UCLA SAMUELI SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers
- Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean
Ah-Hyung "Alissa" Park is the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, with nearly 200 faculty members and more than 6,500 undergraduate and graduate students.
Prior to beginning her role at UCLA September 1, 2023, Park had been a faculty member at Columbia University in New York since 2007 where she served as the Lenfest Earth Institute Professor of Climate Change and the director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy. She was also the chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering and an executive committee member of The Earth Institute and Columbia Climate School.
At Columbia, Park created highly interdisciplinary research and educational programs in sustainable energy and decarbonization, including the CarbonTech Development Initiative for translational decarbonization research - a collaboration between the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy and the Center on Global Energy Policy. She also substantially improved the diversity of the faculty and student bodies within her units, spearheading efforts to achieve a cultural shift toward equity, inclusion and respect.
Park's research focuses on sustainable energy and materials conversion pathways with an emphasis on using integrated carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies to address climate change. At UCLA, her research group will continue to investigate direct air capture of carbon dioxide and negative emission technologies, including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and sustainable construction materials with low carbon intensity.
Park is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), as well as the American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Committee on Carbon Utilization Infrastructure, Markets, Research and Development.
Job Titles:
- Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Chair
C.K. Ken Yang is a professor and chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
Yang joined the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering in 1998 and has focused his research on mixed analog-and-digital circuit design and its impact on computing systems. He is a pioneer in enabling multi-gigabit-per-second communication between processing elements and has introduced circuit techniques to overcome timing noise and data-bandwidth bottlenecks.
Prior to his appointment as chair in July 2020, Yang was the director of the ECE department's Integrated Circuits and Systems Laboratory and served as vice chair of the Industry Affiliates program. He has worked closely with industry partners, such as Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM, Keysight, Micron and Xilinx.
Yang is currently working on developing new capabilities and applications through novel devices, circuits and system design.
Previously, his research group worked on optimizing algorithms to evaluate the performance impact of introducing new device elements in circuit sub-systems such as analog to digital converters. Recently, the team introduced integrated parasitic diodes to enable sub-microwatt wireless radios and high-voltage drivers. Through collaborations with colleagues, he developed high-frequency circuits for distance-ranging applications and near terahertz circuits for communications.
Yang has also extended his work in data communications to computer networking and has introduced software and hardware mechanisms for virtualizing network connections between virtual machines.
In addition to authoring more than 100 publications, Yang has also served as an associate editor for Transactions on Circuits and Systems II, as well as being a guest editor of the Journal of Solid-State Circuits. He is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow, a member of Tau Beta Pi and Phi Beta Kappa, a recipient of the 2003 and 2004 IBM Faculty Development Fellowship, and the 2003 Northrup Grumman Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2009, he co-founded Pluribus Networks, Inc., which uses software-defined networking to bring virtualization to computer networking.
Yang received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean
- Chief
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Assistant Dean, Chief Marketing Communications Officer
Christine Wei-li Lee is Assistant Dean and Chief Marketing Communications Officer of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. She serves as the school's chief spokesperson and oversees its external and internal marketing and communications strategies and programs.
Trained as a journalist, Lee brings three decades of global marketing communications, public affairs, political campaigns and crisis management experience. She has led advertising and public relations initiatives at major agencies, as well as in-house communications teams at topnotch corporations. POLITICO has called Lee a "veteran communications strategist."
Before joining UCLA Samueli in 2019 as Executive Director of Communications, Lee served as head of West Coast PR for the international law firm Covington & Burling, where she spearheaded creative and effective media-relations and public-relations programs. Lee was Founding Partner and Managing Director of The Garry South Group, a California-based public affairs and public relations firm, where she guided C-suite clients, as well as state and federal political candidates, in all aspects of communications strategy.
Prior to establishing her own firm, Lee was recruited by leading global executive-search firm Korn Ferry International as its Director of Marketing Communications. Based in the company's Los Angeles headquarters, Lee oversaw strategic communications for the firm's then 14 offices in 10 Pacific Rim countries and traveled extensively to Asia and Australasia (Australia and New Zealand.)
