Liberzon and Viswanath named 2013 IEEE Fellows

ECE Professors Daniel M Liberzon and Pramod Viswanath have both been announced as IEEE Fellows for 2013. Liberzon was recognized for his contributions to the analysis and design of switched, nonlinear, and quantized control systems, and Viswanath for his contributions to the theory and practice of wireless communications. Both are researchers in the Coordinated Science Lab (CSL).

IEEE Fellows are chosen by the IEEE Board of Directors and the designation is awarded to members with outstanding records of accomplishments in any of the fields of interest. The Fellow grade is the highest grade of membership within IEEE. Out of its 400,000 members from around the world, 298 individuals were named IEEE Fellows this year, according to a press release.

Liberzon was nominated as a Fellow by a colleague. “I’m happy and honored that the decision was positive,” he said.

Liberzon is part of the Decision and Control group in CSL, and his research interests focus on uncertain and stochastic systems, control with limited information, nonlinear control theory and switched and hybrid systems. His background is in math, not electrical engineering; however, he has been a member of IEEE’s Control Systems Society since 1998 and has been a senior member since 2004.

Viswanath said he did not know he had been nominated and was taken by surprise when he received an email about his Fellow status. He is part of the Communications group at CSL, and his work focuses on wireless communication networks, mainly related to cell phones. His interests include understanding the fundamental limitations of network information transmission and representation. His background is in electrical engineering and computer science, and he was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory from 2006 to 2008.

According to its website, the IEEE is the world’s largest professional organization for advancing technology, and is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas including, aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications and biomedical engineering. The IEEE also publishes 30 percent of the world’s literature on electrical and electronics engineering and computer science, and is a leading developer in the international standards of telecommunications, information technology and power generation products and services.