UCI EECS:YEAR IN REVIEW 2019-20

EECS: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2019-20

YEAR IN REVIEW

[MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR] Welcome to the 2019-2020 EECS: Year in Review magazine that brings you news from the UC Irvine Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Our department continues its growth trajectory on all fronts. On the hiring front, as a result of a multi-year hiring plan, we were happy to welcome several assistant professors, who brought energy in all areas of the department: Yanning Shen (machine learning and network science), Hamidreza Aghasi (millimeter-wave and terahertz electronic circuits and systems), Yasser Shoukry (AI-controlled cyber-physical systems), and teaching professor Salma Elmalaki (computer engineering). We are also happy to welcome Dr. Terry Sanger, who works in pediatric movement disorders from a biological and computational perspective. He has a joint appointment with the UCI School of Medicine and is also the vice president for research and chief scientific officer at CHOC Children’s. I am delighted to see the new research, education and collaboration activities spearheaded by all of our faculty.

On the fundraising front, our department saw a 22% increase in extramural funding, reaching approximately $9 million in new awards in the academic year 2019-20, partly due to participation in NSF center-scale proposals, including an NSF SaTC Frontier award that I have the privilege to lead. Our faculty collected various accolades ranging from the IEEE Control Systems Award for Pramod Khargonekar and the Testof-Time ESWEEK Award for Dan Gajski, to best paper awards, an IEEE Fellowship and other achievements described in this issue. On the education side, we 2

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

renewed our ABET accreditation for all our undergraduate programs, including electrical engineering (EE), computer engineering (CpE) and computer science and engineering (CSE).

We also launched two concentrations in the new professional master’s in engineering (M.Eng.) degree, one in digital and image processing and another in high-speed communications circuits and systems.

As I am writing this letter, we are still in the middle of an extraordinarily challenging year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with the rest of the world, we had to quickly adapt to the new normal. On short notice, we converted courses to online, developed new safety protocols to enable continuing research and switched to online interactions, all while helping our students – domestic and international – deal with a range of challenges.

I am thankful to our faculty, staff and graduate and undergraduate students for their resilience and leadership during these difficult times.

Not only have we continued business as usual, but we were also able to innovate and enhance our experience, making the most out of online communications within our teams and across the world. Some of our faculty’s ongoing research contributes to solving COVID19related problems, ranging from testing to contact-tracing.

Going forward, I am hopeful and optimistic that the research and higher education communities will come out of the COVID-19 era stronger and that we will leverage the lessons learned and the efficient practices we collectively developed beyond these difficult times.

Please read on to learn more about what the EECS department has been up to, in the academic year 2019-20. Please stay safe and keep in touch!

—Athina Markopoulou, Ph.D. Professor, Chancellor’s Fellow, and Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine

4

18

Contents

12 2 4 8 12 16 22 28 30 32 38

Facts and Figures

EECS: Year in Review is published annually by the Samueli School’s communications staff for the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Feature: Lifetime Achievement Accolades Feature: Protective Measures Highlights Feature: Joining the Fight Feature: Grid Destabilization Ingenuity Alumni Faculty Directory

Chair: Athina Markopoulou, Ph.D. EECS Dept. CAO: Julie Strope Editor-in-Chief: Shelly Nazarenus Art Direction: Michael Marcheschi, m2dg.com Publisher: Mike Delaney, Yebo Group On the cover: Assistant Professor Hung Cao’s lab conducts electrophysiology assessments in zebrafish, which have physiological similarities to humans. A mild anesthesia system slightly sedates the fish, allowing for ECG/EEG measurements on four fish simultaneously.

Acquired signals are sent to a smartphone connected to a cloud server for real-time analytics and storage.

2019-20 Year in Review

1

[FACTS AND FIGURES] The UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has two key goals: • Advance the minds of future leaders by providing the finest education to our students • Consistently meet industry needs by developing cutting-edge technology

EECS, home to more than 50 percent of the engineering student body, has internationally renowned faculty who are all top experts in their fields.

The department is committed to an integrated view of the electrical engineering field – ranging from microscopic (and even nanoscale) devices all the way to architectures, communications and software design – everything from electrons to programs.

More than 30 research groups focus on areas as diverse as embedded systems, computer networks, middleware, real-time systems, micro-electro-mechanical systems and nanotechnology, communication systems, machine intelligence, and neural and soft computing.

Mathematical and natural sciences are applied to the theory, design and implementation of devices and systems for the benefit of our society.

2

HISTORY

1983

1990

Department of Electrical Engineering founded

Department expands to include computer science

STUDENT POPULATION

1,105 Undergraduate Students

B.S. degrees Electrical Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science and Engineering

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

285

Graduate Students M.S., Ph.D. degrees Electrical and Computer Engineering Networked Systems Masters of Embedded and Cyberphysical Systems

3

Research Thrusts

RESEARCH AND FUNDING

Circuits and Devices Computer Science and Engineering Systems

22% $7.3M $8.9M

in 2019

increase

in 2020

FACULTY AND RECOGNITION

41

Full-time Faculty

15

Affiliated Faculty

3

10

National Academy of Engineering Members

1

National Academy of Inventors Fellows

Emeritus Faculty

Royal Society of London Fellow

2 1

Presidential Young Investigator Award

World-class Center Affiliations

Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility Center for Pervasive Communications & Computing California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology Center for Embedded and Cyber-physical Systems

9

NSF CAREER Awards

3

Endowed Chairs

1

4

Chancellor’s Professor

1

Chancellor’s Fellow

4

Distinguished Professors

1

Fellow of the Academy for the Advancement of Science 2019-20 Year in Review

3

[FEATURE] LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT Electronic design automation engineer earns test-of-time recognition Lori Brandt

Debbie Morales

Electrical engineer and computer scientist Daniel Gajski goes to his office every day, even though he’s retired. A computer science pioneer, he continues to take calls from researchers and students interested in and citing his work. “I’m happy to be able to still contribute to academia,” said the UC Irvine professor emeritus.

Gajski is an influential electronic design automation (EDA) scientist with more than 40 years of intensive engagement in industry and academia.

He is considered among the founding fathers of new electronic design methods that reach toward higher levels of abstractions and their relationship to system architectures, and is a leader in establishing the fields of silicon compilation, high-level synthesis and system-level design.

He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the European Design and Automation Association in 2010, and the edacentrum EDA Contribution Award in 2017. The most recent evidence of his enduring impact is the Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK) 2019 Test-ofTime Award, which he and his former doctoral student Lukai Cai (now an engineer at Qualcomm San Diego) 4

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

received for their paper, “Transaction Level Modeling: An Overview.”

The paper, originally published 16 years ago, defined a new era in embedded computer system design. This most recent honor recognizes a paper that has had the highest impact of previously presented ESWEEK papers. In the year 2000, Gajski’s research group created the concept of transaction-level modeling by designing a system-level design language called SpecC. Gajski headed the research team that created the SpecC language in 1997. Because the language is an extension of the programming language C, it has been used worldwide

2019-20 Year in Review

5

by hardware designers and software programmers for embedded systems.

The Test-of-Time Award marks the milestone of a novel taxonomy where communication and computation are separated in the modeling, validation, refinement, exploration and synthesis of computer systems. Today, these principles are in use in academia and industry, worldwide.

Gajski says it feels good to receive this recognition because it means that “20 years ago, we got it right, and people still believe the work we did then was important and has had a lasting impact in the field of embedded systems.”

Lukai Cai (left) and Daniel Gajski received the Embedded Systems Week (ESWEEK) 2019 Test-of-Time Award for their paper “Transaction Level Modeling: An Overview.”

Gajski is originally from Croatia, where he earned his undergraduate and master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Zagreb. He then attended the University of Pennsylvania for his doctorate in computer and information sciences. After 10 years of industrial experience in the areas of digital circuits, telecommunication systems, supercomputer design and VLSI structures, he spent 10 years in academia with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“When I was working in the 70’s the emphasis was on how to design computers, so everything was focused on computer architecture,” he said.

“When I was involved in designing a supercomputer, I learned how to build hardware. Then I moved into languages and programming. Twenty years ago, there were no good tools for computer system design, so we developed a language that would define and assist in the design of computer systems.