In addition to her extensive experience in corporate marketing communications, Lee also has had a long career working in politics and government, including an appointment by California Gov. Gray Davis as a Commissioner on the California State World Trade Commission. She served as Senior Advisor to Gov. Davis on his lieutenant gubernatorial and two gubernatorial campaigns. At the 1996 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Lee served as a foreign press liaison, managing international media during prime-time floor coverage of President Bill Clinton's acceptance speech.
Lee holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York, where she received the Carlotta di Cagno and Davide di Cagno Hagen Award for best investigative story on environmental or human rights issues. She received a B.A. in communication studies from UCLA, earning magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors. A native of Taiwan, Lee is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and is well-versed in intersectional communications to improve equity and diversity.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Computational Medicine Department Chair
- Professor
Eleazar Eskin is a professor and the founding chair of the Computational Medicine Department. Formerly named the Department of Biomathematics at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, the department became affiliated with the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering in December of 2017. Eskin is also a professor of computer science and human genetics, and is the co-director of the undergraduate bioinformatics minor within the UCLA Bioinformatics Interdepartmental Graduate Program.
At UCLA, Eskin leads the ZarLab, which focuses on developing techniques to solve challenging computational problems that arise in attempting to understand the genetic basis of human disease.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eskin led the UCLA SwabSeq COVID-19 Diagnostic Laboratory, which developed a novel, next-generation sequencing-based diagnostic test and deployed the technology in October 2020 - within six months of the outbreak. The test has been in use across UCLA as well as several other universities in California. He is also the principal investigator on a $13.3 million National Institutes of Health Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics research grant to help expand the laboratory's testing capacity.
In 2022, Eskin helped spearhead a new collaboration between UCLA and Optum Labs, the research and development arm of UnitedHealth Group, focused on advancing artificial intelligence and machine learning in health care.
Eskin joined the UCLA faculty in 2006, and became a full professor in 2014. He teaches classes on computational genetics, bioinformatics and algorithms in systems. His is a Sloan Research fellow and a fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology.
Prior to joining UCLA, Eskin was an assistant professor in residence at UC San Diego. He received his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from Columbia University, and bachelor's degrees in computer science, economics and mathematics from the University of Chicago.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Civil and Environmental Engineering Department Chair
- Editor of the Journal of Structural Engineering
- Professor and Chair of the Civil
Ertugrul Taciroglu is a professor and chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.
His research interests are in theoretical and applied mechanics, and structural and geotechnical earthquake engineering. He is currently leading projects studying soil/structure interaction, performance-based seismic assessments, and simulations of structural responses under extreme loads.
His honors include the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award. He was elected to be a Fellow of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of ASCE in 2015.
Taciroglu is a section editor of the Journal of Structural Engineering, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Earthquake Spectra, and the International Journal of Structural Control & Health Monitoring.
At UCLA, Taciroglu has served in various positions at the university and school levels, including as the chair of the Academic Senate Undergraduate Council and as the vice chair of undergraduate affairs for the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.
Job Titles:
- Vice Chairman
- Dean 's Executive Board
- Retired
Eugene P. Stein retired in 2016 as vice chairman and director of Capital Strategy Research, a part of the Capital Group, a global investment management company. Gene also served on the board of directors of the parent company. He started at Capital Group in 1972 as a securities analyst with research responsibilities in financial services, computer software and services, and telecom equipment and services. Gene became an equity portfolio manager at several mutual funds in the American Funds Group. Management positions included chair of the Investment Committee, chair of the North American Management Committee and Chair of the Executive Committee.
He currently is President of the Tikun Olam Foundation. The focus of the foundation is on early childhood development, with specific interests in parent engagement, infant and toddler mental health, and educating the public about this area. He also serves on the boards of Zero To Three: National Center for Infants Toddlers and Families, the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Pitzer College, and the Los Angeles Opera. Gene is a member of Pasadena Angels, a highly regarded angel investing group providing start-up funding and advice to entrepreneurs and young companies. He has a B.S. in Engineering from UCLA, and MBA from Harvard University. Gene and his wife, Mindy established an endowed scholarship fund for UCLA engineering undergraduates.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Annual Giving
Job Titles:
- Dean 's Executive Board
- Senior Advisor to the CEO
Jim Harger has been involved in the natural gas business for over 30 years - the majority of which has been dedicated to marketing Natural Gas Vehicles and building fueling stations. In 1997, after 14 years of service at Southern California Gas Company, he left the utility to join Pickens Fuel Corp., the predecessor to Clean Energy, as Vice President of Marketing. He was the company's second employee.
