UCLA Engineering Awards 2009

Alumnus of the Year – Paul Baran MS '59

Paul Baran, recipient of the 2008 National Medial for Technology and Innovation, is best known as the inventor of packet switching while at the RAND Corporation in 1960. Baran envisioned a network of unmanned nodes that would act as switches, routing information from one node to another to their final destinations. The nodes would use a scheme Baran called "hot-potato routing" or distributed communications.

Baran also developed the concept of dividing information into "message blocks" before sending them out across the network. Each block would be sent separately and rejoined into a whole when they were received at their destination.

This method of "packet switching" is a rapid store-and-forward design. When a node receives a packet it stores it, determines the best route to its destination, and sends it to the next node on that path. If there was a problem with a node (or if it had been destroyed) packets would simply be routed around it.

While at RAND, Baran also developed an early working feasibility model to discriminate between guns and other metal objects that might be carried on the body, leading to the creation of doorway gun detectors.

Among Baran’s other inventions is the small dish satellite transceiver which became the first known non-military application for this type of technology. Another of his communications inventions was the Telebit modem that very efficiently transmitted information as an ensemble of frequencies. The use of the technology spread widely and is now better known as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).

During his career, Baran started seven companies, five of which went public. Among his many other honors are the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the Electronic Freedom Foundation Award, the Japan C&C Prize, the Franklin Institute Bower Award for Science, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Baran received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Drexel University in 1949, his M.S. in engineering from UCLA in 1959, an honorary Doctor of Science degree fromDrexel University in 1997 and another in Policy Analysis from the RAND Graduate School in 2000.

Alumni Achievement in Academia - Mark J. Kushner '76

Mark J. Kushner joined the University of Michigan as founding director of the Michigan Institute for Plasma Science and Engineering and George I. Haddad Collegiate Professor in September 2008. Kushner's research area is low temperature plasmas, their fundamental properties and technological applications, ranging from lasers to material processing.

He has published more than 240 journal articles and delivered more than 235 invited symposia presentations on these topics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, IEEE, Optical Society of America, American Vacuum Society, Institute of Physics and International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Kushner is on the editorial boards of several journals, editor-in-chief of Plasma Sources Science and Technology and is a co-author of the recently published National Research Council Decadal Report on Plasma Science.

He will direct the recently awarded DOE Plasma Science Center on Low Temperature Kinetics, a multi-university collaboration. Kushner has received the Semiconductor Research Corp. Technical Excellence Award, the Tegal Thinker Award for Plasma Etch Technology, the AVS Plasma Science and Technology Award, IEEE Plasma Science and Applications Award and the Semiconductor Industry Association University Researcher Award.

Kushner received his B.S. in nuclear engineering and his B.A. in astronomy from UCLA in 1976; and his M.S. and Ph.D. in applied physics from Caltech in 1977 and 1979. He served on the technical staffs of Sandia National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory before joining Spectra Technology where he was a director of electron, atomic, and molecular physics.

Alumni Professional Achievement - William J (Bill) Lloyd '62, PhD '77

William J. Lloyd is chief technical officer, and senior vice president of Eastman Kodak Company. He joined Kodak in June 2003 as director, portfolio planning and analysis. Later that year, he was elected a vice president of Kodak and named as director, Ink Jet Systems Program. In early 2005, he was elected senior vice president and assumed his current position.

Prior to Kodak, Lloyd was president of the consulting firm, Inwit, Inc. focused on imaging technology. In 2001, Lloyd served as executive vice president and chief technology officer of Gemplus International, a leading maker of Smart Cards. During 2000, Lloyd served as the co-chief executive officer of Phogenix Imaging, a joint venture between Eastman Kodak and Hewlett-Packard (HP).

Prior to the establishment of Phogenix Imaging, Lloyd had an extensive career at Hewlett-Packard Company (1969-2000) where he was group vice president and chief technology officer for consumer imaging and printing. Previously, he held a variety of positions in product development and research both in the U.S. and Japan. During his tenure in Japan (from 1990 until 1993) he directed the establishment of a branch of HP Laboratories.

Lloyd received a B.S. degree from UCLA and an M.S. degree from Stanford University. He is the author of numerous technical papers, co-author of a book on hardcopy output devices and holds 12 U.S. patents and numerous international patents.

Distinguished Young Alumnus – David Z. Pan MS '94, MS '98, PhD '00

David Z. Pan is currently an associate professor and director of the University of Texas Design Automation (UTDA) Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin.

He has published over 100 refereed papers in international conferences and journals, and is the holder of six U.S. patents. His research interests include nanometer VLSI CAD, design for manufacturing, and design/automation for emerging technologies.

He has served as an associate editor for four premier IEEE journals in circuits and systems, VLSI, and CAD. Pan is the chair of the IEEE CANDE Committee and the chair of the ACM/SIGDA Physical Design Technical Committee (PDTC). He is working group member of International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor. Pan has served in the program committees of major VLSI/CAD conferences. He is the general chair of ISPD 2008 and steering committee chair of ISPD 2009. He is a member of the Technical Advisory Board of Pyxis Technology Inc.

He has also received a number of awards for his research contributions and professional services, including the ACM/SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award, National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, SRC Inventor Recognition Award thrice, IBM Faculty Award thrice, IBM Research Bravo Award, ISPD Routing Contest Awards, eASIC Placement Contest Grand Prize, ACM Recognition of Service Award, and a number of best paper awards and nominations at ASPDAC, DAC, ICCAD, ICICDT and SRC.