This highly cited, award-winning paper outlines how to write simulation models for your design.”

Gajski moved to UCI in 1986, enticed by the opportunities presented by UCI and California industry. He founded the UCI Center for Embedded Computer Systems,

6 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

now called the Center for Embedded and Cyber-physical Systems. The center’s goals are to conduct leading-edge interdisciplinary research in embedded systems, emphasizing automotive, communications, medical and other applications, and to promote technology and knowledge transfer for the benefit of the individual and society.

As a faculty member of both the Bren School of Information and Computer Science and the Samueli School of Engineering, Gajski has mentored 60 doctoral and master degree students who’ve gone on to academia and industry around the world, disseminating the knowledge and promoting computer system design as their adviser does.

On the occasion of the International Conference on Computer Aided Design held in Irvine in 2017, two Samueli School faculty members, Rainer Doemer and Quoc-Viet Dang, created an academic family tree to show Gajski’s reach and honor this influence. More than 150 Ph.D. graduates are included in this tree, all advised by their academic father, grandfather or great-grandfather Gajski.

“As one of his students, I know that Dan Gajski is a true visionary,” said Doemer. “The Test-of-Time Award proves that 20 years ago, he could see the future, and he was right. It’s invaluable to have him as a consultant in our center.”

Gajski has authored seven textbooks, including Principles of Digital Design (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997), which has been translated into several languages, including Spanish and Chinese. In fact, a newly hired Samueli School assistant professor, Yanning Shen, remembers using his textbook in her class. “It was used as a textbook for a class that I attended when I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree at the University of Science and Technology of China. This book is very well-written; it provides nice interpretation of various concepts, along with inspiring examples to help students

gain deep understanding. It is my great pleasure to become a colleague with the author of the textbook that I have used!”

“She was there in 2014, so it is very satisfying to hear that they are still using my book,” Gajski said. “I know it is used in Europe and other places, too. It has very practical use, and I published it in ‘97, more than 20 years ago.”

Gajski says he is glad he can keep contributing to the reputation of the university even after retiring. And with all these years of experience, from

designing computers, to programming and developing languages and tools, to embedded systems, he firmly believes the future for the next generation lies in a multidisciplinary engineering education.

“Today, we are designing self-driving cars, robotic surgeons, smart homes,” said Gajski. “These require a lot of engineering knowledge such as mechanical engineering, computer system design, communications and programming, but the future is in hybrid and embedded systems, so a degree from the school of engineering will give students an excellent background.”

Daniel Gajski is presented with the EDA Contribution Award and his academic family tree at the International Conference on Computer Aided Design held in Irvine in 2017.

2019-20 Year in Review

7

[ACCOLADES]

Pramod Khargonekar, vice chancellor for research and Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering and computer science, won the 2019 IEEE Control Systems Award for outstanding contributions to robust and optimal control theory.

His research contributions span systems and control theory and applications, including foundational contributions to robust and H-infinity optimal control theory. His work has had wide-ranging impact on theoretical developments in the field as well as the emergence of computeraided design tools.

Khargonekar also was appointed to the editorial board of the Proceedings of the IEEE, the flagship IEEE journal in the fields of electronics, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. The publication’s board members are responsible for generating ideas, reviewing manuscripts, helping plan special issues and sections, and offering advice to the editor-in-chief and managing editor. Khargonekar began his three-year term on Jan. 1, 2020.

8

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The IEEE International Conference on Communications awarded Lee Swindlehurst and two colleagues a 2020 Best Paper Award for their work that details using a type of machine learning to improve performance in multi-antenna wireless communication systems.

Swindlehurst, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, collaborated on “SVM-based Channel Estimation and Data Detection for Massive MIMO Systems with OneBit ADCs” with San Diego State professor Duy Nguyen and Ly Van Nugyen, a doctoral student in the UC Irvine/SDSU Joint Program in Computational Science.

The paper describes using a classical method of machine learning called support vector machines to target new 5G-and-beyond systems, which employ large arrays of antennas. These arrangements, called massive MIMO – multi-input, multi-output wireless systems – can be costly and use a lot of power, so researchers seek ways to reduce price and power usage without sacrificing performance. “Our paper shows how to use machine learning and signal processing to reduce the performance loss that results when very low-resolution (one-bit) sampling hardware, referred to as analogto-digital converters, are used in a massive MIMO implementation,” said Swindlehurst.

Hung Cao, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and biomedical engineering, edited a book, “Interfacing Bioelectronics and Biomedical Sensing,” with colleagues from UC San Diego and UCLA.

Filippo Capolino, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was named a 2020 IEEE Fellow for his contributions to the development of electromagnetic phenomena in metamaterials and periodic structures.

The fellow designation is awarded by the IEEE board of directors to only one-tenth of one percent of the organization’s voting membership – those considered to have extraordinary records of accomplishment.

Capolino’s research interests include metamaterials and their applications, traveling wave tubes, antennas, wireless systems, sensors in both microwave and optical ranges, plasmonics, nano-optics, spectroscopy, microscopy and applied electromagnetics in general.

Michael Green was named interim dean of the Samueli School of Engineering, July 1, 2020. Green replaces Gregory Washington, who became the president of George Mason University in Virginia.

Green, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, joined the faculty in 1997. He has served in a range of academic leadership positions, including his current role as associate dean for undergraduate studies since 2017 and as department chair from 2009-2014. He also served on the faculty at Stony Brook University and worked as an integrated circuit design engineer at National Semiconductor Corp. and Newport Communications (now part of Broadcom Inc.).

Green earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from UCLA. His current research interests include the design of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for use in applications, including high-speed communication networks and biomedical devices. He has published more than 120 papers in technical journals and conferences and has received six patents. Green has been recognized with several teaching and industry honors, including the Award for New Technical Concepts in Electrical Engineering from IEEE Region 1, the Guillemin-Cauer Award of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Award.

Published by Springer Nature, the book examines the fundamental challenges of interfacing bioelectronics with human and animal tissue. It covers topics ranging from retinal implants that restore vision, to implantable circuits for neural biomedical devices, to intravascular electrochemical impedance for detecting unstable plaque deposits in arteries.

“We address several hot topics in the field of biomedical microdevices and systems, such as optimization of electrodetissue interface, wireless power transfer, neural implants, novel biomaterials and high-frequency ultrasound just to name a few,” said Cao, whose NIH- and NSFfunded research involves developing and leveraging novel microdevices and sensors for use in biology and medicine.

The chapter overseen by Cao covers basics about cardiac functions, the use of zebrafish as the premier animal model to study cardiac disease and heart regeneration, as well as the use of artificial intelligence in biological studies, diagnosis and prognosis.

2019-20 Year in Review

9

[ACCOLADES]

Mohammad Al Faruque, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, published a book, “DataDriven Modeling of Cyber-Physical Systems using Side-Channel Analysis,” with his graduate student Sujit Rokka Chhetri.

Published by Springer Nature, the book covers the use of state-of-theart machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms for modeling various aspects of cyber-physical systems, provides practical use cases for securing these systems from attacks, and discusses building and maintaining a digital twin of the physical system.

“This is the only book I know of that addresses data-driven modeling of cyber-physical systems and how the approach can be used to model the interactions between the cyber and physical domains of the systems,” said Al Faruque, who conducts research on system-level design of embedded and cyber-physical systems with a special focus on design automation, model-based design, security and embedded machine-learning algorithms.

Present day cyber-physical systems in automotive and manufacturing generate and log large amounts of data. “These multidomain runtime data are rich in information regarding various states of the system like its health, security status, etc.” said Chhetri, who earned a doctorate in 2019 and now works as a staff data scientist at Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company. “This book presents various approaches to take advantage of these data and utilize them for improving the cyber-physical systems, which may otherwise not be possible during design time.”

10

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The Institute of Navigation honored Zak Kassas with its Colonel Thomas L. Thurlow Award for outstanding contributions to the science of navigation. Kassas, associate professor of mechanical & aerospace engineering and electrical engineering & computer science, was recognized for his work in the theory and practice of exploiting signals of opportunity for accurate and reliable positioning, navigation and timing.