While at Clean Energy, Jim pioneered the world's first deployment of compressed natural gas (CNG) powered refuse trucks with Waste Management in Palm Desert, California, including fueling the fleet while parked overnight. This strategy became the industry model and is still practiced today. In parallel, he and his team convinced more than two dozen of the nation's largest airports to use CNG for airside and contract fleets, including taxis and shuttles, as a means to mitigate emissions so additional runways and terminals could be built with no additional environmental impact. Jim also led the company's entrance into the liquefied natural gas (LNG) business with Tempe Transit in 1999 and later convinced Freightliner and Kenworth to build the world's first LNG heavy duty tractors that served the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Over the next few years, the company went public and raised sufficient capital to commission the first LNG plant in California and begin building a nationwide network of CNG and LNG stations that allowed heavy-duty trucks to move goods throughout most of the Continental U.S. Over 150 stations are now in operation, including a large percentage at Pilot Flying J's Travel Centers, the nation's largest truck stop operator in North America.
At the conclusion of 2014, Jim retired as the company's Chief Marketing Officer but remained on staff as the CEO's Senior Advisor. Today, he collaborates with shippers, for-hire carriers and private fleets in their transition to adopting natural gas trucks in their supply chains and operations. He has seen the company grow from $1 million in revenue in 1997 to nearly $400 million in 2015. In May 2007, he assisted in Clean Energy's (NASDAQ: CLNE) successful IPO which raised $120 million. In 2016, Jim joined the Board of Directors at American Power Group (OTC: APGI) and the Dean of Engineering's Executive Board at his alma mater. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from UCLA and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Pepperdine University.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean
- Chief Financial Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Dean, International Initiatives and Online Programs
- Professor and Associate
Jenn-Ming Yang, professor and Associate Dean of International Initiatives and Online Programs, received his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering at National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan. After two years of military service, he worked for Texas Instruments, Taiwan, as an engineer in charge of electronic packaging materials. He came to the United States in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in metallurgy from the University of Delaware. He joined the faculty at UCLA's Department of Materials Science and Engineering in 1986.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Dean for Academic Personnel
- Distinguished Professor
- Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Professor
Jia-Ming Liu is Associate Dean for Academic Personnel. Professor Liu received a bachelor's degree in electrophysics from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, in 1975. He became a licensed professional electrical engineer in 1977. Mentored by the 1981 Physics Nobel Laureate Nicolaas Bloembergen, he received a master's degree and Ph.D. in applied physics from Harvard University in 1979 and 1982, respectively. He joined the faculty at UCLA's Department of Electrical Engineering in 1986 after serving as a faculty member at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a senior member of the technical staff at GTE Laboratories.
Professor Liu has published more than 250 scientific papers, 14 book chapters and holds 12 U.S. patents. He co-edited the book "Digital Communications Using Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics" and has authored two books: "Photonic Devices" and "Principles of Photonics." He has delivered more than 180 conference presentations and technical seminars, including more than 90 invited talks.
Professor Liu is a pioneering researcher in ultrafast lasers, ultrafast laser-material interactions, and laser dynamics. His research interests and experiences include nonlinear optics, ultrafast optics, solid-state lasers, semiconductor lasers, fiber lasers, photonic devices, optical wave propagation, nonlinear laser dynamics, chaotic communications, chaotic radar, chaotic lidar, nanophotonic imaging, neurophotonics, and graphene photonics. He has worked extensively with many government agencies and professional societies and has consulted for various private companies. He has previously served on the UCLA Academic Senate's Council on Academic Personnel.
Professor Liu is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Job Titles:
- Dean 's Executive Board
- Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company
Joanne Maguire retired as Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company in May 2013 after nearly seven years as its leader. LM Space Systems, with 2012 sales of more than $8 billion, provides a broad array of advanced-technology systems to government and commercial customers. Chief products include human space flight systems; satellites for remote sensing, navigation and communications; strategic and missile defense systems; space observatories and interplanetary spacecraft. She joined Lockheed in 2003. Prior to Lockheed, Ms. Maguire enjoyed a productive career at TRW's Space & Electronics sector (now part of Northrop Grumman) filling a range of progressively responsible positions from engineering analyst to Vice President and Deputy to the sector's CEO, serving in leadership roles over programs as well as engineering, advanced technology, manufacturing, and business development organizations.
