Department Celebrates Achievements During Annual ‘Welcome Back’ Luncheon and Awards Ceremony

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recently held its annual Fall ‘Welcome Back’ Luncheon and Awards Ceremony, where student, staff and faculty were recognized for their accomplishments.

This year’s departmental awards include:

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Staff Award: Kathryn Weiland, Director of Undergraduate Studies

George Corcoran Memorial Award for a Graduate Student in recognition of excellence in teaching: Niloy Acharjee

The David Bader Award (formerly the Graduate Student Service Award) in recognition of graduate student who distinguishes themselves through exception service and leadership to the Department: Arafat Hasnain

This award was recently re-named for Dr. David A. Bader (Ph.D. ’96) in honor of his support of the electrical and computer engineering graduate student program as an alumnus and as the founder of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Student Association (ECEGSA).

The George Corcoran Memorial Award for Faculty, presented annually to a young faculty member who has shown exemplary contributions to teaching and educations leadership: Professor Cheng Gong

Jimmy H.C. Lin Awards – awarded annually to students, staff and faculty who transform their ideas into innovations through invention and technology commercialization.

• Jimmy H.C. Lin Award for Innovation and Invention: Professor Mohammad Hafezi and his former student, Venkata Vikram Orre (EE Ph.D. 2019) for their patent “Tunable Robust Topological Source of Indistinguishable Correlated Photon Pairs.”
• The Jimmy H.C. Lin Award for Invention: Professor Cheng Gong, in recognition of his research “2D Materials-Based Nanosensors for Rapid Monitoring of Meat Freshness.”

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Dissertation Award, in recognition of recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields. This year’s recipients are:

Uday Saha, advised by Prof. Edo Waks
Dissertation: Quantum Modem and Router for Quantum Internet

Nadee Seneviratne, advised by Prof. Carol Espy-Wilson Dissertation: Generalizable Depression Detection and Severity Prediction Using Articulatory Representations of Speech

Justin Stine, advised by Prof. Reza Ghodssi
Dissertation: Mesoscale Embedded Sensor-Integrated Systems for Localized Biomedical Monitoring

Jiahao Zhan, advised by Prof. Mario Dagenais and Prof. Sylvain Veilleux (Astronomy)
Dissertation: Silicon Nitride Integrated Photonic Devices and Their Applications in Astronomy and Quantum Physics

Congratulations to all of this year’s awardees!

https://ece.umd.edu/news/story/department-celebrates-achievements-during-annual-lsquowelcome-backrsquo-luncheon-and-awards-ceremony