Bhaskar Krishnamachari has been appointed as the inaugural Ming Hsieh Faculty Fellow in Electrical Engineering, effective August 16, 2009. The appointment recognizes Bhaskar's exceptional distinction and promise as an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering.

Viktor Prasanna received the outstanding achievement award at the 2009 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing (WORLDCOMP '09). The citation reads: In Recognition of His Leadership and Outstanding Research Contributions to the Field of Reconfigurable Computing.

Viktor Prasanna gave a keynote address at the 2009 International Conference on Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms. The meeting was held July 14-16. The title of his keynote was Algorithm Design for Reconfigurable Computing Systems.

Dr. Alice Parker is the features speaker at the North Dakota EPSCoR Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) State Conference on September 24, 2009. Dr. Parker, professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, studies the feasibility of creating a synthetic brain with the use of carbon nanotubes.

A Fully Interdisciplinary Approach to Capstone Design Courses. This paper reviews and publishes the piloting of a program to mix the embedded systems capstone design course in the Ming Hsieh department of Electrical Engineering with Marketing 446, New Product Development and Fine Arts 402, Advanced Design Projects. Teams of students from their respective disciplines work together to define, prototype, and market a consumer electronic device.

USC faculty members Steven Anderson, Glenn Clark and Mark Redekopp were awarded the provost's Teaching With Technology grants on May 26, 2009. Redekopp is a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Redekopp received a grant of $9,500 to create an "inverted classroom" where traditional lecture material comprising basic knowledge transfer and low-level details are moved into video modules that can be accessed by students outside the classroom.

The appointment of Electrical Engineering Professor Timothy Pinkston as Sr. Associate Dean of Engineering will be on enhancing faculty and student recruitment and retention efforts across the school.

Jeff Draper has been promoted to Research Associate Professor in our Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering, effective immediately. Jeff received the B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University in 1987, and an M.S.E. and Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas Austin, in 1990 and 1993 respectively.

Pedram to deliver the keynote speech at the 18th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, which will be held in San Francisco, CA, August 2-6, 2009. The title of his talk is "Green Computing: Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Information Processing Systems in an Energy-Constrained World."

Sandeep Gupta was among three USC faculty honored as recipient of this year's USC Academic Senate Distinguished Faculty Service Awards. Sandeep Gupta was cited for his exceptional contributions as chair of the Engineering Faculty Council, the Viterbi Information Technology Advisory Committee (VITAC), and the Faculty Handbook Committee.

Murali Annavaram was recently elected to the rank of Senior Member by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The criteria for advancement to this rank are: technical leadership (including research and education); technical contributions (including publications and textbooks); and professional contributions (service).

Timothy Pinkston was recently elected to the rank of Senior Member by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The criteria for advancement to this rank are: technical leadership (including research and education); technical contributions (including publications and textbooks); and professional contributions (service).

Konstantinos (Kostas) Psounis has been promoted to Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, with tenure, effective immediately. Kostas received the Diploma (B.S.) in electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece in 1997, and the M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Alice Parker will be the 2009 recipient of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education. This award recognizes and honors outstanding women engineering educators who have an exceptional record in teaching engineering students, along with strong records of research and service.

Konstantinos (Kostas) Psounis of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering was recently elected to the rank of Senior Member by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The criteria for advancement to this rank are: technical leadership (including research and education); technical contributions (including publications and textbooks); and professional contributions (service).

Murali Annavaram of our department was recently elected as Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Senior Member. Qualifications for this distinction are at least ten years of professional practice and five years of significant performance as demonstrated by substantial engineering responsibility or achievement, publication of engineering and technical papers, books or inventions, and the development and teaching of engineering courses.

Dr. Pedram will deliver the keynote talk at the Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI in Boston, Massachusetts on May 11, 2009. The title of his talk is "Green Computing: Reducing Energy Cost and Carbon Footprint of Information Processing Systems."

Massoud Pedram will serve as the General Co-chair of the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, Paris, France (May 30-June, 2010)

Timothy Pinkston was recently elected Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE) Fellows.

Kostas Psounis, of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering of the Viterbi School of Engineering in Computer Engineering, was recently elected as Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Senior Members.

Prof. Beerel's research field is in asynchronous circuits and design tools. Asynchronous circuits have many benefits in high performance network and interconnection applications. They offer lower delay and consume less energy than functionally equivalent synchronous circuits because they do not clock unless useful data is actually being processed. Peter is one of the leading research pioneers in this subject.

Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering faculty member Viktor Prasanna will receive a 2009 Outstanding Engineering Alumnus Award of the Pennsylvania State University. Each year the Penn State College of Engineering honors the professional achievements of a select group from more than 75,000 living graduates. The award will be conferred in a ceremony on April 27, 2009 at the Penn State campus.

USC Viterbi School of Engineering launched a new software research and education center at USC funded by Infosys. The center is the first to be supported outside of India by Bangalore-based Infosys. Professor Viktor Prasanna is co-director of the center.

Peter Beerel's new company TimeLess Design Automation is highlighted in a Trojan Family Magazine article.

I am very pleased to announce that Rahul Jain will join our Ming Hsieh Electrical Engineering faculty in August 2008 as Assistant Professor.

Murali Annavaram is a recipient of the 2008 IBM Faculty Awards. The IBM Faculty Awards are a competitive worldwide program intended to: foster collaboration between researchers at leading universities worldwide and those in IBM research and development; and promote courseware and curriculum innovation to stimulate growth in disciplines that are strategic to IBM.

Bhaskar Krishnamachari has been honored with the Mellon Award for Excellence in Mentoring in the category “Faculty to Graduate Mentoring.”

The Electrical Engineering department’s embedded system design course, taught by Dr. Allan Weber and Mark Redekopp has teamed up with students from the Marshall School’s new product development marketing class taught by Dr. Therese Wilbur.

LOS ANGELES BUSINESS JOURNAL: A story featured the conference First Look LA, co-sponsored by USC, UCLA and Caltech and held this year at USC. The conference brings together academic entrepreneurs and investors. Peter Beerel of the USC Viterbi School was among the academic entrepreneurs at the event, the story noted. "I've been involved in start-ups before, but this time it's my baby," said Beerel, whose proposed company Timeless Design Automation has patented technology aimed at enhancing the processing power and battery life of cell phones. The conference provides a way for the three institutions to showcase early-stage opportunities from their academics, the article reported.

2007 IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Guillemin-Cauer Best Paper Award