MHI Scholars

MHI Ph.D. Scholars & Undergraduate Scholars

Dr. Pradipta Ghosh
Research Interest: Internet of Things, Wireless Robotic Networks, Cloud Computing
Advisor: Bhaskar Krishnamachari

Dr. Yihang Zhang
Research Interest: control systems and intelligent transportation systems
Advisor: Petros Ioannou

Dr. Erick Moen
Research Interest: Bio-Electronics and Bio-Optics
Advisor: Andrea Armani

Dr. Guodong Xie
Research Interest: Signal generation and detection
Advisor: Alan Willner

Dr. Yu Cao
Research Interest: modeling and design techniques for reliable, low-power, and high-performance systems, motivated by advances in nanoelectronics and information analytics
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou
caoyu@usc.edu

2015 - 16 MHI Ph.D. Scholars:

Dr. Ahmad Abbas
Research Interest: Nanotechnology
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou

Dr. Daniel Bone
Research Interest: Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Autism Spectrum Disorder
Advisor: Shri Narayanan

Dr. Navid Naderializadeh
Research Interest: Nonlinear Optics
Advisor: Salman Avestimehr

Dr. Yongxiong Ren
Research Interest: Optical Communications
Advisor: Alan Willner

Dr. Di Zhu
Research Interest: Control Systems
Advisor: Massoud Pedram

Dr. Shermin Arab
Research Interest: Electrophysics, Nanotechnology and Device Fabrication
Advisor: Steve Cronin
Research Overview Video: "Optoelectrical Characterization of 1D and 2D Nanostructures for Energy Applications"

Dr. Kunal Datta
Research Interest: Integrated Circuits and Systems
Advisor: Hossein Hashemi
Research Overview: "High-Power mm-Wave Wireless Communication for beyond 5G"

Dr. Ningfeng Huang
Research Interest: Nanophotonics
Office: PHE 309
Advisor: Michelle Povinelli
ningfenh@usc.edu
Research Overview: "Nanophotonics for Photovoltaics and Light Assisted Self-Assembly"

Dr. Vasilis Ntranos
Research Interest: Communications
Advisor: Giuseppe Caire
Office: EEB 518
ntranos@usc.edu
Research Overview: "Disturbed Interference Management in Large Cellular Networks"

DYan Yan
Research Interest: Optical and mm-wave wireless communications
Advisor: Alan E. Willner
Office: EEB 500
yanyan@usc.edu
Research Overview: "Space-Division Multiplexing in Communications Utilizing Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM)"

Dr. Sergul Aydore
Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Columbia University
Research Interest: Signal Processing
Advisor: Richard Leahy

Dr. Yuchi Che
Senior Hardware Engineer, Oracle
Research Interest: Nanoelectronics, Nanotechnology
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou

Dr. Mohammad Reza Chitgarha
Research Interest: Optical Communication
Advisor: Alan Willner

Dr. Harsha Honnappa
Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Research Interest: Networks
Advisor: Rahul Jain

Dr. Saeid Jafari
Research Interest: Control Systems
Advisor: Petros Ioannou

Dr. Yanzhi Wang
Research Interest: Computer-aided design, low power circuit/system design
Advisor: Massoud Pedram

Dr. Moh Amer
Co-Director, Research Assistant Professor, UCLA-KACST Center of Excellence for Green Nanotechnologies
Research Interest: Nanotechnology and Nano Electronics
Advisor: Stephen Cronin

Dr. Kartik Audhkhasi
Research Staff Member, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Research Interest: Machine learning and signal processing
Advisor: Shrikanth S. (Shri) Narayanan
EEB 405
audhkhas@usc.edu

Dr. Hao Huang
Sr. Optical Engineer, JDSU
Research Interest: High speed optical communication using light beam carrying orbital angular momentum
Advisor: Alan Willner
EEB 535
haoh@usc.edu

Dr. Osonde Osoba
Associate Engineer, RAND Corporation
Research Interest: Statistical Signal Processing
Advisor: Bart Kosko
osonde.osoba@usc.edu