Ms. Maguire serves on the board of directors for CommScope Holding Company, Inc. and Visteon Corporation. She serves as a board member for the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, an independent non-profit research and development organization.
She is the first woman to receive the prestigious International von Karman Wings Award presented by the California Institute of Technology in 2010 for her visionary accomplishments in space, and was honored with UCLA's Alumni Achievement Award in 2010. She has been selected numerous times by Fortune magazine to its annual list of "50 Most Powerful Women in Business." In 2009, she received the Society of Women Engineers' Upward Mobility Award in recognition of her outstanding contributions in aerospace engineering and for pioneering work in technology and diversity management.
She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State University and a master's degree in engineering from UCLA. Ms. Maguire also completed the executive program in management at UCLA's Anderson School of Management and the Harvard Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security. She was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President, Corporate Development
- Dean 's Executive Board
John P. Schauerman, served as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development of Primoris Services Corporation (NASDAQ:PRIM), a specialty construction and infrastructure company ("Primoris"), from February 2009 to May 2013, where he was responsible for developing and integrating Primoris' overall strategic plan, including the evaluation and structuring of new business opportunities and acquisitions. Prior to that, John served as Primoris' Chief Financial Officer from February 2008 to February 2009, during which time Primoris went public through a merger with Rhapsody Acquisition Corp. He also served as a director of Primoris from July 2008 to May 2013 and as a director of its predecessor entity, ARB, Inc. ("ARB") from 1993 to July 2008. John joined ARB in 1993 as Senior Vice President.
Job Titles:
- Founder
- Senior Principal
- Managing Senior Principal, Los Angeles Office
Ken Susilo is a founder and managing senior principal of Geosyntec Consultants' Los Angeles Office and the company's California Water Resources operations. He also serves on the firm's Leadership Committee and Diversity Council.
With more than 30 years of experience, Susilo specializes in integrated urban stormwater management and is currently focusing on alternative delivery (e.g., public-private partnerships) of water resources projects that provide environmental, social and economic benefits to the natural and built environment.
A former member of Geosyntec's board of directors, Susilo has also served on the Board of the Asian American Architects and Engineers Association, chairing the Committee on Public Policy and Government Affairs as well as the Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The American Society of Civil Engineers named Susilo an Outstanding Civil Engineer (private practice) in the State of California in 2006 and 2019.
Susilo received his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil engineering from UC Berkeley in 1990 and1991, respectively.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President of Space Systems Group at the Aerospace Corporation
- Senior Vice President Space Systems Group / the Aerospace Corporation
Kevin D. Bell is senior vice president of Space Systems Group at The Aerospace Corporation. He assumed this position in July 2021. In this role he is responsible for the company's support to all launch programs, ground networks, and satellite programs overseen by the U.S. Air Force Space Systems Command. Bell's previous role was vice president, Space Program Operations; in that role, he worked directly with the Air Force, government, and industry partners to develop military satellites and to advance national security space systems. Bell oversaw five major mission areas: communications, surveillance, weather, navigation, and space superiority; assisted with the development of system requirements; supported acquisition and development; and solved technical problems to ensure successful operations of space systems.
Bell joined Aerospace in 1992 as a member of the technical staff in the Vehicle Systems Division of the Engineering and Technology Group (ETG). Previously, Bell was general manager of the Imagery Programs Division, National Systems Group, and prior to that he was general manager of the Systems Engineering Division in ETG. Bell has also supported the Air Force, NASA, commercial ventures, Missile Defense Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Organization customers, serving as systems director of the Space and Directed Energy Technology Directorate; principal director of the Missile Defense Division, Systems and Technology Subdivision; and principal director of Advanced Research and Engineering, Advanced Technology Division, among other increasingly responsible positions within the corporation's National Systems Group. Prior to joining Aerospace, Bell held positions in industry, academia, and at the NASA Ames Research Center.
