Three new named professorships announced

ECE ILLINOIS has announced three new named professorships at ECE ILLINOIS. These professorships allow the department to recruit and retain promising researchers and teachers, encouraging them to expand their work and careers at Illinois.

Douglas L Jones, William L. Everitt Distinguished Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, developed ECE420: Digital Processing Laboratory, the laboratory for ECE210: Analog Signal Processing, and the laboratory-intensive ECE 101: Exploring Digital Information Technology. He is an expert in multiple fields and a global leader in the area of digital signal processing. His research includes neuroengineering, biomedical imaging, bioengineering and acoustics, circuits, machine learning, speech processing, and efficient energy management and conversion for lighting, communications, information technology, transportation, and appliances. As the principle investigator of the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), he has led significant advancements in intelligent hearing aids, biologically-inspired sensory systems, and ultra-low-power electronic systems. He also serves as director of the Advanced Digital Sciences Centre (ADSC) Illinois at Singapore, identifying and solving problems with high scientific and economic impact. Under his leadership, the center has produced more than twenty research projects and 100 researchers. He is also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Beckman Institute.

James Gary Eden, Intel Alumni Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering, is an international expert and leader in atomic, molecular, and ultrafast laser spectroscopy. His research contributions include the first violet and UV fiber laser, the demonstration of UV-assisted photochemical vapor deposition to semi-conductors, and the invention of the plasma bipolar junction transistor. He holds 44 patents in the last five years and was elected into the National Academy of Inventors in 2014. He has authored more than 280 journal publications and is Director of the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering, which has discovered more than a dozen lasers or amplifiers in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared spectrums.Throughout his career, he has contributed to furthering laser and optical physics research as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics and is currently the Editor-In-Chief of Progress in Quantum Electronics.  He is also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. 

Farzad Kamalabadi, Kung Chie and Margaret Yeh Endowed Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, has made outstanding multi-disciplinary contributions to research in geophysical remote sensing, including solar rotational tomography, computationally efficient spatiotemporal imaging, and ionospheric sensing and imaging. His research highlights a precise understanding of our space environment, devising novel computational signal and image processing techniques for optimal estimation of multi-dimensional physical parameters from lower-dimensional observables which have also been used in application with magnetic resonance and ultrasonic imaging in medicine. His work on Solar Rotational Tomography focuses on remote sensing of the solar corona and is leading projects that offer the first systematic and comprehensive look at the 3D coronal plasma density and temperature using computational imaging techniques. He is an international expert and leader in the development of remote sensing methods for applications involving inference from undersampled and incomplete data sets. He is also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Laboratory.