Kassas specializes in analyzing these signals – existing radio signals from cell towers, Wi-Fi and low-Earth-orbit satellites – to map, position and navigate UAVs, ground vehicles and pedestrians in indoor environments with high accuracy, without relying on GPS signals.

The award is named for Thurlow, an engineer and pilot who contributed significantly to the development and testing of navigation equipment and training of navigators and pilots.

EECS Welcomes New Faculty in Academic Year 2019-2020 Hamidreza Aghasi, Assistant Professor Research Interests: analog circuit design, mm-wave and terahertz integrated circuits, high resolution integrated sensing and imaging, neuromorphic computation, emerging device technologies Education: Ph.D., Cornell University Mohammed Alnemari, graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, won a Best Student Paper award at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Edge Computing, held in Milan, Italy, last summer. Alnemari is a second-year doctoral student under the advisement of Nader Bagherzadeh, professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

In his paper, “Efficient Deep Neural Networks for Edge Computing,” Alnemari presented a two-stage pipeline approach, called filter pruning and tensor train decomposition, to reduce the storage and computation requirements of DNNs in order to more easily deploy them on the edge. “Our work demonstrates the same accuracy or just a tiny degradation of accuracy with retraining, after applying both stages,” said Alnemari.

Salma Elmalaki, Assistant Professor of Teaching Research Interests: mobile computing, pervasive autonomous systems, personalized computing, and internet-of-things (IoT) Education: Ph.D., UCLA

Dr. Terence Sanger, Professor Research Interests: computational neuroscience, machine learning, failure models of biological network computing, robotic models of neurological disorders, dystonia, childhood movement disorders, biological signal processing, adaptive control, stochastic systems Education: Ph.D., MIT; M.D., Harvard Medical School Yanning Shen, Assistant Professor Research Interests: machine learning, data science, network science and statistical-signal processing Education: Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Yasser Shoukry, Assistant Professor Research Interests: resilience, safety, security and privacy of artificial intelligence (AI), controlled cyberphysical systems (CPS), internet-of-things (IoT), and robotic systems Education: Ph.D., UCLA

2019-20 Year in Review

11

[FEATURE] PROTECTIVE MEASURES UCI to lead $10 million NSF-funded center on securing personal data privacy Brian Bell

12

Debbie Morales

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The National Science Foundation has awarded $10 million to support a new research center devoted to personal data privacy in an increasingly networked and instrumented world. The ProperData

Center will be hosted and led by UC Irvine and is in collaboration with Northeastern University, the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California and Spain’s IMDEA Networks Institute.

Under the umbrella of the NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace Frontiers program, the UCI-led team will work to develop a stronger theoretical understanding of how data collection over the internet can affect individual privacy, in addition to its societal and economic implications.

They also will create new software and hardware tools and produce policy recommendations centered on the safeguarding of personal data collected by web servers, mobile applications and a broadening range of linked entities on the internet of things.

2019-20 Year in Review

13

“

It is an honor and responsibility to lead one of NSF’s signature projects to address the timely and important problem of personal data protection on the internet.

”

14

During the five-year initiative, the interdisciplinary collaborators will engage in research, educate students and early career scientists, and explore ways of transitioning innovations into practice.

“It is an honor and responsibility to lead one of NSF’s signature projects to address the timely and important problem of personal data protection on the internet,” said principal investigator Athina Markopoulou, Chancellor’s Fellow, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at UCI. “Our team brings together an outstanding group of researchers, inside and outside UCI, with a range of expertise.”

Core UCI members include Markopoulou, who will apply her expertise in computer and mobile applications; Gene Tsudik, Distinguished Professor of computer science, who has deep experience in cybersecurity; and Scott Jordan, professor of computer science, whose policy background includes work with the Federal Communications Commission and other government entities.

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The world has been dramatically transformed in recent decades by the growing ease in collecting and sharing data over the internet. Many useful services have arisen during this era but often at the expense of privacy, security, transparency and fairness to both individuals and society as a whole. Also, data can be intercepted by malicious actors and used for theft, surveillance, espionage and other illicit activities.

“The timing of this effort could hardly be more appropriate, as the current double-whammy of the COVID-19 pandemic and growing social unrest exacerbate and highlight the importance of personal privacy,” Tsudik said. “One of the key pillars of this project is a successful mix of intra-and extramural collaborations coupled with strong institutional support.”

The UCI team will work to improve the transparency and control of personal data flow on the internet by combining methodologies from computer science and engineering – including theory, network measurement and systems security – with public policy and concepts from economics. They will also develop better systems for network monitoring and mediation.

Another major research angle in UCI’s program will be understanding and improving diversity and inclusiveness in cyberspace interactions.

“A differentiating factor in our proposal was that it tapped into existing outreach initiatives through the Office of Access & Inclusion, which is managed jointly by the Samueli School of Engineering and Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Science, and headed by Sharnnia Artis,” said Markopoulou.

“Cybersecurity is one of the most significant economic and national security challenges facing our nation today,” said Nina Amla, lead NSF program director of the SaTC program. “NSF’s investments in foundational research will transform our capacity to secure personal privacy, financial assets and national interests. These new Frontiers awards will enable innovative approaches to cybersecurity and privacy, with potential benefits to all sectors of our economy.”

Personal data flows over the internet.

Data can be collected by first, third and support parties, can be obtained by various adversaries, and/or can be used for surveillance. This project seeks to provide more transparency and control at various vantage points, by a combined technologypolicy approach.

Markopoulou added: “Getting the award is only the beginning; I am looking forward to the actual work ahead.”

More information can be found at https://satcfrontier.eng.uci.edu.

2019-20 Year in Review

15

[HIGHLIGHTS] Cao Secures Funding for Brain Biosensors and for Zebrafish Research A team led by Hung Cao received $1 million from the National Science Foundation to design integrative approaches for measuring brain activity during social interactions in sleep-disrupted animal models.

Early-life sleep disruption has been shown to affect the development of complex social behaviors in prairie voles, the studied model, impairing social bonding in a manner similar to autism in humans.

Cao, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, will create neural biosensor microprobes that can simultaneously – and in real time – detect two key neurotransmitters governing excitation and inhibition. The ratio of these neurochemicals, L-glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid, holds important information about brain control of social interactions in healthy and autistic individuals. The wireless system will be combined with EEG to track electrical activity in the brain.

“We know that sleep disruption in early life affects the ability to form bonds with partners in voles, but we don’t know why or what’s going on in the brain’s chemistry,” said Cao. “We need dedicated devices to measure the excitatory/ inhibitory balance in vivo during social interactions, with optimal temporal and spatial resolution. Such tools do not currently exist.”

16 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Cao’s co-principal investigator on the grant is Dr. Miranda Lim, a neurologist at Oregon Health and Science University who examines sleep disruption in the developing brain.

“We hope to solve a longstanding mystery in neurobiology about the critical contribution of sleep to brain development,” said Cao. “The outcomes could help reveal how neural processes may go awry in neurodevelopmental disorders, and enable the next generation of neural prostheses, therapeutics and brain-machine interfaces.”

Cao also won a National Institutes of Health grant to further his research on electrophysiology assessment in zebrafish.

The Small Business Innovation Research Phase II award from the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs advances Cao’s work with startup Sensoriis, Inc., which develops sensing solutions to address health care problems.

The two-year $1.5 million grant includes a $477,394 sub-award that will directly fund Cao’s research.

Zebrafish, which have physiological similarities to humans, have long been used for understanding human cardiac and neurological systems and for drug screening. Their small size, low maintenance costs, quick regeneration, conserved genome and optical transparency make these vertebrates ideal for experimental models.

Cao’s project focuses on creating novel devices and systems that can provide reliable electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram data from both adult fish and larvae; building cloud-based systems that can process, interpret and study large-scale data; and designing cardiac and neurological studies and drug screening methods that use zebrafish models and the study’s novel tools.

