Photos by Grad Images
“Each of you, in your time,” said Dean Yannis C. Yortsos, “will be called to reimagine this world as something better than it is. To create the world that never was.”
“We are excited for your answers.”
Yesterday at Bovard Auditorium, Yortsos and the faculty and staff of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering celebrated scores of new Ph.D.s during the 2014 academic hooding ceremony. Yortsos noted their proud lineage as scholars, saying, “Don’t forget: you are the academic descendants of Leonardo Da Vinci, Marie Curie, Andy Viterbi and Bill Gates. You can find our alumni leading the rebuilding of Afghanistan; you can find them in the head administrator of NASA, the co-founder of Apple; or among the guiding forces behind China’s Silicon Valley.”
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(from left to right) Dean Yannis Yortsos;
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The scholars of the past, largely medieval monks, used their hoods to protect their shaved heads in the winter and as containers to collect alms. Hundreds of years later, the Ph.D.s in Bovard’s air-conditioned comfort, received their colorful 4-foot long hoods as a symbol of their mastery in the engineering disciplines that may be called upon to solve the grand challenges of our age.
Observed Yortsos: “British physicist David Deutsch said: ‘Problems are inevitable. But all problems are soluble.’ It is a profoundly optimistic view of the world. And I fully agree with him. There will always be problems — energy crises, climate change, cyber terrorism — but when they arise, you will be called to solve them. And I know that you will do so successfully and skillfully.”
The Ph.D. ceremony also celebrated the best in doctoral research, with awardees from all eight departments, as well as special honors for mentoring, research assistance, teaching assistance and USC’s Ph.D. Achievement Award.
Best Dissertation:
| Name | Department |
Dissertation Title |
| Ouliang Chang | Department of Astronautical Engineering | 3D Kinetic Simulations of Whistler Turbulence in Space Plasmas on Parallel Supercomputer |
| Heidi Gensler | Department of Biomedical Engineering | A Wireless Implantable MEMS Micropump for Site-Specific Anti-Cancer Drug Delivery |
| Nan Li | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering | A Radio Frequency Based Indoor Localization Framework for Supporting Building Emergency Response Operations |
| Sumita Barahmand | Department of Computer Science | Benchmarking Interactive Social Networking Actions |
| Huayu (Cathy) Xu | Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering | Traffic Assignment Models For A Ridesharing Transportation Market |
| Yarong Liu | Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Chemical Engineering | Engineering Nanoparticles for Enhanced Gene Therapy and Cancer Therapy |
| Zachary Lingley | Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Chemical Engineering | Non-radiative Energy Transfer as a Paradigm for Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conversion: Lead Sulfide Quantum Dots on Silicon Nanopillars |
| Timothy Furnish | Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering | |
| Shanling Yang | Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering |
Best Research Assistants:
| Name | Department |
| Daoru Han | Department of Astronautical Engineering |
| Matthew Borzage | Department of Biomedical Engineering |
| Farrokh Jazizadeh Karimi | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Dongbin Wang | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Josh Garcia | Department of Computer Science |
| Peter Pastor | Department of Computer Science |
| Uras Tansel | Department of Computer Science |
| Laura Bradley | Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science |
Best Teaching Assistants:
| Name | Department |
| Ivzan Nadav | Department of Biomedical Engineering |
| Mahmoud Kamalzare | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| Ryan Thacher | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
| John Tran | Department of Computer Science |
| Elaine Short | Department of Computer Science |
| Kaveh Shahabi | Department of Computer Science |
| Antonios Michaloliakos | Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering |
| Xiaoli Wang | Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering |
| Joshua Gray | Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering |
| Sahar Soltani | Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science |
Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering - Ming Hsieh Institute Scholars
| Name | Name | Name |
| Moh Amer | Sergul Aydore | Yanzhi Wang |
| Kartik Audhkhasi | Yuchi Che | Daphney-Stavroula Zois |
AME Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award
| Name | Department |
| Bo Jin | Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering |
USC Ph.D. Achievement Award
| Name | Department | Year |
| Nan Li | Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering | 2014 |
| Harshvardhan Vathsangam | Department of Computer Science | 2013 |
Viterbi Undergraduate Research Mentoring Awards
| Name | Department |
| Farzad Jalali-Yazdi | Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science |
| Ding Li | Department of Computer Science |