Dr. Daphney-Stavroula Zois
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Research Interest: Communications with an emphasis on resource allocation in sensor networks, Stochastic Control Theory, Detection and Estimation Theory; current focus is on the design of resource allocation methods for energy-efficient Wireless Body Area Networks
Advisor: Urbashi Mitra
EEB 522
zois@usc.edu

2011 - 2012 MHI Ph.D. Scholars:

Dr. Sunil Kumar
Software Development Engineer, II
Microsoft BING, Redmond, WA
Thesis title: Critically sampled wavelet filterbanks on graphs
Research Interest: Analyzing graph structured datasets using digital signal processing tools; current focus is on designing critically sampled two-channel wavelet filterbanks for arbitrary weighted graphs.
Advisor: Antonio Ortega
sunkumar@microsoft.com
4 minute research overview talk:“Critically Sampled Wavelet Filterbanks on Graphs”

Dr. Chenxi Lin
Senior Engineer, ASML Brion Technologies
Research Interest: Structural absorption engineering of nanophotonic structures for photovoltaic applications.
Advisor: Michelle Povinelli
chenxil@usc.edu
4 minute research overview talk:“Optical absorption enhancement in nanotextured silicon thin film solar cells”

Dr. Srinivas Yerramalli
Senior Engineer, Qualcomm
Research Interests: Wireless communications with an emphasis on underwater acoustic communications, Signal Processing, Optimization and Game theory.
Advisor: Urbashi Mitra
srinivas.yerramalli@usc.edu
4 minute research overview talk: “Underwater Acoustic Communications”

Dr. Bardia Zandian
Senior Engineer, Qualcomm
Research Interests: Design and evaluation of architectural and microarchitectural solutions for dealing with circuit reliability issues.
Advisor: Murali Annavaram
bzandian@usc.edu
4 minute research overview talk: "Improving Processor Life Expectancy by Runtime Monitoring and Mitigation of Circuit Wearout"

Dr. Matthew Black
Founder and CEO, Behavioral Informatix, LLC
Research Scientist, Information Sciences Institute, USC
Ph.D., USC, 2012
Thesis title: Automatic Quantification and Prediction of Human Subjective Judgments in Behavioral Signal Processing
Advisor: Shri Narayanan
Research Interests: Behavioral Signal Processing and Informatics, Human-Centered Engineering, Speech and Language Processing, Paralinguistics, Affective Computing, Societally Significant Applications of Technology
matthewpblack@gmail.com

Dr. Firooz Aflatouni
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania; Ph.D., USC, 2011
Thesis title: Electronically Assisted Relative and Absolute Phase Control of Semiconductor Lasers
Advisor: Hossein Hashemi
Research Interest: RF inspired photonics and low power integrated RF and millimeter-wave systems in silicon-based processes.
firooz@seas.upenn.edu

Dr. Prasanta Kumar Ghosh
INSPIRE faculty fellow at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India; Ph.D., USC, 2011
Thesis title: A Computational Framework for Exploring the Role of Speech Production in Speech Processing from a Communication System Perspective
Advisor: Shri Narayanan
Research Interest: Understanding human speech communication with application to machine recognition of speech especially inspired by the speech production and perception link
prasantag@gmail.com

Dr. Samir Sharma
Postdoctoral Scholar, University of Wisconsin; Ph.D., USC, 2012
Thesis title: Accelerated Chemical Shift Encoded Water-Fat Imaging
Advisor: Krishna Nayak
Research Interests: signal processing with a focus in inverse ill-posed imaging problem; currently exploring the application of compressed sensing and parallel imaging for accelerated water-fat MRI
sdsharma@usc.edu

Dr. Chuan Wang
Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University; Ph.D., USC, 2011
Thesis title: Carbon Nanotube Nanoelectronics and Macroelectronics
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou
Research Interests: Flexible electronics, stretchable electronics, roll-to-roll printed electronics, and RF electronics using various types of nanomaterials
chuanwang@berkeley.edu

Dr. Omer Faruk Yilmaz
Ph.D., USC, 2011
Thesis title: Advanced Nonlinear Optical Signal Processing Techniques for High Speed, Reconfigurable Optical Fiber Networks
Advisor: Alan Willner
Research Interests: Advanced optical signal processing for reconfigurable fiber optical networks with emphasis on coherent detection
oyilmaz@usc.edu