Bell has bachelor's degrees in both mechanical engineering and aero engineering from the University of California, Davis, and a master's degree in aero engineering from Stanford University. Bell has been recognized with the AIAA's Distinguished Service Award (1997 and 2006), the MDA 2004 Systems Engineer Award, the AS&T 2007 Director's Team Award, and the BMDO/Phillips Lab/NASA 1995 Joint Demonstration Award, among many others.
Job Titles:
- Dean 's Executive Board
- Deputy Director, Institute for Technology Advancement / UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
Leslie Lackman is responsible for seeking industrial partnerships for joint research activities with the school. Prior to joining UCLA, he had a long leadership career in the aerospace and defense industry, and is recognized as one the pioneering leaders in the application of composite materials to airframes.
As a UCLA faculty member, he has developed proposed graduate courses focused on technology management in conjunction with the Anderson School of Management.
Lackman retired from the Boeing Company in 1999 as Vice President and Site Manager of Seal Beach-Palmdale-Anaheim Military Aircraft. Prior to his retirement, he managed the military aircraft site activities of the Boeing Company in Seal Beach, Palmdale and Anaheim, California. He also directed the integration of Rockwell's Tulsa facility into the Boeing Commercial Aircraft Group and the integration of the Aerostructures Group in Melbourne, Australia, into the Boeing Aircraft and Missile Group.
Lackman served as the key executive for Boeing's integration of the Rockwell aerospace businesses of over 4,000 employees. Under Lackman's leadership, the establishment of the Palmdale X-assembly facility and the initiation of the assembly of two Boeing JSFs were achieved at Palmdale.
Job Titles:
- Senior Communications Manager
Job Titles:
- Vice President of the Agile Radar Solutions
Michelle A. Styczynski is vice president of the Agile Radar Solutions organization within Advanced Products & Solutions for Raytheon, a business of RTX.
Styczynski is responsible for delivering active electronically scanned and proven sensor radar solutions on unmanned, rotary and fixed wing platforms. Specifically, she owns the development, production, delivery and sustainment of the APG-63(V)X, APG-82(V)1 radar products for the F-15, the APG-79(V)X radar products for the F/A-18, the B-52 AESA radar and the sustainment of the B2 radar product supporting both U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and multiple international customers. Styczynski is also responsible for the development and production of the PhantomStrike radar which is the newest low cost, low SWaP and air-cooled fire control radar that Raytheon is producing. She is also responsible for terrain following sensors including Silent Knight / LANTIRN, Maritime Surveillance Sensors APY-10, SeaVue MR and the seeker than goes into the Harpoon missile which supports customers such as Boeing, SOCOM, USN and General Atomics and Leidos.
Styczynski began her career as a mechanical engineer designing the array power supply for the F-15 APG-63(V)3 system, before moving to program operations for the delivery of the entire APG-63(V)3 system to domestic and international customers. She then transitioned into program management.
Styczynski was the recipient of the Raytheon Company Program Leadership Award in 2017 for her efforts in successfully negotiating and capturing awards of over $400 million in bookings. She holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of LCY Chemical Corp
- Managing Director of the Petrochemical Industry Association of Taiwan
Mr. Bowei Lee is currently the chairman of LCY Chemical Corp. Under his leadership, the group has grown more than 18 times over the past 23 years and established global operations through organic growth, joint ventures and acquisitions. Today, LCY Chemical is not only one of the top three thermoplastic elastomer producers in the world, but also one of the leading chemical companies across petrochemical industry.
In addition, Mr. Bowei Lee has served as managing director of the Petrochemical Industry Association of Taiwan (PIAT) since 2002, and he is also the board member of the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation, the 5th president of the Taiwan Chemical Industry Association (TCIA) in 2016 as well as the founding director of Standing Committee of Alxa Society of Entrepreneurs & Ecology (SEE) Association, one of the few NGOs founded by entrepreneurs in China.
Throughout his career, Mr. Bowei Lee has been widely recognized by the industry nationally, including Innovation Model Pushing Hands Award - 3rd National Industry Innovation Awards, Ministry of Economic Affairs (2013), Special Award for the Dedication to Industrial Safety - National Industrial Safety Award and the Special Award for Industrial Safety (2013), 8th Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year - Ernst & Young Award for Green Energy Entrepreneurial Foresight (2012), 3rd Annual Outstanding Leadership Award for the Taiwan Chemical Technology Industry, Taiwan Chemical Industry Association (2007), and Award of Excellence as Director of Chinese National Federation of Industries (2005). He has also been granted patent for two inventions in 10 countries from 1982-2011.
