Roundup: EECS faculty & lecturers awards and honors, 2019-2020

By ireneh79@mit.edu

August 31, 2020

Verleihung der Ehrendoktorwuerde der Technischen Universitaet Muenchen an Frau Prof. Muriel Medard vom Cecil H. Green Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) durch den Dekan der Fakultaet Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Utschick ; Welcome Prof. Gerhard Kramer, Senior Vice President Research ; Laudatio Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. h.c. Frank H. P. Fitzek von der TU Dresden; Keynote Lecture – The Role of Network Coding in Solutions and Products _Andreas Dotzler, CEO Cadami ; abgebildete Personen(v.l.n.r.) : Frau Prof. Muriel Medard ; Ort: Hoersaal Theresianum, Arcisstraße 21. 80333 Muenchen ; Datum : 17.01.2020; Copyright: Uli Benz / TUM ; Verwendung: Frei fuer Berichterstattung ueber die TU Muenchen unter Nennung des Copyrights / Free for use in reporting on TUM, with the copyright noted.

Muriel Médard, Cecil H. Green Professor, received an honorary doctorate from the Technological University of Munich (TUM) and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Photo: Uli Benz/TUM.

EECS Staff

EECS professors are frequently recognized for excellence in teaching, research, service, and other areas. Following is an ongoing list of awards, prizes, medals, fellowships, memberships, grants, and other honors received by EECS faculty from September 2019 through August 2020.

Hal Abelson, Class of 1922 Professor, received an Honorary Doctorate in Education from the Education University of Hong Kong in November 2019.

Mohammad Alizadeh, Associate Professor of EECS, received VMware’s early career Systems Research Award in December 2019.

Saman Amarasinghe, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, was named as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in December 2019.

Dimitri Antoniadis, Ray and Maria Stata Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus, was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2019.

Hari Balakrishnan, Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science, was named an EEE Fellow in December 2019. He also received 2021 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award “for broad contributions to computer networking and mobile and wireless systems” in June 2020.

Sangeeta Bhatia, John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry and professor of EECS, was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in October 2019.

Guy Bresler, Associate Professor of EECS, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his research project titled “Reducibility among high-dimensional statistics problems: information preserving mappings, algorithms, and complexity.”

Michael Carbin, Assistant Professor of EECS, received a Sloan Research Fellowship in computer science in Febuary 2020 and Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising from MIT in May 2020,

Vincent W. S. Chan, Joan and Irwin Jacobs Professor of EECS, will serve as president of the IEEE Communication Society for 2020-2021.

Anantha Chandrakasan, Dean of the School of the Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was inducted into to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2019.

Adam Chlipala, Associate Professor of Computer Science, was named as a Distinguished Member by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), in recognition of “outstanding scientific contributions to computing,” in October 2019.

Jesus del Alamo, Donner Professor of Science, was named as a recipient of University Researcher Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Semiconductor Research Corporation in October 2019, and won IPRM award 2020 “for key technical contributions to InGaAs-based transistors for high frequency and CMOS applications, and pioneering studies on GaN transistor reliability” in May 2020. He also received 2021 IEEE Cledo Brunetti Award “for leadership in and contributions to InGaAs- and GaN-based field-effect transistor technology” in June 2020.

Joel Emer, Professor of the Practice, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in February 2020 “for quantitative analysis of computer architecture and its application to architectural innovation in commercial microprocessors.”

William Freeman, Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of EECS, (Post-Tenure), was named a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in December 2019, with a ceremony scheduled for February 2020. He also received a Distinguished Researcher Award from the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI) and was among the researchers honored with the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, presented by the Breakthrough Prize Foundation in recognition of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration, both in in October 2019.

Robert Gallager, EECS Professor Emeritus, was named as a Japan Prize Laureate for “pioneering contributions to information and coding theory” in February 2020. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, the Japan Prize Foundation postponed the award ceremony in Tokyo until April 2021.

Ruonan Han, Associate Professor of EECS, was named as a Distinguished Lecturer for 2020-2022 by the IEEE Microwave Theory & Technique Society in September 2019.

Song Han, Robert J. Shillman (1974) Career Development Assistant Professor of EECS, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his research project titled “Efficient Algorithms and Hardware for Accelerated Machine Learning” in February 2020.

Adam Hart,  Senior Lecturer of EECS, was named as a MIT 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology in July 2020.