Tseng Develops New Interlayer RF Resonators for Wireless Biosensing Noninvasive, wireless medical devices and biosensors have emerged in recent years as powerful tools to track human performance, individual biological markers and wellness. These small, flexible devices have enabled easy monitoring of physiological parameters, such as heartbeat and glucose levels, but the biosensors in these devices often are large, require a lot of power, and have short life spans and low sensitivity.

Peter Tseng, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is working to design and develop wireless passive radio frequency identification device (RFID)-enabled biosensors with programmable sensitivity and selectivity (the ability to differentiate molecules from one another). These sensors will require no electronics at the sensing node, allowing their implantation into a host of new environments and systems. In December 2019, he won a $500,000 CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to develop a multifunctional interlayer-RF resonator as a platform for passive and wireless biosensing.

These new sensors will contain an intermediate layer of nanoporous materials that will absorb, swell or deform in the presence of specific chemical stimuli.

This will cause their resonant spectra – or properties, including frequencies – to change, providing enhanced detection mechanisms. Proposed interlayer materials include membranes, separators, deformable materials and temperature/pH/metalresponsive polymers, many of which have long lifetimes and a lack of degradative mechanisms.

The next-generation biosensors will utilize sensing modalities that can support inherent wireless readout and robust, long-term operation. They will be attached, embedded or potentially even implanted, integrating with living systems in new ways and enabling new applications in wireless health, Tseng said.

Tseng will also conduct and analyze theoretical and computational studies on how the unique electromagnetic and bio-interactive physics of specific materials combine to influence sensor performance.

The five-year grant includes an outreach component that focuses on training a new generation of younger, and often underrepresented, students. Skills including fabrication, scanning electron microscopy, experimental methodology, data analysis, modeling and computer-aided design are being incorporated into UC Irvine summer programs like the Samueli School’s FABcamp for middle-school students.

“We are developing next-generation, wireless biosensors with tunable sensitivity and selectivity that can interface with living systems,” said Tseng. “This award from the NSF is a huge milestone toward accomplishing our goals.”

2019-20 Year in Review

17

[HIGHLIGHTS] Researchers Develop ‘Lab on a Chip’ for Personalized Drug Efficacy Monitoring UCI researchers and collaborators have developed a lab-on-a-chip platform to facilitate continuous, inexpensive, rapid and personalized drug screening.

The technology is capable of evaluating the effectiveness of treatments on cancer cells without bulky readout equipment or requiring the shipment of samples to labs. The scientists’ work was published in the American Chemical Society journal Analytical Chemistry.

“There is an ever-present need for simplified and low-cost identification of a patient’s personal cancer resistance and medication efficacy before and throughout treatment,” said senior author Rahim Esfandyarpour, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, as well as biomedical engineering. “We envision our work as another step toward potentially enabling the personalized screening of drug efficacy on individual patients’ samples, possibly

18 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

leading us to a better understanding of drug resistance and the optimization of patients’ treatments.”

He said that most current approaches to drug efficacy testing require expensive imaging, lab work and large-scale cell culture experiments. “Our platform is an initial prototype that we hope to further develop in the future into a personalized medicine tool for cancer patients facing drug resistance,” said co-author Vanessa Velasco, a Stanford University postdoctoral researcher.

The lab-on-a-chip technology employs advanced electrical and electrochemical techniques to precisely manipulate cancer cells of interest in parallel with the continuous characterization of the potential effectiveness of therapeutic agents custom-made for patients. The end result should greatly reduce the time and cost associated with treating cancer.

Burke’s New Instrumentation, Novel Approach Allow a Noninvasive Look inside Living Cells Electrical engineering professor Peter Burke’s efforts to noninvasively peer inside living cells and measure their metabolic activity was boosted this year by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Army Research Office.

The one-year, $282,611 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grant is funding a deep-subwavelengthresolution optical microscope to upgrade Burke’s inverted light microscope/ AFM/scanning microwave microscopy instrumentation.

Several years ago, Burke helped develop a broadband calibration technique that could successfully measure, with nanoscale resolution, the properties of nanowires, nanotube quantum dots and other nanoelectronic components on top of and inside of semiconductor wafers.

Now, he and several colleagues are using a similar approach to noninvasively peer inside living cells and measure their metabolic activity.

Burke and colleagues from UCI, France’s Institute of Electronics, Microelectronics and Nanotechnology, and the University of Pennsylvania, demonstrated a direct, ultra-highbandwidth nanoscale electronic interface to the interior of living cells, one that can calibrate and measure electrical

properties of a cell during all phases of the cell life cycle. This could have important implications for unlocking the mysteries of aging, cancer, diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders, as well as developing medical treatments and new drugs.

Specifically, the nanoelectric interface provides simultaneous fluorescence and electronic imaging of vital cellular properties such as the mitochondrial membrane potential. The probe, which is in contact with living cells, could be used in a variety of analyses, including electronic assays of membrane dynamics, nanoelectronic actuation of cellular activity and tomographic (X-ray-like) nanoradar imaging of the form and structure of vital organelles in the cytoplasm, the substance between the cell membrane and the nucleus. This is a “powerful new way to probe living systems using nanoelectronics that enables a direct nanoscale electronic interface to living cells,” Burke said.

The DURIP is funding a sophisticated optical microscope with resolution down to 50 nanometers – about 10 times finer than its predecessor. Called an Airyscan, it images live cells with high sensitivity and low light intensity.

“We are very pleased to be able to upgrade our existing state-of-theart scanning microwave microscope platform with the latest in Airyscan deep subwavelength optical imaging,” Burke said. “It is gentle enough to allow the imaging of live cells with nanoscale resolution without damaging them, and is allowing us to build the first integrated platform for this type of groundbreaking research.”

2019-20 Year in Review

19

[HIGHLIGHTS] Aghasi Explores Terahertz Electronics The capabilities of electronic circuits vary based on the circuits’ frequency – how many light waves can move past a certain point in a given time. Twenty years ago, the maximum frequency of electronic circuits was about 100 gigahertz. Today, thanks to advances in semiconductor technologies and their scaling, integrated electronic circuits have the potential to achieve much higher frequencies – in the millimeter wave and terahertz frequency ranges. These extremely high frequencies enable a slew of new applications in high-speed computation, communications and more.

Over the last decade, there has been increased interest in designing systems that operate in the terahertz frequency range (300-3000 GHz), but complexity of design and measurement, as well as technology limitations, have slowed successful implementation. “The terahertz region is somewhat new to the electronic circuit, since technology advances – essentially faster transistors and development of design methodologies – have allowed operation in this region only

recently,” said Hamidreza Aghasi, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.

Aghasi researches processes and techniques that can help overcome these challenges and generate higher frequency signals. In a paper published in Applied Physics Reviews, he details specific phenomena in electronics – including nonlinear processes and wave propagation techniques – that can help push previous limits of operation into new territory, enabling power-efficient, low-cost and portable circuits for emerging applications.

The operation of electronic circuits at the terahertz range is advantageous because the terahertz range has a smaller wavelength compared to lower frequencies, which allows for better resolution in imaging applications. In addition, communication circuits that operate in this frequency range have a larger bandwidth and can achieve higher speed. And finally, the terahertz frequency range is home to many molecular finger-print qualities that make it a good candidate for performing molecular spectroscopy.

Integrated electronic circuits offer the least expensive technology platform to mass produce terahertz-based systems and devices while maintaining high reliability.

They are compact in size and extremely power efficient.

“Terahertz technology has many applications in high-resolution biomedical and space exploratory imaging, communications, sensing, short-range radars, molecular spectroscopy, highprecision atomic clocks and more,” Aghasi said. “This research introduces the fundamental ideas that can be adopted in order to realize each of these applications based on electronic circuits.”

20 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

UCI Engineers Develop a New AI-based Method for Analyzing Echocardiograms normal range; however, if the volume ranges are borderline, this variability can significantly change the course of treatment. Just a couple of percentage points in ejection fraction of a heart chamber could make a difference in the way a patient would be treated, if the number is marginal.

“There have been previous attempts with learning-based medical image analysis, but a major issue in applying artificial intelligence platforms to automatic segmentation of echocardiograms for clinical use is the lack of generalizability,” said Kheradvar.