Mukund Padmanabhan received a BS in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, India, and a MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. After UCLA, he worked in the area of speech recognition at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Lab where he managed the Advanced Telephony Speech Algorithms group. After IBM, he pivoted to Wall Street, and is currently a partner and researcher at hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, in New York. He is also the Founder and President of a private charitable foundation, the Guru Krupa Foundation. Dr Padmanabhan has published over 80 technical papers in international journals and conferences, and been granted over 20 US patents. He is a recipient of the Professional Achievement Award from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering (2019) and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT KGP (2021).
Job Titles:
- Dean 's Executive Board
- SVP of Strategy for Abell
Norma Tam is currently SVP of Strategy for Abell. Abell ideates, develops and builds wireless devices for Tier 1 telecommunication companies, leveraging the latest software and hardware technology to address the complexity, scalability and security that national service providers are facing. Since its inception, Abell has deployed
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Chairman of the UCLA Department of Chemical
- Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department Chair
Panagiotis D. Christofides is the chair of the UCLA Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He received a diploma in chemical engineering in 1992 from the University of Patras, Greece; master's degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1995 and 1996, respectively, and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1996, all from the University of Minnesota. In July 1996 he joined the faculty of UCLA, where he is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering.
His research interests include nonlinear and predictive control, and analysis and control of distributed parameter systems, multiscale systems and hybrid systems, with applications to chemical processes, advanced materials processing, particulate processes, energy and water systems. His work has resulted in more than 450 articles in leading scientific journals and conference proceedings, and seven books that have earned him a Google Scholar h-index of 60. He has supervised more than 50 graduate students and has graduated 30 Ph.D. students, many of whom hold leading positions in academia or industry. A description of his research interests and a list of his publications and students can be found here.
Christofides has received several awards , including the Teaching Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Student Chapter of UCLA in 1997, a research initiation grant from the American Chemical Society - Petroleum Research Fund in 1998, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation in 1998, the Ted Peterson Student Paper Award and the Outstanding Young Researcher Award from the Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE in 1999 and 2008, respectively, and a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2001. He has twice received the O. Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award in 2000 and 2004, and the Donald P. Eckman Award in 2004, from the American Automatic Control Council. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Federation of Automatic Control and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on the editorial board of leading control and chemical engineering journals and conferences.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Dean, Academic and Student Affairs
Richard D. Wesel received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1996. His B.S. and M.S. degrees, both in electrical engineering, are from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Wesel's research is in the area of communication theory with particular interest in channel coding. His current research interests focus on new techniques for broadcast and multiple access, as well as the design of powerful low-density parity-check codes and turbo codes and their associated decoding algorithms to maximize data transmission over noisy channels. Applications from his research include wireless LANs utilizing multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver; satellite communications; asynchronous digital subscriber lines; digital video broadcast; optical multiple access and many other communication systems. His research group won first place in the operational systems design category at the 2006 Design Automation Conference for their demonstration of a new technique for uncoordinated optical multiple access.
Wesel has received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Okawa Foundation Award. He served as an associate editor for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transactions on Communications in the area of coding from 1999-2005. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 conference and journal publications.
In the classroom, Wesel has received excellent marks from his students and was recognized in 2000 with the school's TRW Excellence in Teaching Award. Wesel has also served on the school's Faculty Executive Committee and Undergraduate Council. Most recently he was Vice-Chair of the Electrical Engineering Department.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Dean, Research and Physical Resources
- Professor
Robert Candler is a professor of electrical and computer engineering, with joint appointments in the departments of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. Beginning September 1, 2023, he also serves as the school's associate dean for research and physical resources.
Prior to his appointment as an associate dean, Candler served as the chair of the UCLA NanoLab Advisory Committee and helped lead the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded multi-institutional Engineering Research Center TANMS (Center for Translational Applications of Nanoscale Multiferroic Systems), which celebrated its decade of innovation in 2022. Candler was also the faculty director of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department's Fast Track to Success program for incoming undergraduate students
A full professor since 2019, Candler teaches upper division classes on electromagnetics and microelectromechanical systems. He received the Lockheed Martin Excellence in Teaching Award in 2020 and the Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors and a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and the Army Research Office Young Investigator Award, among others.
