Faculty

The Optical Society (OSA) has named Joseph W. Goodman, emeritus professor, the 2018 Honorary Member of The Optical Society. Honorary Membership is the most distinguished of all OSA Member categories, bestowed on individuals who have made seminal contributions to the field of optics as determined by unanimous vote of the OSA Board of Directors.

Dr. Goodman is honored for fundamental contributions in the fields of Fourier Optics and Optical Information Processing through his research, teaching and classic textbooks.

"Joe Goodman's pioneering work in holography, Fourier optics, and optical information processing produced the defining textbooks on these topics," said OSA President Ian Walmsley. "He has made outstanding contributions to OSA and our community. It is my great pleasure to welcome Joe into this group of distinguished OSA Members."

Dr. Goodman received an A.B. Degree in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard University in 1958, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1960 and 1963, respectively. He has held several positions at Stanford including, William E. Ayer Professor of Electrical Engineering, Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering, and Senior Associate Dean in the School of Engineering.

Since retiring from Stanford in 2000, Dr. Goodman has devoted time to philanthropic activities, including administering the J.W. and H.M. Goodman Family Charitable Foundation. In 2005, he and his wife, Hon Mai Goodman, endowed a book-writing prize, the Goodman Book Writing Award, which recognizes a recent and influential book in the field of optics and photonics. The award is co-sponsored by OSA and SPIE.

Goodman has held numerous leadership positions in the optics community. He was the 1988-1990 President of the International Commission for Optics (ICO). He has served OSA as a traveling lecturer, technical group leader, conference organizer, journal editor, Board of Directors member and 1992 President. He also served as a director of several corporations, including Optivision, Inc., where he was a co-founder, ONI Systems and E-TEK Dynamics.

Dr. Goodman is a Fellow of OSA, IEEE, and SPIE. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards including OSA's Frederic Ives Medal / Jarus W. Quinn Prize, Max Born Award, Esther Hoffman Beller Medal and Emmett Leith Award. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1987, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.

Please join us in congratulating Joe on this wonderful recognition!

Source: www.osa.org, "Joseph W. Goodman Named 2018 Honorary Member of The Optical Society", September 2018.

Professor Jelena Vuckovic has received NSF grants for two quantum research projects.

Many of today's technologies rely on the interaction of matter and energy at extremely small scales. Quantum mechanics studies nature at such scales -- at least a million times smaller than the width of a human hair -- allowing researchers to observe, manipulate and control the behavior of particles. Next-generation technologies for communication, computing and sensing will exploit interactions among particles in quantum systems, offering the promise of dramatic increases in accuracy and efficiency.

NSF-funded researchers will explore new ways to detect photons, build bio-inspired circuits, develop light-based communication systems and more. The new awards support multi-disciplinary research through two efforts: Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE)-Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (TAQS) effort, and RAISE-Engineering Quantum Integrated Platforms for Quantum Communication (EQuIP) effort.

Some of the supported research teams will study new possibilities about the behavior of quantum states. Others will investigate new ways to stabilize quantum systems, making them more useful for technological applications. Both efforts support training of the future quantum workforce.

Jelena's projects are both within the RAISE-TAQS effort. RAISE-TAQS will support several projects for innovative approaches, experimental demonstrations and transformative advances that will help lead to systems and proof-of-concept validations in quantum sensing, communication, computing and simulations.

The NSF RAISE-TAQS effort is at the intersection of multiple disciplines and is designed to encourage scientists to pursue exploratory, cutting-edge concepts. It is meant to build a strong community of team participants who have demonstrated a readiness to examine a broad range of scientific and engineering topics related to quantum technologies.

Jelena is the Principal Investigator of "Engineering high quality, practical qubits in diamond". She is coordinating the research effort between Stanford, Harvard, and Virginia Tech.

Her second project is titled, "Inverting the design paradigm: Tunable qubits in hybrid photonic materials as a scalable platform for quantum photonic devices". She is the co-Principal Investigator.

Please join us in congratulating Jelena for this outstanding achievement.

Excerpted from the National Science Foundation Press Release, "NSF Announces new awards for quantum research, technologies", September 24, 2018.

Congratulations to Professor Andrea Goldsmith and Santa Clara University Professor Katie Wilson (PhD '94).

As co-chairs of the IEEE Wireless Communications & Networking Conference (WCNC), they are recognized for their successful mission to incorporate diversity, the latest technologies, and both industrial and academic forums.

The IEEE WCNC event is the world premier wireless event to exchange ideas and information on the advancement of wireless communications and networking technology. The event brings together industry professionals, academics, and individuals from government agencies and other institutions to exchange information and ideas.

Held in San Francisco, IEEE WCNC 2017 featured a comprehensive technical program with numerous technical sessions showcasing the latest technologies, applications and services. In addition, the conference program includes workshops, tutorials, keynote talks from industrial leaders and renowned academics, panel discussions, a large exhibition, business and industrial forums. 