Samueli School engineers have designed a novel artificial intelligence method for assessing echocardiograms that could help cardiologists more accurately determine heart function and disease.

The machine learning platform will automatically segment the heart’s four chambers and calculate their volumes, eliminating the variability in human assessment of cardiac function, using echocardiography data. The research, led Dr. Arash Kheradvar, professor of biomedical engineering, and Hamid Jafarkhani, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Kheradvar explains that if 10 cardiologists independently examine an echocardiogram, they will calculate different numbers for the heart chambers’ volume. This may not be very important if the subject’s information is within a

For example, one can design a very accurate AI algorithm for a dataset from a hospital or a specific group of patients, but if the model is then used on another dataset, it may not perform well. “A generalizable model is one that can perform well on different datasets, not just the one used in training of the model,” Kheradvar said.

Unlike the standard automated approaches, the UCI researchers’ method is based on learning several levels of representations, corresponding to a hierarchy of features, and not speculating on any model or assumption about the image or heart chambers.

“To verify our method’s generalizability in comparison with other existing techniques, we compared its performance with the state-of-the-art method on our dataset in addition to an independent dataset of 450 patients,” said Jafarkhani.

The researchers successfully demonstrated the feasibility and performance of their method through computing validation metrics with respect to the gold standard, that of an expert cardiologist.

2019-20 Year in Review

21

[FEATURE]

22 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

JOINING THE FIGHT Global pandemic prompts electrical engineering and computer science faculty to take on coronavirus-related research Lori Brandt, Anna Lynn Spitzer, Heather Ashbach, Pat Harriman

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread around the world, many researchers at the Samueli School of Engineering have shifted their focus to research that could help mitigate the pandemic.

Electrical engineering and computer science faculty are collaborating with other scientists on campus and around the country on projects to create tests, predict disease severity and provide better information to public health agencies.

“I’m pleased to see faculty involved in research that could be helpful in battling the global COVID-19 pandemic,” said Athina Markopoulou, professor and department chair. “Some jumped in essentially without a guarantee of funding, but because they saw the need to address a grand challenge problem and the opportunity to develop novel solutions.”

2019-20 Year in Review

23

DEVELOPING ANTIBODY DETECTION METHODS The key to getting people back to work and children back to school could lie in determining who might be immune to the virus. Those people could return to school and work, helping to slowly restart the economy. The Samueli School’s Peter Burke is working to develop an antibody test to help identify those with immunity.

Burke, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, is proposing an inexpensive point-of-care method to detect COVID-19 immunity. (Burke and colleagues at the University of Illinois recently filed for a patent.)

Antibodies in blood serum presumably can be used to determine immune patients.

Ordinarily, blood tests need expensive proteins to detect antibodies produced by the immune system in response to infection, but Burke is investigating the feasibility of using short DNA sequences as the capture agent instead. He says this could be less expensive to manufacture, and could even be implemented on a low-cost paper test, like those used for pregnancy. Those who test positive for the antibodies would presumably no longer be infectious and could be cleared to return to work. Low-cost tests such as Burke’s would enable clinicians to determine how long this immunity lasts and how robust the immunity is at a global population level.

Burke says the primary goal of his study is to find and exploit DNA- or RNA-aptamers (short strands of DNA) that bind with specific affinity to the binding site of antibodies for the virus. These are known to be specific to the virus’s spike protein.

“If we are successful, then a point-of-care, in-home test of patients who are immune to COVID-19 could follow,” Burke said, adding that it could be paper-based and cost only a few cents to produce. “This would be like a pregnancy test for COVID-19-immune patients.”

24

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

PREDICTING DISEASE SEVERITY For those infected by the coronavirus, symptoms can range from very mild to life-threatening. For hospitalized patients, Samueli School researchers are investigating the use of artificial intelligence on chest X-rays to foresee disease severity, allowing medical personnel to prioritize urgent cases by being able to predict which patients will require imminent ventilation and intensive care.

Principal investigator Dr. Arash Kheradvar, professor of biomedical engineering, is working with Hamid Jafarkhani, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and Dr. Alpesh Amin, professor of medicine at UCI Medical Center, on the research.

“We aim to establish a cloudbased AI platform to quantify the progression of the disease during the 14 days after admission to the emergency room, based on daily chest X-rays and lab results,” said Kheradvar. “We previously have been working collaboratively on a fully automated platform for cardiac segmentation using a variety of methods involving artificial intelligence. We would like to use our expertise in designing AIbased medical imaging tools to help with mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.”

To train the simulation models, the researchers will use COVID-19 patients’ chest X-rays taken on the first day of admission and daily for up to two weeks, in addition to pertinent clinical information and patients’ final outcomes.

Accordingly, they will design a deep learning network that can predict, based on the first chest X-ray taken in the emergency room, whether a patient will develop a more severe case of the disease that may require a higher level of care.

2019-20 Year in Review

25

“

In the context of COVID-19, public health, emergency management entities and elected officials are on the front lines, informing and educating the public about prevention.

”

IMPROVING PUBLIC HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS AND DECISION MAKING UCI sociologist Carter Butts, an electrical engineering and computer science affiliated faculty member, is conducting two studies that could help public health officials; one relates to communicating in a crisis and the other to pandemic planning and decision making.

Disseminating information to the public during a crisis is critical for community health and safety, and Twitter, with its small character count and more than 330 million users, has become the go-to platform for public officials. With an NSF Response Research grant, Butts is studying how to craft the most effective messages for maximum reach.

“In the context of COVID-19, public health, emergency management entities and elected officials are on the front lines,

informing and educating the public about prevention,” said Butts, who has spent the better part of his nearly 20-year academic career studying communication during crisis.

“This requires them to communicate directly and effectively with the public, often with little time to prepare and little vetting. In a rapidly changing environment, this is a real challenge.”

Working with Jeannette Sutton, director of the University of Kentucky’s Risk & Disaster Communication Center, he’s found that content, style and structure are the critical elements in effective messaging, and the right mix changes based on the event. The two are applying findings from past disasters to the COVID-19 pandemic. The project relies on a massive data-collection effort to capture and code all tweets posted by targeted agencies 24-hours a day, seven days a

26 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

week. Those data will be used to develop models that can predict message outcomes – whether or not something will go viral or engage audiences. Butts’ goal is to develop evidence that can guide public agencies in this and future pandemics.

In another study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Butts studied how population distribution impacts COVID-19 spread. He found that uneven population distribution can significantly impact the severity and timing of COVID-19 infections, leading individual communities to have vastly different experiences.

“Diseases like COVID-19 that are transmitted through intensive contact can spread very unevenly,” said co-author Butts. “Some communities get hit much earlier and harder than others, even within the same area. That can shape individuals’ understanding of infection risk, impact

their willingness to take protective actions and potentially stress health care delivery in ways that are not captured well by standard epidemiological projections.�

Using geographically detailed network models, the research team discovered significant differences in infection curves among individual census tracts due to the irregularity of social connectivity, with the disease spreading rapidly through one location but stalling at its boundaries. “While conventional diffusion models have been of considerable value ... our findings indicate that incorporating geographical heterogeneity would add value in capturing outcomes at the city or county level, which is where decisions regarding infrastructure management, health care logistics and other policies are made,� Butts said.

2019-20 Year in Review

27

[FEATURE]

GRID DESTABILIZATION Cyber-physical security researchers highlight vulnerability of solar inverters Brian Bell Steven Georges

Cyber-physical systems security researchers at UC Irvine can disrupt the functioning of a power grid using about $50 worth of equipment tucked inside a disposable coffee cup.

In a presentation delivered at the recent Usenix Security 2020 conference, Mohammad Al Faruque

28 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

(pictured right), Samueli School associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and his team revealed that the spoofing mechanism can generate a 32% change in output voltage, a 200% increase in low-frequency harmonics power and a 250% boost in real power from a solar inverter.

Al Faruque’s group has made a habit in recent years of finding exploitable loopholes in systems that combine computer hardware and software with

It’s this relatively ancient gizmo that makes many cyber-physical properties vulnerable to attack, Al Faruque said.