Candler received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University in Alabama, and M.S. and Ph.D. in the same field from Stanford University. While at Stanford, he was a Department of Defense National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellow.
Before joining UCLA in 2008 as an assistant professor, Candler served as a research engineer at the Bosch Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, and a consulting assistant professor at Stanford University.
Ronald D. Sugar served as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Northrop Grumman from 2003 until his retirement in 2010.
During his tenure, Northrop Grumman grew to become one of the world's largest aerospace and defense companies, with 120,000 employees and $35B annual revenue.
Prior to joining Northrop Grumman in 2001, Sugar held senior operating, technical, and financial positions at TRW Inc. and Litton Industries.
He is currently a director of Apple Inc., Chevron Corporation, Amgen Inc., Air Lease Corporation and serves as senior advisor to the private investment firm Ares Management LLC, Bain & Co., and Singapore's Temasek sovereign wealth fund.
He is a trustee of the University of Southern California, member of UCLA Anderson School of Management board of visitors, director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, director of Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, and national trustee of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
He is past chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of both the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Royal Aeronautical Society. He was appointed earlier by the President of the United States to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
He received BS (summa cum laude), MS, and PhD degrees in engineering from UCLA and was subsequently honored as UCLA Alumnus of the Year.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Bioengineering Department Chair
- Chairman of the Department of Bioengineering
Professor Song Li is Chair of the Department of Bioengineering. He earned his B.S. and M.S. from Beijing University and received his Ph.D. in bioengineering at UC San Diego under renowned scholar Dr. Shu Chien. Dr. Li joined UCLA Engineering in 2016 from UC Berkeley, where he was a faculty member in bioengineering since 2001 and has served as advisor or co-advisor to more than 30 Ph.D. students.
Professor Li's research interests include cell engineering and mechanobiology, cardiovascular bioengineering, in situ tissue engineering, immunoengineering and theranostic tissue engineering. His work has been published in many scientific journals including Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Science Translational Medicine and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). He has been elected as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Biomedical Engineering Society and the International Academy of Medical and Biology Engineering.
Li is an active member of the scientific community and has played a leadership role in many academic activities. He has chaired national and international conferences and symposia on biomedical engineering, mechanobiology and biomechanics, vascular tissue engineering and other topics. He has served on advisory panels for numerous governmental and research organizations in over 10 countries. He has reviewed papers for more than 50 scientific journals, edited three books and served on the editorial board of three journals.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Assistant Dean, External Affairs
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Computer Science Department Chair
- Professor of the Computer Science Department
Professor Todd Millstein is the chair and a professor of the Computer Science Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.
Millstein joined UCLA in 2003 and conducts research on software verification, network programming and verification, and probabilistic programming. He regularly teaches an undergraduate course, Principles and Practices of Computing; a graduate-level course, Types and Programming Languages; as well as a graduate research seminar that explores current topics in programming languages and systems.
Prior to assuming the role as chair of the Computer Science Department as of July 1, 2022, Millstein served as the department's vice chair for graduate studies. He has been the advisor or co-advisor to 10 Ph.D. graduates, one postdoctoral scholar and will continue to supervise Ph.D. students.
Among Millstein's many accolades are a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2006, an IBM Faculty Award in 2008, the Most Influential Programming Language Design and Implementation Paper Award in 2011, an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Micro Top Picks selection in 2012, a Microsoft Research Outstanding Collaborator Award in 2016 and an Okawa Foundation Research Grant in 2016. In 2020, Millstein received distinguished paper awards at three Association for Computing Machinery conferences.
He has also been recognized for his outstanding teaching, receiving UCLA Samueli's schoolwide Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016.
Millstein has been an academic visitor at Oxford University, a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research and a visiting fellow at Princeton University. He is also a co-founder and chief scientist of Intentionet, a networking technology startup.
He received a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and a bachelor's degree from Brown University.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Associate Dean, EDI and Faculty Affairs
- Professor
Veronica J. Santos is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and UCLA Samueli School of Engineering's associate dean for equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and faculty affairs.
