MHI Scholars

Divya Varadarajan
Advisor: Justin Haldar
dvaradar@usc.edu 

Yihang Liu
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou
yihangl@usc.edu

Xiaohan Wei
Advisor: Michael Neely
xiaohanw@usc.edu

Long Li
Advisor: Alan Willner
longl@usc.edu

Pradipta Ghosh
Research Interest: Internet of Things, Wireless Robotic Networks, Cloud Computing
Advisor: Bhaskar Krishnamachari
Office:
bkrishna@usc.edu

Yihang Zhang
Research Interest:  control systems and intelligent transportation systems
Advisor: Petros Ioannou
Office: EEB 200B
ioannou@usc.edu
Yihang Zhang CV

Eric Moen
Research Interest: Bio-Electronics and Bio-Optics
Advisor: Andrea Armani
emoen@usc.edu
Eric Moen website

Guodong Xie
Research Interest: Signal generation and detection
Advisor: Alan Willner
guodongx@usc.edu
Goudong Xie CV

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
Yu Cao CV

2015 - 16 MHI Ph.D. Scholars:

Ahmad Abbas
Research Interest: Nanotechnology
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou
caoyu@usc.edu
Ahmad Abbas CV

Daniel Bone
Research Interest: Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Autism Spectrum Disorder
Advisor: Shri Narayanan
dbone@usc.edu
Daniel Bone CV

Navid Naderializadeh
Research Interest: Nonlinear Optics
Advisor: Salman Avestimehr
naderial@usc.edu
Navid Naderializadeh CV

Yongxiong Ren
Research Interest: Optical Communications
Advisor: Alan Willner
Office: EEB 500
yongxior@usc.edu
Yongxiong Ren CV

Di Zhu
Research Interest: Control Systems
Advisor: Massoud Pedram
dizhu@usc.edu
Di Zhu CV

Shermin Arab
Research Interest: Electrophysics, Nanotechnology and Device Fabrication
Advisor: Steve Cronin
Office: RTH B113
arab@usc.edu
CV
Research Overview Video: "Optoelectrical Characterization of 1D and 2D Nanostructures for Energy Applications"

Kunal Datta
Research Interest: Integrated Circuits and Systems
Advisor: Hossein Hashemi
Office: PHE 424
kdatta@usc.edu
CV
Research Overview: "High-Power mm-Wave Wireless Communication for beyond 5G"

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

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

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

Sergul Aydore
Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Columbia University
Research Interest: Signal Processing
Advisor: Richard Leahy
Office: EEB 424
sergulaydore@gmail.com

Yuchi Che
Senior Hardware Engineer, Oracle
Research Interest: Nanoelectronics, Nanotechnology
Advisor: Chongwu Zhou
Office: RTHB 118
yche@usc.edu

Mohammad Reza Chitgarha
Research Interest: Optical Communication
Office: EEB 524
Advisor: Alan Willner
chitgarh@usc.edu CV

Harsha Honnappa
Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Research Interest: Networks
Advisor: Rahul Jain
Office: EEB 335
honnappa@usc.edu CV

Saeid Jafari
Research Interest: Control Systems
Advisor: Petros Ioannou
Office: EEB 322
sjafari@usc.edu CV

Yanzhi Wang
Research Interest: Computer-aided design, low power circuit/system design
Office: EEB 338
Advisor: Massoud Pedram
yanzhiwa@usc.edu CV

Moh Amer
Co-Director, Research Assistant Professor, UCLA-KACST Center of Excellence for Green Nanotechnologies
Research Interest: Nanotechnology and Nano Electronics
Advisor: Stephen Cronin
RTH B113
mohammra@usc.edu CV

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 CV

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 CV

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

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:

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”

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

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”

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"

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
CV

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 CV

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 CV

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 CV

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 CV

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 CV