Beyond solar inverters, Hall sensors can be found in cars, freight and passenger trains, and medical devices, among other applications.

The spoofing apparatus assembled

by Al Faruque’s team consists of an electromagnet, an Arduino Uno microprocessor and an ultrasonic sensor to measure the distance between the unit and the solar inverter. A Zigbee network appliance is used to control the mechanism within a range of about 100 meters, but that can be replaced by a Wi-Fi router that would enable remote operation from anywhere on the planet.

Anomadarshi Barua, a second-year doctoral student in electrical engineering and computer science who led the development of this technique, said that the components of the spoofing device are so simple and straightforward that a high school student could construct it.

“Schools all around the world teach kids how to program an Arduino processor,” he said. “Even UCI has camps that teach this technology. However, they would need a little more advanced knowledge to figure out the control part of the system.”

machines and other infrastructure. In addition to heightening awareness about these vulnerabilities, they invent new technologies that are better shielded against attacks.

For this project, Al Faruque and his team used a remote spoofing device to target electromagnetic components found in many grid-tied solar inverters.

“Without touching the solar inverter, without even getting close to it, I can just place a coffee cup nearby and then leave and go anywhere in the world,

from which I can destabilize the grid,” Al Faruque said. “In an extreme case, I can even create a blackout.”

Solar inverters convert power collected by rooftop panels from direct to alternating current for use in homes and businesses.

Often, the sustainably generated electricity will go into microgrids and main power networks. Many inverters rely on Hall sensors, devices that measure the strength of a magnetic field and are based on a technology that originated in 1879.

Barua noted that such an attack could target an individual home or an entire grid. “You could use the device to shut down a shopping mall, an airport or a military installation,” he said.

For Al Faruque, this endeavor – supported by a smart grid security program under the University of California Office of the President – points out gaps in older technologies that even seasoned experts may have overlooked. His group recently received funding from the National Science Foundation to start a project in the fall centered on building new, more secure Hall sensors that can’t be foiled by a cleverly placed coffee cup.

2019-20 Year in Review

29

[INGENUITY]

ZOTPONICS Since 1995, UC Irvine’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program has offered students the opportunity to address important global research concerns under the tutelage of experienced faculty.

30

Perhaps nothing is more important to the long-term success of the planet than sustainability, and one research group this year decided to tackle this global issue as it pertains to food.

Undergraduate students Jason Chour Lim, Kathy M. Nguyen, Owen Kai Yang and Sidney Lau partnered with the Associated Students of UCI Sustainability Project & Garden Commission and the

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

FRESH Basic Needs Hub to develop an automated indoor hydroponics system for growing food in an urban environment.

Called ZotPonics, the team’s creation features plants suspended in a red plastic tray inside a plexiglass cube equipped with LED strip lights and two small fans for temperature regulation. Sensors and activators control water and nutrient distribution to the plants’ roots, and the

system sends status notifications to users – who can optimize the environment for specific water, sunlight and nutrient needs via a mobile app.

Quoc-Viet Dang (pictured far left), electrical engineering and computer science assistant professor of teaching and the ZotPonics team’s faculty mentor, believes the project helps students give back to the UCI community by

introducing hydroponic gardening as a way to grow fresh produce in tight spaces.

“We’re losing backyards, so lots of people can’t grow their own food, especially in urban centers like Irvine,” he says. “Hydroponics systems are simple and available for indoor spaces, so if you want to be sustainable, your best option can be hydroponics. With the app connected to the system, people can

learn on their own. Using technology to promote sustainable and compact growing spaces will help ensure that in the future we always have fresh food.”

The team hopes to build 12 or more ZotPonics systems in the next couple of years and distribute them to the FRESH hub and other groups in need of sustainable growing options.

2019-20 Year in Review

31

[ALUMNI] EXTRAORDINARIUS AWARD Alumni couple recognized for their UCI commitments The UC Irvine Alumni Association plans to bestow its highest honor, the Lauds & Laurels Extraordinarius award, to alumni couple Carol Choi ’85 and Eugene Choi ’86, MBA ’01, for their exemplary service and contributions to the university and community.

“We are proud to celebrate the Chois’ remarkable impact through this distinguished and well-deserved award,” said Brian T. Hervey, vice chancellor for university advancement and alumni relations. “The Chois have generously given their time, talent and resources to invest in the next generation, and they continue to create countless opportunities.”

In addition to helping form the Leadership Board for Student Success within UCI’s Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning, the Chois provide much-needed funding to student researchers in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and are avid supporters of budding entrepreneurs through UCI’s ANTrepreneur Center.

The couple also leverage their international network to build meaningful connections between the university and the community

– from serving as alumni ambassadors in China and Korea to helping establish the UCI Korea Law Center to growing and advising the UCI Korean American Alumni Chapter.

“We always wanted to be able to give back to our community,” said Carol Choi. “We both immigrated with our parents and received a really great education, and we knew we wanted to pay it forward.”

The Chois volunteer on several university advisory boards, including as trustees of the UCI Foundation and as members of the UCI School of Law Board of Visitors. In addition, Eugene Choi serves on the UCI Chief Executive Roundtable, and Carol Choi was a UCI Alumni Association board director.

She is the founder and her husband the president and CEO of United Exchange Corp., which has specialized in sales, marketing and distribution of consumer packaged goods to Fortune 500 retailers since 1993.

The couple met as undergraduates at UCI. Carol Choi obtained a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1985, while Eugene Choi earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1986. They later got married and went on to become successful entrepreneurs.

The Chois were to receive the award at the the 2020 Lauds & Laurels event, which was to be held in May, but due to the coronavirus pandemic it has been postponed.

32 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Elizabeth Beach

Steve Zylius

2019-20 Year in Review

33

[ALUMNI] with EECS Alumnus Faraz Milani ’14 Lori Brandt

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Samueli School of Engineering, Milani headed home to the Silicon Valley, where he worked for several startup companies.

In 2019, he started his own business, called Heard (joinheard.com), with two others. A digital platform for private practice therapists, it helps counselors build an online community for purposes of referral, connection and learning. He drew on his own experience in seeking help for insomnia and anxiety to develop Heard; his mission is to destigmatize mental health care and make it more accessible.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR CAREER PATH? My first job was as the lead quality assurance engineer with Estate Assist, a digital safe deposit box. After about a year, we were acquired by DocuSign, where I also served as lead QA engineer, then went on to become product manager for two products. Throughout high school and college, I had struggled with sleep issues, and while the fast-paced mania of working for a startup was exciting and fun, it amplified my sleepless nights and dissolved my duct-taped coping mechanisms. To the outside world, I was thriving, but the reality was I had insomnia and anxiety, which often turned into depression. After many doctors’ appointments and finding the right therapist, I was able to turn my life around.

34 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START HEARD? My own experience of making my mental health a priority led me to start Heard in 2019. I’m a high-functioning person with many loved ones, and there are so many other people like me dealing with mental health conditions, so my main purpose became to help destigmatize mental health and make finding a therapist more accessible. I met my co-founders, we secured some initial angel investor funding and a couple months later, we quit our jobs to pursue this mission.

HOW IS THE BUSINESS DOING? Our first version of Heard was a clienttherapist matching platform, sort of like a dating app. We connected over 250 clients with therapists. But we quickly realized the unit economics were not on our side. Though therapists always need new clients, they have many other pressing needs that nobody was addressing. Owning a private practice is like running a small business. The providers we spoke to were inundated with clients, using outdated, inefficient technology and systems and not well versed in smart business practices.

Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, therapists were overwhelmed with helping people cope, while also trying to cope themselves. It became clear that helping match people to counselors wouldn’t do any good if the therapists were overworked, under-resourced and emotionally unsupported.

After listening to feedback from users and considering the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, we adjusted our model and launched version 2 of the platform. Heard is now a trusted space for therapists, providing referral technology, community building and tools for success. We feel it enables therapy-seekers to be routed to the best possible care that matches their needs and preferences.

WHAT HAVE BEEN THE CHALLENGES? Staying focused is the main thing, not trying to do too much, for example adding too many features, trying to please every therapist, that sort of thing.

