News

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Toros Arikan was granted his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today. Toros completed his thesis entitled “Data-Driven Localization and Structure Learning in Reverberant Underwater Acoustic Environments,” in May 2023,

Graduate student Gary Lee in the lab received the Student Paper Award at the 2022 Machine Learning for Signal Processing Workshop, which was held in August. The award, which recognizes the best paper led by a student, was for the contribution entitled “Exploiting Temporal Structures of Cyclostationary Signals for Data-Driven Single-Channel Source Separation.” The work was a collaboration among Gary Lee, Amir Weiss, Yuheng Bu, and Greg Wornell in RLE, and Alejandro Lancho, Jennifer Tang, and Yury Polyanskiy in LIDS, as part of the DAF-MIT AI Accelerator.

Laboratory alumna Gauri Joshi was named to MIT Technology Review’s 2022 list of the world’s top 35 innovators under the age 35.   Gauri appears in the `AI and Robots’ category of the list for her work on distributed computing architectures for large scale machine learning.    Gauri is currently a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University. Gauri’s `Innovators Under 35′ profile is here.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Joshua Lee, was granted his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today. Joshua completed his thesis entitled “Maximal Correlation Feature Selection and Suppression With Applications,” in September 2021,

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Adam Yedidia, was granted his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the virtual commencement today. Adam completed his thesis entitled “Analysis and Optimization of Occluder-Based Imaging,” in September 2020,

The laboratory welcomes new postdoc Amir Weiss. Amir recently obtained his PhD in electrical engineering from Tel Aviv University in Israel in 2020, and was subsequently a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute of Science in fall 2020.

The laboratory welcomes new M.Eng. students Mumin Jin, Tony Wang, Xiaoyi Wang, and Isabella Kang, all of whom were MIT undergraduates in electrical engineering and computer science.  Mumin’s research, which is a VI-A project with Analog Devices, focuses on application of machine learning to radar imaging with sparse arrays for automotive and related applications.   Tony’s research focuses on robust machine learning and understanding adversarial examples. Xiaoyi’s research focuses on unsupervised text translation via generative adversarial networks for natural language processing applications.  And Isabella’s research focuses on few-shot semi-supervised text translation via meta-learning; Isabella also double-majored in mathematics.

The laboratory welcomes new postdoc Yuheng Bu, and graduate students Tejas Jayashankar and Safa Medin.   Yuheng recently obtained his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.  Tejas recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Safa comes to MIT from Turkey, where recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Bogazici University.

The laboratory’s latest alumna, Xuhong (Lisa) Zhang, was granted her doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today. Lisa completed her thesis in the February, entitled “Intelligible Models for Learning Categorical Data via Generalized Fourier Spectrum.”

The laboratory welcomes new graduate student Abhin Shah. Abhin comes to us from India, where he recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical engineering at IIT Bombay.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Gal Shulkind, was granted his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today. Gal completed his thesis in the Spring, entitled “Efficient Data Collection Strategies for Rapid Learning in Physical Environments.”

The laboratory welcomes new graduate students Toros Arikan and Gary Lee. Toros recently completed his bachelors and masters degrees in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Prior to arriving at MIT, Gary was with the Institute for Infocomm Research at the Agency for Science and Technology (A*STAR) in Singapore. He has a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Stanford.

The laboratory welcomes new postdoc Amichai Painsky. Amichai is visiting for 6 months from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, where he is a postdoc in computer science and engineering. He received his PhD in statistics from Tel Aviv University.

The laboratory welcomes new postdocs Ankit Rawat and Christos Thrampoulidis. Ankit recently completed a postdoc in the computer science department at Carnegie-Mellon, after obtaining his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Christos recently obtained his PhD in electrical engineering from Caltech.

The laboratory’s latest alumni, Qing He and Gauri Joshi, were granted their doctorates in electrical engineering and computer science today after completing their theses this month. Qing’s thesis is entitled “An Architecture for Low-Power Voice-Command Recognition Systems,” and Gauri’s is entitled “Efficient Redundancy Techniques to Reduce Delay in Cloud Systems.”

At an EECS departmental awards ceremony today, Ying-zong Huang received the 2015 Jin Au Kong Doctoral Thesis Prize Honorable Mention for his thesis “Model-Code Separation Architectures for Compression Based on Message-Passing.” This prize recognizes outstanding doctoral theses at MIT in electrical engineering each year. Ying-zong is currently with Celect, Inc., a Boston-based startup.

The laboratory welcomes new members to the group: graduate students Ganesh Ajjanagadde, Adam Yedidia, and Joshua Lee, and MIT undergraduate students Wai Lok (Angus) Lai and Jimmy Mawdsley. Ganesh recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, Adam recently completed his masters degree in computer science and engineering at MIT, and Joshua Lee recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Ying-zong Huang, was granted his doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today.   Ying-zong completed his thesis in the Fall, entitled “Model-Code Separation Architectures for Compression Based on Message-Passing.”   