The award was accepted by co-chairs Andrea Goldsmith and Katie Wilson of Santa Clara University, whose outstanding leadership drove results for and led advancement for the conference's long-term goals. This event is exemplary of how future events can grow, evolve, and be representative of today's technology industry. The WCNC organizing committee included several Stanford alums who also participated as chairs for the technical, tutorial, workshop, and panel sessions.

 

 

Please join us in congratulating Andrea, Katie and the planning committee that helped make this event such a success!

Pictured are Professor Goldsmith and Professor Wilson, receiving the iCON Award, August 2018. 

Related Links

• Read full press release, "ICON 2018 Award Winner: IEEE Wireless Communications & Networking Conference (WCNC)" 
• Conference website, 2017 IEEE Wireless Communications & Networking Conference

Ayfer Ozgur was recently selected to receive the Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Early Achievement Award for 2018. Her citation reads: "For contributions in the fundamental capacity limits of multihop wireless networks and energy-harvesting radios."

The CTTC Early Achievement Award recognizes members of the Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) who have achieved early career visibility in the field through research and service and who have participated in the CTTC, and are within 10 years of their Ph.D.

Please join us in congratulating Ayfer on this well-deserved award!

Related News: 

• June 2018, "Ozgur wins 2018 Okawa Foundation Research Grant,"
  

• March 2018, "EE and CS Departments Host the 2017 Rising Stars Workshop"

Welcome back to our undergraduate and graduate students who participated in an inaugural week long joint forum with the University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen (CUHKCZ).

Stanford and CUHKSZ students visited several Chinese tech companies such as Huawei, Tencent, and DJI. Students also spent time together doing various activities, as well as collaborative projects. Their projects were created in a new maker space on campus, and were presented at the end of the week. Being in China's tech capitol gave Stanford students an opportunity to interact with the infrastructure afforded to people in Shenzhen. For example, touring Huaqiangbei (a massive electronics hub), where visitors are able to peruse hundreds of shops to select parts for current and future projects. Students report they had an amazing time experiencing Chinese culture and the growing tech industries in Shenzhen.

Students and faculty during an outing in Shenzhen, September 2018.

The team, led by professor Gordon Wetzstein, is addressing the challenge of autonomous vehicles and aerial drones relying on large, energy intensive computers to process images. They have joined two types of computers: optical and electrical, to create a hybrid machine that can analyze images with far less computation and energy.

The result is profoundly fewer calculations, fewer calls to memory and far less time to complete the process. Having leapfrogged these preprocessing steps, the remaining analysis proceeds to the digital computer layer with a considerable head start.

"Millions of calculations are circumvented and it all happens at the speed of light," reports Gordon Wetzstein. "Some future version of our system would be especially useful in rapid decision-making applications, like autonomous vehicles."

In addition to shrinking the prototype, Wetzstein, Chang and colleagues at the Stanford Computational Imaging Lab are now looking at ways to make the optical component do even more of the preprocessing. Eventually, their smaller, faster technology could replace the trunk-size computers that now help cars, drones and other technologies learn to recognize the world around them.

Their work was published in Nature Scientific Reports, "Hybrid optical-electronic convolutional neural networks with optimized diffractive optics for image classification", in August.

Excerpted from The Stanford News, "Stanford engineers create new AI camera for faster, more efficient image classification", August 17, 2018

Congratulations to professor Gordon Wetzstein! He has been presented with the Significant New Researcher Award for his work in advanced display hardware and display-specific rendering techniques.

Gordon develops displays that address a variety of perceptual challenges, including auto-stereoscopy, the elimination of vergence-accommodation conflict, and elimination of the need for observers with vision defects to wear corrective lenses.

His research has produced technology that corrects for myopia, hyperopia, or presbyopia. The Light Field Stereoscope, in 2015, presented a near-eye display technology that supports focus cues in virtual reality applications.

To utilize these display mechanisms, images are rendered with new algorithms that substantially increase image fidelity. The displays are not only designed, but also prototyped and tested. Indeed, several have been demonstrated in the SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies exhibit.

Gordon is author or coauthor of over 80 conference and journal publications in Transactions on Graphics and in journals and proceedings in the fields of computer graphics, optics, information display, computer vision, and computational photography. These publications include contributions that support advanced display techniques, such as virtual reality camera rigs and cameras that capture both depth and velocity.

Please join us in congratulating Gordon on this terrific acknowledgement!

Excerpted from siggraph.org's "2018 Significant New Researcher Award: Gordon Wetzstein"

Related Links

• Gordon Wetzstein 2017 Electronic Imaging Scientist of the Year
• Stanford researchers develop technique to see objects hidden around corners

Congratulations to President Emeritus and EE Professor John Hennessy. He has been named the 2018 recipient of the Semiconductor Industry Association's Robert N. Noyce Award. The annual award recognizes a leader who has made outstanding contributions to the semiconductor industry in technology or public policy.

"Throughout his outstanding and influential career spanning more than four decades, John Hennessy has helped move the semiconductor industry forward, leading efforts to advance semiconductor technology and train future generations of electrical engineers," said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. "John literally wrote the book on computer architecture design and has spearheaded semiconductor research that has helped make our industry what it is today. On behalf of the SIA board of directors, it is an honor to announce John's selection as the 2018 Robert N. Noyce Award recipient in recognition of his exceptional accomplishments."