In 2014, Santos joined the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, where she directs the UCLA Biomechatronics Lab. Her research interests include human hand biomechanics, human-machine systems, tactile sensors, prosthetics, and robotics for grasp and manipulation. She teaches classes on the control of robotic systems and the dynamics of particles and rigid bodies.
Among her many honors, Santos has received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development CAREER Award, UCLA Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department Teaching Award, Arizona State University's Young Investigator Award and two ASU Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering Top 5% Teaching Awards. She is an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction and was the editor-in-chief for the 2020 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Haptics Symposium.
Santos earned her bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering with a music minor from UC Berkeley, and M.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering with a biometry minor from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Prior to joining UCLA, Santos was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California and an assistant professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program at Arizona State University. She assumed the role of associate dean on Jan. 1, 2021, and is the first woman to hold the position.
Job Titles:
- DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR EMERITUS
Manickam, S. and Dhir, V.K., "Holographic interferometric study of heat transfer to a sliding vapor bubble," Elsevier, 55(4), 925-940, 2012.
Job Titles:
- Multimedia Production Manager
Bill Levin has over four decades of experience building businesses, from startups to large corporations. Most recently, Bill has been working with startup Biotech and SaaS companies. Two of the companies have been acquired, one of these, a revolutionary DNA sequencing company was just purchased for $125M cash + $225M in contingent payments. Previously he was a Vice President for Maxim Integrated Products (NASDAQ: MXIM), a worldwide leader in the design, development, and manufacture of analog, mixed signal, digital, and high-frequency circuits.
During his 9 years at Maxim, Bill initially had responsibility for Engineering , then U.S. Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management as he helped grow the company from $50M in annual revenue to $600M in annual revenue. Before Maxim, Bill was a Vice President at Shugart Corporation-where he led a turnaround that took one of the companies businesses from an unprofitable $24M in annual revenue to over $70M in highly profitable annual revenue. Bill has a B.S. in Engineering, an M.S. in Engineering, and an M.S.in Business, all from UCLA.
Job Titles:
- Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department Chair
- Member of the School
- Professor of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department
Xiaolin Zhong is the chair and a professor of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.
Zhong has been a member of the school's faculty for more than 30 years and leads the Hypersonics and Computational Aerodynamics Group. The group conducts research on the fundamental physics of hypersonic flows using advanced numerical tools and the application of discovered fundamental knowledge to real-world aerospace systems, such as the development of hypersonic planes and space vehicles.
He regularly teaches undergraduate courses on elementary fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, the mathematics of engineering and numerical methods for engineering applications. He also teaches graduate courses on compressible flows, computational aerodynamics, and hypersonic and high-temperature gas dynamics. Additionally, Zhong is the aerospace engineering area chair for the school's Master of Science Online Program.
Zhong received his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University in China and his doctorate in aeronautics/astronautics from Stanford University, joining the UCLA faculty in 1991 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and to full professor in 2002. Zhong served as the department's vice chair for graduate affairs from 2006 to 2011.
Zhong's appointment as chair became effective July 1, 2022.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Materials Science and Engineering Department Chair
- Professor of the Materials Science
Yu Huang is a professor of the Materials Science and Engineering Department. In July 2021, she was appointed chair of the department.
Huang's research focuses on mechanistic understandings of nanoscale phenomena and on exploiting the unique properties of nanoscale materials for various applications. She explores technological opportunities that result from the structure and assembly of nanoscale building blocks.
Taking advantage of the distinctive roles of nanoscale surfaces and interfaces, Huang is creating methodologies to apply the latest developments in nanoscale materials and nanotechnology for probing nanoscale processes that can fundamentally impact a wide range of technologies including materials synthesis, catalysis, fuel cells and future electronics.
Before joining the UCLA faculty in 2005, Huang was a Lawrence Fellow and held a joint postdoctoral position at Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Huang's achievements have gained her many national and international recognitions. Among her accolades are: the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fellow, the Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), International Society of Electrochemistry (ISE) Prize for Experimental Electrochemistry, the International Precious Metal Institute (IPMI) Carol Tyler Award, the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's New Innovator Award, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, the World's Top 100 Young Innovators award, the Sloan Fellowship, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Young Chemist Award and the Nano 50 Award. She is also recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher in materials science by Clarivate's Web of Science.
Huang received her B.S. in chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and both her M.A in chemistry and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Harvard University.