The Maryland Chamber of Commerce inducted Jeong H. Kim (Ph.D. '91, reliability engineering), president of Bell Labs at Alcatel-Lucent, Clark School benefactor and a professor of the practice in mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering (ECE), into its Maryland Business Hall of Fame.

The university's alumni association honored three Clark School alumni during its annual awards gala. Michael D. Griffin, Ph.D. '77, aerospace engineering, received the President's Distinguished Alumnus Award, for his work as chief administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Emilio A. Fernandez, B.S. '69, EE, was presented with the Engineering Alumnus of the Year Award for his accomplishments in industry. Fernandez, an entrepreneur who co-founded Pulse Electronics, is a member of the Clark School's Innovation Hall of Fame and the school's board of visitors. Sudhitham Chirathivat, B.S. '71, electrical engineering (EE), was presented with the university's international alumnus award in recognition of his career in the retail industry around the globe. Chirathivat is president and CEO of Central Pattana Public Co., Ltd. in Thailand.

Yan Lindsay Sun, Ph.D. '04, EE and Institute for Systems Research (ISR), an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. Sun, a former advisee of Professor K. J. Ray Liu (electrical and computer engineering [ECE]/ISR), received the honor for her research initiative, titled "Building Trust in Distributed Networks: Theories, Architecture and Applications." The goal of her research is to improve network security and performance by developing a system-wide trust infrastructure.

Steven Gotoff (B.S. '78, zoology, and '82, EE), has received a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Fellows Award in recognition of his outstanding technical achievement within the intelligence community. Gotoff currently oversees technology development and fielding efforts for the Directorate of Measurement and Signature Intelligence and Technical Collection at the Defense Intelligence Agency. This is the second year in a row a Clark School alumnus has been recognized with this award.

Two EE alumni were named fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Naomi Leonard, Ph.D. '94, was named an IEEE Fellow "for contributions to control of underwater vehicles." Leonard is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University. Her advisor was Professor P.S. Krishnaprasad (ECE/ISR). Leandros Tassiulas, Ph.D. '92, was also named an IEEE fellow for his contributions to algorithms, protocols and architectures of wireless communication networks. He is currently a faculty member at the University of Thessala, Volos, Greece. His advisor was Professor Anthony Ephremides (ECE/ISR).

Ajay Gupta (M.S. '98, EE), founder of the Greenbelt, Md.-based cybersecurity company, Gsecurity, Inc., recently chaired Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's cyber security and data privacy transition work group. Gupta is the author of two books on computer security, Hack I.T. and Defend I.T. He was advised by Professor John Baras (ECE/ISR).




Hsu-Wei Fang (M.S. '96 and Ph.D. '03, chemical engineering) has been promoted to associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan.





Steve Haga (B.S. '95, M.S. '99 and Ph.D. '05, EE) has been appointed assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan.







Jonathan Neumann (B.S. '00, M.S. '02 and Ph.D. '05, EE), a former advisee of ECE Chair Pat O'Shea, co-wrote a paper titled "VNIR/SWIR Target Detection Comparison from the MAT Data Collect," which won a Naval Research Laboratory Alan Berman Research Publication Award. Neumann, along with his co-authors, examined the results of two sensor systems.