Leslie Kolodziejski, Professor of EECS, received Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising from MIT in May 2020.

Charles Leiserson, Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor of Computer Scence and Engineering, received the Test of Time Award for 1999 from the IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) for the paper “Cache-Oblivious Algorithms” in November 2019. His former students Matteo Frigo, Harald Prokop, and Sridhar Ramachandran were also recognized.

Jae S. Lim, Professor of Electrical Engineering, was named a Ho-Am Foundation Laureate in April 2020. The foundation recognized Professor Lim as “a world-renowned expert in the field of digital signal processing who developed digital video conversion technology that became an international digital TV standard.”

Tomás Lozano-Pérez, SoE Professor in Teaching Excellence, received 2021 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award “for foundational contributions to robot motion planning and visionary leadership of the field” in June 2020.

Nancy Lynch, NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering, received a Doctor honoris causa (an honorary doctorate) from Sorbonne University in September 2019. She also gave a keynote speech at the International Conference on Distributed Computer Systems (ICDCS) in July 2019 and a Distinguished Lecture at the Arizona State University Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering in October 2019.

Muriel Médard Cecil H. Green Professor of EECS, received an Honorary Doctorate from the Technische Universität München (the Technological University of Munich) in January 2020. She was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering in February 2020 “for contributions to the theory and practice of network coding.”

Stephanie Mueller, Assistant Professor of EECS, received a Sloan Research Fellowship in computer science in February 2020 and a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, a two-year appointment that recognizes "innovative, promising early-career professors...who are exploring breakthrough, high-impact research," in April 2020. She also received the 2019 Best Paper Award and the 2019 Best Talk Award from the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST).

Tomás Palacios, Professor of EE, and his group was selected by IEEE Electron Device Letter's editors to receve the prestigious 2019 Electron Devices Society George E. Smith Award for their paper, titled "Large-Area 1.2-kV GaN Vertical Power FinFETs With a Record Switching Figure of Merit" in July 2020

Pablo Parrilo, Joseph F. & Nancy P. Keithley Professor of EECS, together with EECS alums Hamza Fawzi, PhD '16,  and James Saunderson. PhD15, have received the 2020 SIAM Activity Group on Optimization (SIAG/OPT) Best Paper Prize for their paper, “Semidefinite Approximations of the Matrix Logarithm,” in May 2020.

Yury Polyanskiy, Associate Professor of EECS, received the IEEE Information Theory Society’s 2020 James L. Massey Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in research and teaching by young scholars in the Information Theory community in June 2020.

Ronitt Rubinfeld, Edwin Sibley Webster Professor, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for 2020.

Arvind Satyanarayan, NBX Career Development Assistant Professor of EECS, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for his research project titled "Effective Interaction Design for Data Visualization.”

Devavrat Shah, Professor of EECS, received the ACM SIGMETRICS Test of Time Award for 2020 for the paper he co-authored with EECS and LIDS alum Tauhid Zaman of Yale University, titled "Detecting Sources of Computer Viruses in Networks: Theory and Experiment" In Proceedings of ACM SIGMETRICS 2010.

Jeffrey H. Shapiro, Julius A. Stratton Professor of Electrical Engineering (Post-Tenure), was announced as a winner of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award for the paper titled "Photon-Efficient Computational 3-D and Reflectivity Imaging With Single-Photon Detectors" in December 2019, with the award to be presented in May 2020. His former students Dongeek Shin and Ahmed Kirmani and former EECS faculty member Vivek Goyal (now at Boston University) were also recognized.

Joe Steinmeyer, Principal Lecturer of EECS, was named as a MIT 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology in July 2020.

Collin Stultz, Professor in Biomedical Engineering, was named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in March 2019.

Vivienne Sze, Associate Professor of EECS, was named as the recipient of the inaugural ACM-W Rising Star Award in January 2020. The award, which "recognizes a woman whose early-career research has had a significant impact on the computing discipline," will be presented in June 2020.

Jacob White, Cecil H. Green Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was named as a 2020 Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow. The 10-year fellowships are MIT's highest honor in undergraduate teaching. He also won a MIT 2020 Teaching with Digital Technology in July 2020.

Updated August 31, 2020. Send additions or changes to eecs-awards@mit.edu. For a list of awards from the 2018-2019 academic year, please see this earlier roundup.