2013 Promotions of our Faculty

Tal joined the department in 2007 as an assistant professor. Since then he has established himself as an internationally recognized leader in optomechanics, which is the coupling of light to the oscillation modes of mechanical systems. He developed the technique of Brillouin scattering for driving high-frequency optomechanical oscillation in optical microcavities. This has enabled record-high frequencies to be achieved and also enabled for the first time optical cooling of such a mechanical system. Tal received an AFOSR Young Investigator Award. He teaches courses in the area of Photonics, Lasers, and Photonic MEMS, and introduced web-based visualization and simulation tools into the curriculum.

Jamie joined the department in 2002 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008. His research focuses on optoelectronic materials and devices, including infrared detectors with HgCdTe nBn photodetectors and Sb-based quantum dots. He is a recognized expert in the areas of ZnO and intermediate-band solar cells (IBSC). His group was the first to demonstrate an IBSC based on an intermediate band formed via defects in a bulk semiconductor material. Jamie’s excellence as a teacher earned him a 2011 University Undergraduate Teaching Award. He received a DARPA Young Faculty Award and an NSF CAREER Award, and has graduated 10 Ph.D. students.

Silvio joined the department in 2008 as an assistant professor. He has built an outstanding computer vision research program. His work has had a tremendous impact on the core problems of object representation and recognition, and also on the closely related problems of detecting humans and recognizing their activities, classifying images, tracking objects, and practical applications such as construction site monitoring. He received an NSF CAREER Award. Silvio completely rebuilt the computer vision curriculum, which had been dormant for years. He is also offering a Coursera course in computer vision which has more than 10,000 enrolled students.

Tom joined the department in 2007 as an assistant professor. HIs work in the area of computer architecture has had significant impact in the overall realm of data center efficiency, from advancements in processor efficiency to techniques for server power management, though overall data center architectual power and efficiency simulation. Tom was the recipient of an NSF CAREER award in 2009 and was named a Morris Wellman Faculty Development Assistant Professor of EECS in 2011. He was recognized in the International Symposium of Computer Architecture Hall of Fame in 2011 for having eight or more papers in ISCA.

Dave joined the department in 2007 as an assistant professor. He has made important contributions to a number of key problems in wireless connectivity for sensors and computing. These contributions dramatically reduce the size and improve the energy efficiency of sensing systems and computing nodes. He is also a pioneer in the implementation of RF and analog circuits with digital gates. Dave has excelled as a teacher and mentor of undergraduate and graduate students, and was named HKN Professor of the Year in 2010. He received a DARPA Young Faculty Award and and NSF CAREER Award, and has graduated 6 Ph.D. students.