New faculty members join the ECE community
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering ushers in the 2019-2020 academic year with four new faculty members, strengthening the innovative research fields of microsystems, nanotechnology, and cybersecurity.
“I’m excited to welcome Vanessa, Marc, Xu, and Siyang into the ECE community,” said Larry Pileggi, department head and Tanoto Professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Their enthusiasm and dedication to the field of electrical and computer engineering will motivate and inspire our students. Please join me in welcoming them to Carnegie Mellon University.”
New faculty for the 2019 fall semester include:
Vanessa Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned her Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduation, she joined Qualcomm to develop next-generation sensing and communication systems. Her research focuses on low-power circuits and systems with work spanning the design of high-performance data converters, ubiquitous sensory interfaces, as well as hardware-based cybersecurity.
Marc Dandin, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned his Ph.D. in bioengineering from University of Maryland, College Park. His work on the development of low-noise photodetectors and CMOS VLSI readout circuits for portable fluorescence sensors, high-performance thinfilm optical filters, and packaging processes for integrated fluorometers has led to several patents. He will add significant strength to the department's research thrust in beyond CMOS and healthcare and quality of life. Dandin is the founder of Kiskeya Microsystems LLC, a startup company commercializing point-of-care microsystems for HIV viral load monitoring.
Xu Zhang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, will start September 1, 2019. Zhang earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests are to enable new paradigms of nano-devices and their system-level integration by leveraging the emerging nanomaterials (e.g. atomically thin 2D crystals) and nanotechnology.
Siyang Zheng, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. His current main research interests center around biomedical micro/nano technologies and their applications to cancer and infectious diseases.