Also, adjusting to working remotely and with the various styles of my other cofounders. Our CEO Andrew Riesen is in Seattle, while Victoria Li (chief technology officer) and I (chief product officer) are located in the Bay Area. We are all super passionate and opinionated, so we’ve come up with frameworks for decisionmaking.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOUR COMPANY? After running a free closed beta with 100 providers in California for a few months, we converted almost half of the providers to paid memberships, and plan for continued growth through word of mouth. We’ve also announced partnerships with reputable mental health associations like the ADAA and telehealth technology providers like doxy. me, which are proving to be successful channels for growing our platform in an organic and scalable fashion. We don’t spend any money on advertising, which is important to us as we believe in creating a business that proves financially feasible even in the early stages.

While our professional network of private practice therapists grows, we’re actively working on the launch of our first of many software services that will allow our members to thrive in their practices and serve clients that are the right fit for their backgrounds and clinical expertise.

mix of product talent and empathy for therapists that will be very hard to stop.

WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU OFFER OTHER ENTREPRENEURS? If you don’t like uncertainty, problems that haven’t been solved before or failure, startups probably aren’t for you. Ask yourself, is this something you are so passionate about that you can get up again and again every time you deal with failure or rejection? If you are financially able, just start − there is no good time to start a company, it’s always a massive risk and an emotional roller coaster.

And finally, if you aren’t financially able, join an early-stage startup. There are companies that will take bets on young, motivated people. Even if it’s not the exact position you want, it’s still highly valuable because in a startup, everyone does everything. Look for a startup with experienced founders.

WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WANTED TO BE AN ENGINEER? I went into UCI undecided on my major.

I was obsessed with the startup tech scene, growing up in Silicon Valley, so I knew I wanted to understand more of how technology works. I’ve always been an analytical thinker, so when I started taking engineering-related classes, it just worked. I consider myself a generalist, as I’m very passionate about learning everything.

ANY FAVORITE MEMORIES OF BEING AN ANTEATER? When we broke the world record for largest dodgeball game. So fun.

The mental health startup ecosystem is booming. There are very few companies that are thinking therapist-first − meaning treating therapists with respect and care, as opposed to a transaction or tool to make money. We believe this is essential to success in the mental health space. Our team has an extraordinary

2019-20 Year in Review

35

[ALUMNI] 2020 HALL OF FAME Celebration honors achievement and opportunity More than 220 attendees gathered on the evening of Feb. 28 to attend the 2020 Hall of Fame celebration for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and Samueli School of Engineering. There was no way to know that widespread quarantines were just around the corner, but this year’s event could not have happened at a better time — or place. As UCI alumni and their family and friends, along with faculty and staff, playfully explored a room full of interactive science-based exhibits, there was no doubting that the Discovery Cube Orange County was the perfect place to honor the achievements of computer scientists and engineers.

Four of the five engineering Hall of Fame honorees were electrical engineering and computer science alumni.

“The value of your UCI degree has never been worth more than it is today,” said Samueli School Dean Gregory Washington, “and the reason it is worth so much, the reason it is so highly valued and highly coveted today… is because of the success of the individuals in this room.”

Such individuals include Amit Shah, the first of five engineering inductees. Shah earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda before coming to UCI to do graduate work in electrical engineering. His 20-plus year career has focused on early-stage investments and creating globally renowned businesses 36

where technology innovation and markets intersect. Prior to establishing his current company, Artiman Ventures, he founded a company called Zeitnet.

Shah has also shared his talents to help other startups succeed and currently sits on the boards of Ultrasense, Tonbo Imaging and Niron Magnetics.

The next inductee, Aziz Hashim, graduated with honors in 1988 with his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. In 1996, he founded NRD Holdings — a franchise development and holding company. What started as a single location in Atlanta blossomed and led to Hashim operating global franchise brands, including Popeye’s, KFC, Taco Bell and Domino’s Pizza. In 2018, Nation’s Restaurant News named him one of the 10 most influential leaders in the restaurant industry. He created the NRD Foundation to support nonprofit and for-profit international organizations that create entrepreneurs, foster financial independence and power academic research focused on franchise entrepreneurship.

Washington then recognized John Lenell, who received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1990 and his master’s degree in 1992. Lenell has the distinction of being the 25th employee at Broadcom Corp., where he began in 1995. Over the course of his 20 years there, he served as an engineer, manager and director of multiple product families and engineering teams, and ultimately transitioned to a position as senior director of strategic investments. Lenell is currently the CEO and co-founder of technology startup Qxonis. He also serves as a member of the UCI Alumni Association’s Board and the Engineering

UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Shani Murray

Dean’s Leadership Council and is on the Brian Bell Steve Zylius board of directors for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County.

Ameesh Divatia was honored next.

Divatia moved to the U.S. from India to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering and graduated in 1989.

After seven years of work experience, he began his entrepreneurial journey by co-founding Pipelinks with fellow inductee Amit Shah and serving as its chief technology officer. Today, Divatia is co-founder and CEO of Baffle, a cybersecurity company that provides a privacy-preserving analytics solution for enterprise data stores. His passion has led him to mentoring young startups via his incubation venture, Incarta, which helps to secure seed funding and provides business development guidance to less experienced entrepreneurs.

After the inductees had been recognized, one from each school was invited to speak on behalf of his or her fellow inductees, starting with engineering inductee John Lenell.

He talked about how he was influenced at a young age by his father, a career McDonnell Douglas engineer with “a pocket protector, slide rule and Apple II computer.” He also talked about the importance of opportunity.

“It is said that success is when hard work and opportunity meet, and I can see from the impressive bio list tonight for my fellow inductees that there was no shortage of hard work on their journeys, and that was true for me as well, but what about opportunity?” That, he went on to explain, is where UCI came into play.

“The unique opportunity and mentorship that I had at UCI as a student,” he said,

“was instrumental in preparing me for a career on the leading edge of technology.”

He thanked Professor Fadi Kurdahi for his class, Introduction to Digital Design, which Lenell admitted is when he first started to truly enjoy engineering. As his studies turned to digital systems and computer architecture, he joined Professor Nader Bagherzadeh’s research group focused on processors and VSLI design. According to Lenell, his experience in that lab group enabled

him to go on and successfully lead chip development in industry.

Engineering Hall of Fame 2020 inductees, from left, are Ameesh Divatia, John Lenell, Aziz Hashim, Amit Shah and Fernando Miralles-Wilhelm.

“There’s a Chinese proverb that says, ‘teachers open the door; you enter by yourself,’” he said. “So thank you, Professor Bagherzadeh and UCI, for opening the door for me and providing not only the opportunity to pursue an advanced degree at UCI, but in doing so, providing a lifetime of opportunity.”

2019-20 Year in Review

37

[FACULTY DIRECTORY] Athina Markopoulou, Ph.D.

Ozdal Boyraz, Ph.D.

Quoc-Viet Dang, Ph.D.

Nicolaos G. and Sue Curtis Alexopoulos Presidential Chair, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Information and Computer Sciences Research Interests: networking, including network protocols, network measurement and analysis, mobile systems and mobile data analysis, network security and privacy Email: athina@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: integrated optics, silicon photonics, optical communications systems and microwave photonics Email: oboyraz@uci.edu

Assistant Professor of Teaching, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: e-learning, data analysis, autonomous vehicle racing, cyberphysical systems Email: qpdang@uci.edu

Peter Burke, Ph.D.

Franco De Flaviis, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering Research Interests: nano-electronics, bionanotechnology Email: pburke@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: microwave systems, wireless communications, electromagnetic circuit simulations Email: franco@uci.edu

Hung Cao, Ph.D.

