The MHI-sponsored Pioneer Series showcases members of our very own USC Electrical Engineering Faculty! These talks not only offer a technical presentation from faculty, but more importantly, will feature an oral history interview. These series of interviews will capture the inspiring journeys and stories of the many individuals who have helped shape and develop our department.
Alexander A. (Sandy) Sawchuk
Leonard M. Silverman Chair Professor, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Wednesday, Jan. 31st, 2018, 3 - 5PM, EEB 132
Title: Signal and Image Processing: Analog, Digital, and Everything In-Between
I summarize my career in signal, image and information processing research, and applications of these principles in various systems over the years. My work has involved both analog and digital computing using optical, photonic and electronic techniques. It includes imaging system modeling; image restoration and enhancement; optical digital computing, interconnections, networks, and data storage systems; digital holography; 3D, stereo, and panoramic image acquisition, interaction and display; multimedia systems; wireless health and body area networks; multimodal sensing and machine learning. I will also review the history of signal and image processing work at USC and the remarkable advancement and evolution of the Viterbi School of Engineering and the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in recent years.
Alexander A. Sawchuk received the S.B. degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He has been with the University of Southern California since 1971, and was Systems Chair of the Department from 2005-2012. He served in the past as Director of the Signal and Image Processing (SIPI) Institute for more than ten years, and as Deputy Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC). His recent research includes: image processing, wireless health, body area networks, multimodal sensing and machine learning. He is the author or co-author of more than 300 technical publications in these fields, including several books and book chapters, and has supervised the Ph.D. research of 40 students. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA) and the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). Among his awards are the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching, the OSA Distinguished Service Award, the USC Mellon Academic Mentoring Support Program Certificate of Recognition, and the USC Faculty Mentoring Faculty Award. He also received the Halliburton Award for Exceptional Service, the Lockheed Senior Research Award, and the Outstanding Teaching Award from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
He has served in many professional positions for scientific and technical communities. He is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of the OSA Foundation. In the past he has served as Chair of the OSA Planning Committee, Chair of the Technical Council, and Board of Directors Member and Board Executive Committee Member. He was General Chair of Topical Meetings on Optical Computing, was Associate Editor for Optics Letters, and was Editor of the Information Processing Division of Applied Optics.
He has been a member of the IEEE Photonics Society Electronic Services Committee and was Area Editor for Optical Computing of the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing. He has been a Member, Delegate, and Chair, United States Advisory Committee for the International Commission for Optics (USAC-ICO), and is past Treasurer of the International Commission for Optics (ICO). He has served often on technical program committees for various professional societies.
Andrew J. Viterbi University of Southern California Trustee, Presidential Chair and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Title: A Tale of Two Careers: "It was the worst of times, it was the best of times" (with apologies to Mr. Dickens)
The last two thirds of the 20th Century was a period of tremendous upheaval and progress, social, political and especially technological. This was the period during which I pursued two careers which were tightly intertwined. Curiously both were also influenced by our nation’s most threatening competitor, Russia. The first was my academic career and the second my entrepreneurial career, both of which covered over thirty years, with considerable overlap. Though unrecognized at the time, my academic research had roots in the work of the Russian mathematician Andrei Markov, while with full recognition, my entrepreneurial career was launched and initially supported by our Defense research efforts to counter the Soviet threat...
George A. Bekey
Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Title: From Humble Beginnings to Global Prominence
My research career at USC was charecterized by variety. I have always had broad interests, and hence my research did not center in any one area for long periods. In this talk I will describe my wanderings from human-machine systems to hybrid analog-digital computing to biological control systems and finally to robotics. Of course, there were common threads in all these areas and I was successful in obtaining significant research funding in all of them. I will also highlight some of the more successful projects and the PhD students who made this success possible.
Jerry M. Mendel
Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Title: Ode to Joy of Research
To me Research is synonymous with Exploration, traveling into the great unknown and hopefully discovering something that no one else has seen before. Just as Explorers must ask critical questions, many of which are open-ended, in what we call “Research” it’s important, arguably crucially important, to focus on asking the right questions. In this short talk I’m going to focus on some of the questions that I’ve asked or that my students have asked so you get a very good sense of what I mean, beginning with my days as a graduate student, continuing with my years in industry and concluding with my more than 40 years at USC. I have been very fortunate to have experienced the joy of research for more than 50 years, and will also highlight especially joyous moments.
Jerry M. Mendel received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY. Currently he is Professor of Electrical Engineering at USC, where he has been since 1974. He has published over 550 technical papers and is author and/or co-author of 12 books. His present research interests include: type-2 fuzzy logic systems and their applications to a wide range of problems, including smart oil field technology, computing with words, and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Distinguished Member of the IEEE Control Systems Society, and a Fellow of the International Fuzzy Systems Association. He was President of the IEEE Control Systems Society in 1986. He was a member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society for nine years, and was Chairman of its Fuzzy Systems Technical Committee and the Computing With Words Task Force of that TC. Among his awards are the 1983 Best Transactions Paper Award of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, the 1992 Signal Processing Society Paper Award, the 2002 and 2014 Transactions on Fuzzy Systems Outstanding Paper Awards, a 1984 IEEE Centennial Medal, an IEEE Third Millenium Medal, and a Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award (2008) from the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society.
Robert W. Hellwarth
University Professor, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Title:
Ode to Joy of Research
Professor Robert W. Hellwarth, University Professor, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics and Astronomy, and holder of the George T. Pfleger Chair in Electrical Engineering, joined the University of Southern California in 1970. Over the past 45 years Professor Hellwarth has made numerous outstanding research contributions in the areas of quantum electronics; nonlinear optics; design and employment of lasers to aid a variety of practical and scientific efforts, from adaptive optics for astronomy to electro-optic modulators for communications. Professor Hellwarth has received several honors including the Charles Hard Townes Award of the Optical Society of America, the Quantum Electronics Award of the IEEE, and he is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Melvin A. Breuer
Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Title: 50 Years of "VLSI" CAD
Solomon Golomb
University Professor, Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Mathematics, and Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair in Communications, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering
Robert A. Scholtz
Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Departmant of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Title: Synchronization Dreams - The Reflections of Bob Scholtz
Beginning with a bizarre adventure from the “biography” of Secret Agent 00111, selected applications of synchronization to digital communication systems are revealed in a quasi-technical, quasi-historical fashion. Learn about the structure of comma-free codes, what characterizes a spread-spectrum system and how spreading and de-spreading systems are related to synchronization, thoughts about communication jamming, adaptation, and randomization, etc. Shakespeare, a science-fiction writer, a Holy Roman Emperor, a movie star, a bookshelf, and several USC faculty can be spotted along the way. This talk will conclude with some applications of synchronization to antenna systems (that is, if we can synchronize this presentation to the allotted time!)
Published on August 10th, 2017
Last updated on July 22nd, 2020
