ph.D. Scholars:
• Matthew Black
From left to right: Matthew Black, Bardia Zandian, Sunil K. Narang
Srinivas Yerramalli and Chenxi Lin.
Research Focus: Behavioral Signal Processing: Case Studies in Education and Psychology Research
Advisor: Prof. Shri Narayanan
• Chenxi Lin
Research Focus: Optical absorption enhancement in nano-textured silicon thin film for photovoltaics
Advisor: Prof. Michelle Povinelli
• Sunil K. Narang
Research Focus: Perfect reconstruction, critically sampled, two-channel wavelet filterbanks on graphs
Advisor: Prof. Antonio Ortega
• Srinivas Yerramalli
Research Focus: Enabling Underwater Acoustic Communications: From single links to an ocean wide network
Advisor: Prof. Ubli Mitra
• Bardia Zandian
Research Focus: A Cross-layer Framework for Wearout Monitoring
Advisor: Prof. Murali Annavaram
The MHI Ph.D. Scholars were selected after a two-phase process conducted by faculty committee, composed this year of Prof. Mike Chen, Prof. Steve Cronin, Prof. Alex Dimakis, Prof. Rahul Jain and Prof. Krishna Nayak. After an initial phase in which faculty-submitted nominations were screened by the committee, the second phase consisted of a public talk competition in which seven finalists gave short talks about their research. The five students were then selected on the basis of their research accomplishment, promise and desire for an academic career beyond the Ph.D. They will each receive a stipend of $2,000. To help them in their career development, the MHI Ph.D. Scholars will also receive additional faculty mentorship and financial support for travel to other institutions, to help expand their horizons and give talks that enable them to gain visibility and receive feedback on their work. The MHI Ph.D. Scholars will be key members of the Ming Hsieh Institute and gain valuable experience by playing leadership roles in various activities and events organized by the Institute this year.
MHI was launched in July 2010 with a goal to position the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering at the forefront of electrical engineering, specifically in the development of intelligent technologies to empower mankind. The Institute is dedicated to defining the future of electrical engineering through positive impact, creativity and invention. In addition, MHI is focused on creating a vibrant intellectual environment at USC while bringing student and faculty researchers together to engage in the development of new ideas. In its first year MHI brought students and faculty together through department events and the MHI Scholars Program, which will be continued long-term. Along with these events, MHI sponsors other activities including cross-cutting and ground-breaking research. MHI's Director is Professor Shrikanth Narayanan, Andrew J. Viterbi Professor of Engineering. Its Co-Directors are Associate Professors Hossein Hashemi and Bhaskar Krishnamachari, both Ming Hsieh Faculty Fellows in Electrical Engineering. To learn more about MHI, please visit http://mhi.usc.edu.