Rainer Doemer, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: biosensors and bioelectronics, cardiovascular engineering, neural engineering Email: hungcao@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: system-level design, embedded computer systems, design methodologies, specification and modeling languages, advanced parallel simulation, integration of hardware and software systems Email: doemer@uci.edu

Hamidreza Aghasi, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: analog circuit design, mm-wave and terahertz integrated circuits, high resolution integrated sensing and imaging, neuromorphic computation, emerging device technologies Email: Â haghasi@uci.edu

Mohammad Al Faruque, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Emulex Career Development Chair Research Interests: cyberphysical systems, internet of things, embedded systems, cyberphysical systems security Email: alfaruqu@uci.edu

Ender Ayanoglu, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: communication systems, communication theory, communication networks Email: ayanoglu@uci.edu

Nader Bagherzadeh, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Computer Science Research Interests: parallel processing, computer architecture, computer graphics, memory systems, 3D integrated circuits, heterogeneous computing, low-power processing Email: nader@uci.edu

Filippo Capolino, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: optics/electromagnetics in nanostructures and sensors, antennas/ microwaves, radio frequency and wireless systems Email: f.capolino@uci.edu

Aparna Chandramowlishwaran, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: high-performance computing, domain-specific compilers, algorithm-architecture co-design, data analysis, scientific computing Email: amowli@uci.edu

38 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Salma Elmalaki, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Teaching, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: mobile computing, pervasive autonomous systems, personalized computing, and internet-of-things (IoT) Email:Â salma.elmalaki@uci.edu

Ahmed Eltawil, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: design of system and architectures for computing and communication devices, low-power implementations and architectures for digital signal processing Email: aeltawil@uci.edu

Rahim Esfandyarpour, Ph.D.

Syed Jafar, Ph.D.

Henry Lee, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: nanotechnology & nanoscience, microelectromechanical systems & nanoelectromechanical systems, flexible electronics & wearables, sensors & microfluidics, microelectronics circuits & systems, internet of things biodevices, personalized medicine, point-of-care diagnostics.

Email: rahimes@uci.edu

Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: wireless communication and information theory Email: syed@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: photonics, fiber optics and compound semiconductors Email: hplee@uci.edu

Hamid Jafarkhani, Ph.D.

Guann-Pyng Li, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Conexant-Broadcom Endowed Chair Research Interests: communication theory, signal processing, coding, wireless networks, medical image segmentation Email: hamidj@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Research Interests: micro/nanotechnology for sensors and actuators, internet of things, smart manufacturing, biomedical devices and millimeter-wave wireless communication Email: gpli@uci.edu

Jean-Luc Gaudiot, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: parallel processing, computer architecture, processor architecture Email: gaudiot@uci.edu

Michael Green, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: analog/mixed-signal integrated circuit design, broadband circuit design, theory of nonlinear circuits Email: mgreen@uci.edu

Glenn Healey, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: machine learning, data science, sabermetrics, physical modeling, computer vision, image processing Email: ghealey@uci.edu

Payam Heydari, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: design and analysis of analog, radio-frequency, millimeter-wave and terahertz integrated circuits Email: payam@uci.edu

Pramod Khargonekar, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: systems and control theory, learning and intelligent systems, applications to renewable energy and smart grid, neural engineering and economics, leadership and creativity, technology and society Email: pramod.khargonekar@uci.edu

Stuart Kleinfelder, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: circuits and systems for visual imaging, X-rays, electron microscopy, particle physics and other applications Email: stuartk@uci.edu

Fadi Kurdahi, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Computer Science Research Interests: embedded and cyberphysical systems, very-large-scale integration system design, design automation of digital systems Email: kurdahi@uci.edu

Zhou Li, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: data-driven security analytics, internet measurement, side-channel analysis, internet of things security Email: zhou.li@uci.edu

Kwei-Jay Lin, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Computer Science Research Interests: real-time systems, distributed systems, service-oriented computing Email: klin@uci.edu

Henry Samueli, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: digital signal processing, communications systems engineering, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor integrated circuit design for applications in high-speed data transmission systems Email: engineeringdean@uci.edu

2019-20 Year in Review

39

[FACULTY DIRECTORY] Terence Sanger, M.D., Ph.D.

Yasser Shoukry, Ph.D.

Peter Tseng, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, CHOC; Vice Chair of Research for Pediatrics, UCI School of Medicine, Staff Physician CHOC department of Neurology Research Interests: Computational neuroscience, machine learning, failure models of biological network computing, robotic models of neurological disorders, dystonia, childhood movement disorders, biological signal processing, adaptive control, stochastic systems Email: tsanger@uci.edu

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: resilience, safety, security and privacy of artificial intelligence (AI), controlled cyber-physical systems (CPS), internet-of-things (IoT), and robotic systems Email: yshoukry@uci.edu

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: microelectromechanical systems, wearable technology, materials-bydesign, bioelectromagnetism, nanotechnology Email: tsengpc@uci.edu

Keyue Smedley, Ph.D.

Zhiying Wang, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: power electronics, renewables, energy storage and grid stabilization Email: smedley@uci.edu

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: information theory, coding theory for data storage, compression and computation for genomic information Email: zhiying@uci.edu

A. Lee Swindlehurst, Ph.D.

H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: signal processing, estimation and detection theory, applications in wireless communications, geo-positioning, radar, sonar, biomedicine Email: swindle@uci.edu

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Henry Samueli Endowed Chair Research Interests: nanoscale measurements and characterization, scanning probe microscopy, storage technology, nanobio measurement technology Email: hkwick@uci.edu

Yanning Shen, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: machine learning, data science, network science and statistical-signal processing Email: yannings@uci.edu

Phillip C-Y Sheu, Ph.D. Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science Research Interests: semantic computing, robotic computing, biomedical computing, multimedia computing Email: psheu@uci.edu

Chen Tsai, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: integrated microwave magnetics, ultrasonic atomization for nanoparticles synthesis, silicon photonics Email: cstsai@uci.edu

40 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Homayoun Yousefi’zadeh, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Research Interests: communication networks Email: hyousefi@uci.edu

INDUSTRY ADVISORY BOARD The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Industry Advisory Board was formed in 2007 and is comprised of industry representatives from a variety of electrical engineering and communications technology companies. The board meets quarterly to advise and assist academic leadership on curriculum development, student internships and design review, and to serve as a liaison to local industry.

Khaled AbouZeid

Jeff Ludwig

Fausto Andrade

Kevin Mori

Les Badin

Ken Neeld

William Cassidy

Hoa Nguyen

Mentor Graphics

Northrop Grumman Alumnus

Orange County Sanitation District

Ting Li Chan Marvell

Ray Clancy ASE Group

Dan Cregg Insteon

George Di Papa

3D Advanced Technologies

George Eaton ThingKus

Pete Fiacco

Executive Technology Consulting

Sangram K. Gaikwad VTI Instruments

Oleksandr Goushcha Luna Optoelectronics

Jeff Greenberg

Tech Coast Works

Mingying Gu

Western Digital

Jeffrey L. Hilbert WiSpry, Inc

Tahiti Capital Mazda North American Delphi Display Systems OK International

Stephen Palm Broadcom

Jerome Quinsaat Northrop Grumman

Michael Rakijas

Thales Raytheon Systems

Raffi Sakabedoyan Garmin

Darryl Sato

Beryl Technologies

Dan Schumann

Becton, Dickinson & Co.

Neema Shafigh

Keysight Technologies

Royce Slick Canon

Sumit Tandom Mathworks

Rob Valle Mazda

Steve Way

Northrop Grumman

Charles J. Kim

Southern California Edison

2019-20 2017-18 Year in Review

41

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

PAID Santa Ana, CA Permit No. 1106

University of California, Irvine Samueli School of Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 2200 Engineering Hall Irvine, CA 92697-2625

Invest in a brilliant future.

Be an EECS supporter.

We believe in meeting tomorrow’s technological challenges by providing the highest quality engineering education and research rigor today. Now more than ever, you can make a difference with your investment in the future of UCI’s electrical engineering and computer science program. It is through private donations like yours that help alleviate some of the unique challenges brought on by COVID-19 and ensure that we continue to provide outstanding opportunities for our students and researchers.

Your contribution, regardless of amount, makes a difference toward what EECS can accomplish.

To find out more about supporting the advancement of the electrical engineering and computer science department, please visit engineering.uci.edu/alumni-friends/ways-give. If you want to support a specific initiative, please contact Angelique Andrulaitis, senior director of development, at aandrula@uci.edu or (949) 824-3977.

To learn more about the EECS Department, please visit engineering.uci.edu/dept/eecs.