He is an IEEE CAS Society Distinguished Lecturer for 2008-2009. Pan received his Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA in 2000.


Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award – Milos D. Ercegovac

Milos D. Ercegovac is a professor and a former chair in the Computer Science Department at UCLA, where he has been on the faculty since 1975. Ercegovac has specialized for over 35 years in research and teaching in digital arithmetic, digital and computer system design, and parallel architectures.

His dedication to teaching and research has also resulted in several co-authored books: two in the area of digital design (Digital Systems and Hardware/Firmware Algorithms, Wiley & Sons, 1985, and Introduction to Digital Design, Wiley & Sons, 1999), and two in digital arithmetic (Division and Square Root: Digit-Recurrence Algorithms and Implementations, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, and Digital Arithmetic, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers - a Division of Elsevier, 2004.) Ercegovac has been involved in organizing the IEEE Symposia on Computer Arithmetic since 1978. He served as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computers from 1988 -1992 and as a subject area editor for the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing from 1986 -1993.

Ercegovac’s work has been recognized by his election in 2003 to IEEE Fellow and to the Foreign Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. He is also a member of the ACM and of the IEEE Computer Society. Ercegovac earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award – Jian Zhang

Jian Zhang is currently an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the UCLA. From 2003-2005 she was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests are in earthquake engineering, structural dynamics and mechanics, with an emphasis on the modeling, analysis and protection of structural systems under extreme loads.

She has worked on various research projects supported by the NSF, California Department of Transportation and Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center. Her recent research activities include performance-based implementation of adaptive stiffness and damping devices for improving seismic performance of bridges, development of fragility functions for seismic assessment of bridges, nonlinear modeling of reinforced concrete members considering axial-shear-flexure interaction, soil-structure interaction, and ground motion characterizations.

Zhang is a member of ASCE, NEES, EERI and CUREE. She serves as secretary for Performance-Based Design of Structures technical committee and also serves on Seismic Effects, Structural Control and Emerging Analysis Methods in Earthquake Engineering technical committees.

She has been awarded the Best Graduate Award from Nanjing University of Technology and the University Alumni Fellowship from Southeast University. In 2003, she was a JSPS Short-term Invitation Fellow from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. She also received NEES Consortium Travel Award in 2003 and 2006. Zhang received her M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1997 and 2002 respectively.

Edward K. Rice Outstanding Doctoral Student – Ricardo Oliveira MS '05, PhD '09

Ricardo Oliveira is currently a post-doctoral researcher at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, affiliated with the Internet Research Lab. His research interests include inter-domain routing, network security and Internet topology.

Oliveira has had several internships, including one from AT&T Labs, and another from Thomson and Juniper Networks. He is the main author of four patents and dozens of papers from international conferences and journals, including ACM SIGCOMM, ACM SIGMETRICS and IEEE Transactions on Networking. Oliveira is a member of the ACM and the IEEE, and an entrepreneur in the network management software space. Oliveria received his B.S. in electrical engineering from the Engineering Faculty of Porto University (FEUP), Portugal in 2001, his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA in 2009.

Edward K. Rice Outstanding Master’s Student – Won Jin “Brian” Ho '08,
MS '09

Won Jin Ho is currently studying at Wayne State University School of Medicine as a first-year M.D. candidate. He is planning for a career in medicine and biomedical research. In spring 2008, he received his B.S. in bioengineering with a minor in Asian humanities with distinction from UCLA.

He was also elected to Tau Beta Pi and was awarded the Engineering Achievement Award for Student Welfare for his contributions to the school community. During his senior year, he was a member of the winning team for the Bioengineering Senior Capstone Research Competition. Upon completion of his M.S. in 2009, he was honored with the Outstanding Master of Science Student Award. Ho has co-authored multiple poster presentations, scientific papers, and a patent application.

Edward K. Rice Outstanding Bachelor’s Student – Nicholas Kusnezov '09

Nicholas Kusnezov continued his studies at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine after receiving his B.S. in bioengineering from UCLA. He is currently interested in pursuing emergency medicine and was recently commissioned into the U.S. Army Medical Corps.

During his undergraduate career, Kusnezov pursued numerous extracurricular and academic activities including research and development of novel biomedical devices, clinical and rehabilitative exposure, and a variety of community service projects including Hearts with Hope at the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, the Office of Residential Life and student government.




Edward K. Rice Outstanding Bachelor’s Student – Joy Park '09

Joy Park is currently employed at Turner Construction and plans to attend graduate school next year. She received her B.S. in civil and environmental engineering from UCLA in Spring 2009. During her undergraduate years, she was involved with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the Chi Epsilon Honor Society, and the UCLA Alumni Association.

She served as the president of ASCE as well as the group's speaker coordinator, mentorship chair, and steel bridge project director. Outside of ASCE, Park was a research assistant in the UCLA Concrete Seismic Lab. Park has also received several awards including the Outstanding Bachelor of Science Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Engineering Achievement for Student Welfare, the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California Student Scholarship in 2009 and 2008, the American Society of Civil
Engineers Student award in 2009 and 2008, and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science Paul Lane Scholarship.