John co-developed an approach to computer architecture that came to be known as the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, which involved significantly fewer transistors. The simpler design led to faster speeds, lower costs and shorter design times.

John joined EE in 1977 as an assistant professor and rose through the academic ranks to become Stanford's 10th president, serving in that role from 2000 until his retirement in 2016. In February 2018, Dr. Hennessy was appointed chairman of Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google.

Please join us in congratulating John on this well-deserved recognition!

Related Links

• SIA Press Release 
• Hennessy delivers Inaugural Linvill Distinguished Seminar on Electronic Systems Technology
• John Hennessy receives the 2017 ACM A.M. Turing Award, March 2018
• Stanford News (excerpted from), “John Hennessy to receive the 2018 Robert N. Noyce Award”, August 1, 2018

March 2018 marked the Inaugural John G. Linvill Distinguished Seminar on Electronic Systems Technology. Founded by Professor Emeritus James Gibbons and Professor H.S.- Philip Wong, the intention of the Linvill Seminar is to encourage the exploration of future trajectories for electrical engineering.

John Linvill was a revered figure at Stanford as much for his self-effacing and unpretentious style as for his engineering foresight and his commitment to the entrepreneurial spirit. Linvill helped launch Stanford on a trajectory that would ensure Stanford's continuing leadership in electronics engineering for decades to come. These lectures have been created to help us explore our paths going forward, and to honor John Linvill's enormous legacy as both a faculty member and a department chairman, whose commitment to excellence at Stanford continues to be a model for us all.

Featured speaker, Professor and President Emeritus John L. Hennessy, presented "The End of the Road for General Purpose Processors & the Future of Computing". The inaugural Linvill presentation is available through the video below.

Abstract of "The End of the Road for General Purpose Processors & the Future of Computing" – After 40 years of remarkable progress in VLSI microprocessors, a variety of factors are combining to lead to a much slower rate of performance growth in the future. These limitations arise from three different areas: IC technology, architectural limitations, and changing applications and usage. The end of Dennard scaling and the slowdown in Moore's Law will require more efficient architectural approaches than we have relied on to date. Although progress on general-purpose processors may hit an asymptote, domain specific architectures may be one attractive path for important classes of problems.

Read more about John Linvill

Visit Stanford EE's YouTube Channel

Interdisciplinary research between professor Balaji Prabhakar, his team, and Google has produced a software clock synchronization system that can track time down to 100 billionths of a second.

The paper, presented at NSDI '18, describes a nanosecond-level clock synchronization that can be an enabler of a new spectrum of timing- and delay-critical applications in data centers.

The current, popular clock synchronization algorithm, NTP, can only achieve millisecond-level accuracy. Current solutions for achieving a synchronization accuracy of 10s-100s of nanoseconds require specially designed hardware throughout the network for combatting random network delays and component noise or to exploit clock synchronization inherent in Ethernet standards for the PHY.

The research team presents HUYGENS, named for the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens, who invented the pendulum clock in 1656. HUYGENS is a software clock synchronization system that uses a synchronization network and leverages three key ideas. First, coded probes identify and reject impure probe data—data captured by probes which suffer queuing delays, random jitter, and NIC timestamp noise. HUYGENS then processes the purified data with Support Vector Machines, a widely-used and powerful classifier, to accurately estimate one-way propagation times and achieve clock synchronization to within 100 nanoseconds. Finally, HUYGENS exploits a natural network effect—the idea that a group of pair-wise synchronized clocks must be transitively synchronized— to detect and correct synchronization errors even further.

The importance of technical advances in measuring time was underscored by European regulations that went into effect in January and that require financial institutions to synchronize time-stamped trades with microsecond accuracy.

Being able to trade at the nanosecond level is vital to Nasdaq. Two years ago, it debuted the Nasdaq Financial Framework, a software system that it has envisioned eventually trading everything from stocks and bonds to fish and car-sharing rides.

The new synchronization system will make it possible for Nasdaq to offer "pop-up" electronic markets on short notice anywhere in the world, Mr. Prabhakar said. He cited the World Cup as a hypothetical example of a short-term electronic marketplace.

"There are tickets needed, housing, people will need transportation," he said. "Think of an electronic market almost like a massive flea market hosted by Nasdaq software."

The HUYGENS team is Yilong Geng (EE PhD candidate), Shiyu Liu (EE PhD candidate), and Zi Yin (EE PhD candidate), Ashish Naik (Google Inc.) EE professors Balaji Prabhakar and Mendel Rosenblum, and Amin Vahdat (Google Inc.)

Related Links (excerpted from)

• The New York Times', "Time Split to the Nanosecond Is Precisely What Wall Street Wants," June 29, 2018.
• Paper presented at NSDI '18, "Exploiting a Natural Network Effect for Scalable, Fine-grained Clock Synchronization".