Jerry M. Mendel

Professor Emeritus, Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer 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.