Laboratory alumna Maryam Shanechi was named to MIT Technology Review’s 2014 list of the world’s top 35 innovators under the age 35.   Maryam appears in the pioneer category of the TR35 list for her work at the interface between electrical engineering and neuroscience, and in particular on brain-machine interfaces.    Maryam is currently a faculty member at the University of Southern California. Maryam’s TR35 profile is here.

The laboratory’s latest alumni, James Krieger and Da Wang, were granted their doctorates in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today.   James completed his thesis in the Fall, entitled “Architectures and System Design for Digitally-Enhanced Antenna Arrays.”   Da completed his thesis this month, entitled “Computing with Unreliable Resources: Design, Analysis, and Algorithms.”

The laboratory’s work on sparse antenna array technology for millimeter-wave imaging and related applications appears in the most recent issue of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, and was a research highlight on the MIT website today.  Visit the article by clicking here.   It was also featured in the article “Sparse Arrays Cut Costs for Terahertz Imaging,” which appeared in IEEE Spectrum‘s general technology blog “Tech Talk.”  Visit the article by clicking here.  This work was the focus of the doctoral thesis of James Krieger, and was co-led by the lab’s former postdoctoral associate Dr. Yuval Kochman, now on the faculty at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The laboratory welcomes a new member to the group today:  graduate student Mo Deng.  Mo recently completed his bachelors degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The laboratory’s collaborative work on real-time brain machine interfaces, which was the focus of the doctoral thesis of Maryam Shanechi, and which appears in the most recent issue of Nature Neuroscience, has been highlighted on both the MIT RLE and EECS web sites. The links are here and here, respectively.

The laboratory welcomes new members to the group: graduate students Lisa Zhang and David Romero. Lisa recently completed her bachelors and masters at Cambridge University, and David Romero joins us from Lincoln Laboratory.

The laboratory welcomes postdoctoral associate Hongchao Zhou today. Hongchao joins us from Caltech, where he recently completed his doctorate. His dissertation is entitled “Randomness and Noise in Information Systems.” His interests include information and coding theory, and the role of information science in emerging physical systems.

The laboratory’s work on low-complexity capacity-approaching rateless coding for unpredictable wireless links, which appears in this month’s IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, is featured as a research highlight on the MIT website today. Visit the article by clicking here.

The laboratory welcomes postdoctoral associate Arya Mazumdar today.  Arya joins us from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he recently completed is doctorate.   His dissertation is entitled “Combinatorial Methods in Coding Theory.”   His interests include communication, coding, compressive sensing, and information theory.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Maryam Modir Shanechi, was granted her doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today.   Maryam completed her thesis this month, entitled “Real-Time Brain-Machine Interface Architectures: Neural Decoding from Plan to Movement.”

The laboratory welcomes postdoctoral associate Ligong Wang today.  Ligong joins us from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) – Zurich, where he recently completed is doctorate.   His dissertation is entitled “Information-Theoretic Aspects of Optical Communications.”   His interests include information theory and quantum optical communication.

The laboratory welcomes two new members this year:  graduate students Gauri Joshi and Atulya Yellepeddi.  Gauri recently completed her Bachelors of Electrical Engineering, and Masters in Communications and Signal Processing from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India.  Atulya recently completed his bachelors degree at Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and is in the MIT-WHOI joint program.

The laboratory’s latest alumni —  Urs Niesen, Charles Swannack, Anthony Accardi and Venkat Chandar — were all granted their doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at commencement today. Urs completed his thesis in September with the thesis titled, “Scaling Laws for Heterogeneous Wireless Network.” He is currently a member of the technical staff with Bell Laboratories.  Charles completed his thesis, entitled “Channel State Quantization in MIMO Broadcast Systems: Architectures and Codes,” and is currently with MITRE. Anthony’s thesis, completed this month, is entitled “Generating Pictures from Waves: Aspects of Image Formation.” Venkat, whose thesis, “Sparse Graph Codes for Compression, Sensing, and Secrey” was completed this month as well. Venkat has joined MIT Lincoln Laboratory. All theses are available for download here.

The laboratory welcomes a new member this year:  graduate student Qing He. Qing joins us from the University of Waterloo, where she recently completed her bachelors in electrical and computer engineering.

Vijay Divi and Ashish Khisti, the laboratory’s latest alumni, were granted their doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today.   Vijay completed his thesis, entitled “Estimation and Calibration Algorithms for Distributed Sampling System,” in September, and is currently doing postdoctoral research in underwater acoustic communication.   Ashish’s thesis, also completed in September, is entitled “Algorithms and Architectures for Multiuser,
Multi-terminal, Multi-layer Information Theoretic Security.”   After a postdoctoral year at Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in  Palo Alto, CA, Ashish is joining the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.  Both theses are available for download here.

