Electrical and Computer Engineering

Marculescu and O'Hallaron Win CIT Faculty Awards

January 14, 2005

Diana Marculescu, Assistant Professor of ECE, and David O'Hallaron, Associate Professor of Computer Science (CS) and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), have been selected for the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) faculty awards for 2004-05. Marculescu received the George Tallman Ladd Research Award, which is presented in recognition of outstanding research and professional accomplishments and potential.

"In a short time at Carnegie Mellon, Diana has established a high-quality research program that has brought significant research visibility, reputation and funding to ECE, CIT and CMU," Vijayakumar Bhagavatula, Acting Department Head of ECE, wrote in his nomination. Since joining the ECE faculty in June of 2000, Marculescu's work has expanded the university's impact in three research thrusts: energy-aware microarchitectures, minimally clocked microarchitectures, and emergent technologies.

David O'Hallaron was chosen for the Outstanding Research Award, along with the other Carnegie Mellon faculty members of the interdisciplinary Quake project: Jacobo Bielak, Omar Ghattas, and Volkan Akcelik. Their expertise encompasses four departments: Biomedical Engineering (BME), Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), CS and ECE. The team is developing the capability to use computer simulations to predict the ground motion of large basins during strong earthquakes to study the seismic response of areas such as the Greater Los Angeles Basin.

"The project's large scale model calculations and computer animations have pushed the capability of existing hardware and software systems," wrote Chris Hendrickson, CEE Professor; Pradeep Khosla, CIT Dean; and Todd Przybycien, Head of BME, in their nomination.

The CIT award winners will be honored at a banquet in the Pittsburgh Athletic Association on April 16. Other award recipients include CEE faculty Susan Finger, who won the Benjamin Richard Teare Award for Outstanding Teaching, and Larry Cartwright, who will be presented with the Dowd Teaching Fellowship.