The laboratory welcomes postdoctoral associate Yuval Kochman today.  Yuval joins us from Tel Aviv University, where he recently completed his doctorate in electrical engineering.   His dissertation is entitled “Modulo-Lattice Modulation: A Semi-Analog Approach to Communication.”  His interests include information theory, communication, compression, and signal processing.

The laboratory welcomes two new members this term: graduate students James Krieger and Da Wang.   James joins us from Lincoln Laboratory, where he is a Staff Associate.    James has a bachelors degre in physics from UCSB, and a masters degree in electrical and computer engineering from Ohio State.  Da recently completed his bachelors degree in electrical engineering at the University of Toronto.

Lane Brooks, the laboratory’s latest alumnus, was granted his doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today.    Lane’s recently completed thesis is entitled “Circuits and Algorithms for Pipelined ADCs in Scaled CMOS Technologies,”  and it is available for download here.  He is now a consultant in mixed signal design.

J. Nicholas Laneman, who completed his doctorate in the laboratory in 2002 and is now Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, was named a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers.

Everest Huang, the laboratory’s latest alumnus, was granted his doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today.   Everest completed his doctorate in February with a thesis entitled “Circuit-Aware System Design Techniques for Wireless Communication.”   He is now a member of the technical staff of MIT Lincoln Laboratory.  His thesis is available for download here.

The laboratory welcomes four new members this term: Venkat Chandar, Urs Niesen, Anthony Accardi, and Aslan Tchamkerten. Venkat, who has been at MIT for several years, is currently working toward his M.Eng. degree and is a research assistant in the lab, where he is doing his thesis. Urs is joining the EECS doctoral program and is also a research assistant in the lab, having recently completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).  Anthony, whose bachelors and masters degrees are from MIT, is returning to MIT to pursue his doctorate after several years at Tellme Networks in Mountain View, CA.  Aslan joins us as a postdoctoral scholar, and holds a doctorate in communication and a diploma in physics from EPFL.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Emin Martinian, was granted his doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today. Emin completed his doctorate last August with a thesis entitled “Dynamic Information and Constraints in Source and Channel Coding.” He is currently with Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory (MERL), a local industrial research laboratory. His thesis is available for download here.

The laboratory welcomes four new members this term: Lane Brooks, Ying-zong Huang, Maryam Modir Shanechi, and Chen-Pang Yeang. Lane, whose bachelors and masters degrees are from MIT, joins the doctoral program after several years at SMaL Camera Technologies, a local startup. Ying-zong and Maryam both join the laboratory as research assistants, and are entering EECS graduate students. Ying-zong recently completed his bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University, and Maryam recently completed her bachelor’s degree in engineering science at the University of Toronto. Chen-Pang joins us as a postdoctoral scholar, and holds two doctorates from MIT, one in electrical engineering and one in the history of science and technology.

The laboratory’s latest alumnus, Albert Chan, was granted his doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today. Albert completed his doctorate in May with a thesis entitled “A Framework for Low-Complexity Iterative Interference Cancellation in Communication Systems,” and joins Vanu Inc., a local software radio startup. His thesis is available for download here.

Doctoral candidate Emin Martinian was honored with the Capocelli Award of the 2004 Data Compression Conference for the best student-authored paper. The prize-winning paper is entitled “Source Coding with Distortion Side Information at the Encoder,” and was co-authored by Greg Wornell and Ram Zamir. The paper is available for download here.

The laboratory welcomes three new members this term: Elif Uysal Biyikoglu, Hiroyuki Ishii, and Charles Swannack. Elif comes to us from the Information Systems Laboratory of Stanford University, where she recently completed a doctorate in the wireless networking area. She holds a postdoctoral lecturership in our EECS department. Hiroyuki Ishii is a visiting researcher from our industrial partner NEC Corporation in Japan. He is with the Information Systems Department of the Radio Application Division, where he specializes in system design. Charles Swannack joins the laboratory as an entering EECS graduate student who recently completed his bachelor’s degree at Clemson University.

Our laboratory’s latest alumni — J. Nicholas Laneman, Michael J. Lopez, and Huan Yao — were granted their doctoral degrees in electrical engineering and computer science at commencement today. Nick completed his doctorate in July 2002 with a thesis entitled “Cooperative Diversity in Wireless Networks: Algorithms and Architectures,” and has since joined the electrical engineering faculty of the University of Notre Dame. Mike completed his doctoral thesis, “Multiplexing, Scheduling, and Multicasting Strategies for Antenna Arrays in Wireless Networks,” in August 2002, and since then has been on the technical staff of Analog Devices, Inc. in Wilmington, MA. Huan, whose thesis “Efficient Signal, Code, and Receiver Designs for MIMO Communication Systems” was completed in May, is joining MIT Lincoln Laboratory as a member of the technical staff. All three theses are available for download here.

Uri Erez joins our laboratory this week after recently completing his doctorate in the Electrical Engineering – Systems Department at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His dissertation was entitled “Coding with Known Interference and Some Results on Lattices for Digital Communication”, and his interests include communication and information theory.