Weldon and Yu receive professorships
Carnegie Mellon University’s Jeffrey Weldon has been awarded The Sathaye Family Foundation Early Career Professorship in Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Byron Yu has been awarded the Gerard G. Elia Career Development Professorship in Engineering. As the highest academic award a university can bestow on a faculty member, professorships are reserved for those who show continued contributions in their field.
"Byron and Jeff, on behalf of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, congratulations on your professorships!" says Jelena Kovačević, department head of electrical and computer engineering. "We are all proud of you. Your enthusiasm for your research and passion for your students are truly inspiring. I am honored to work with you and can't wait to see what you'll do next."
Jeffrey Weldon
Jeffrey Weldon is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the faculty at CMU in 2011. His research focuses on novel nanoscale device and circuit design for next-generation integrated circuits.
Fundamental limits are approaching that threaten to end the scaling of CMOS technology. Consequently, new devices and concepts are needed to continue the performance benefits that scaling has enabled and thus extend Moore's law. His current research interests include novel nanoscale device design for beyond-CMOS technologies and heterogeneous integration with CMOS. In addition, he is investigating novel nanoscale devices for bio-medical applications.
Weldon received his B.S. degree in engineering physics and his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He was then a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Integrated Nanomechanical Systems at UC Berkeley. His doctoral research in the area of RF CMOS integrated circuits has been widely adopted by industry and is frequently cited in journals and conferences. His postdoctoral research on the carbon nanotube radio was extensively covered by the popular and scientific press, including Scientific American. He has consulted for a number of semiconductor companies and he is a member of the ISSCC Student Research Preview Committee.
Weldon received the 2001 ISSCC Lewis Winner Award for Outstanding Paper and was the recipient of the 1998 ISSCC Jack Kilby Award for Outstanding Student Paper.
Shirish and Archana Sathaye
Shirish and Archana Sathaye, personally and through the Sathaye Family Foundation, established the endowed Sathaye Family Foundation Career Development Professorship to support a non-tenured, junior faulty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering. Archana and Shirish Sathaye are engaged and committed alumni.
Archana (ECE'93) has had a career spanning industry, academia, and more recently non-profits. She was Principal Engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation in the Advanced Systems Engineering Group. She was an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh, was on the faculty in Computer Science at San Jose State University, and was also an adjunct professor in the Business School at Santa Clara University. She has published several papers and contributed book chapters in performance and availability modeling, data mining, and discrete event dynamic systems. Recently, Archana spends her time with non-profit institutions. In addition to serving as a member of the ECE Alumni Council, she is the President of the Sathaye Family Foundation, a Member of the Board of Directors of The Tech Museum of Innovation, a Member of the Board of Directors of Foothill-DeAnza College Foundation, Board Member of Air Systems Foundation Scholarship Board, an Advisory Board Member of The Harker School, and an Advisory Board Member of Sunday Friends Foundation. Archana has a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, a Masters in Applied Mathematics from Virginia Tech, and a Masters in Pure Mathematics from Bombay University.
Shirish (ECE'93), who serves as a member of the College of Engineering Dean's Advocacy Council and the ECE Alumni Council, joined Khosla Ventures as a General Partner after a decade of investment experience at Matrix Partners, and a long operating career at several technology companies. He spent eight years with Digital Equipment Corporation, first in the Semiconductor Group and then in the Network Architecture Group. Shirish moved on to FORE Systems, where he ran engineering for the ATM switch group. From there, he went to Alteon Websystems, a young Ethernet switch maker backed by Matrix Partners, as its vice president of engineering and later chief technology officer. As a venture capitalist, he works closely with entrepreneurs to assist them with developing and refining concepts and strategies and putting together strong teams. His current areas of investment focus are Wireless and Wireline Networking, Clean Tech, and Cloud-based Software, Storage and Systems. Shirish has his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and MSEE from Virginia Tech, and a Bachelors Degree in Electronics Engineering from IT-BHU, Varanasi, India.
Byron Yu
Byron Yu is an associate professor in the Electrical & Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Departments at Carnegie Mellon University. His research is at the intersection of neuroscience and engineering. He seeks to understand how networks of neurons give rise to brain function and to develop brain-computer interfaces to assist disabled patients.
It is now possible to record the activity of large numbers of neurons in the brain. Prof. Yu's research leverages these "big data" in neuroscience to advance our understanding of brain function. He and his colleagues have developed novel statistical tools and experimental paradigms to study how networks of neurons give rise to our ability to sense, to reason, and to act. In particular, they have discovered fundamental principles underlying how the brain learns, why we sometimes make mistakes, and how the brain controls movements. In addition, they are advancing the clinical viability of brain-computer interfaces to assist disabled patients.
Yu received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He was then a postdoctoral fellow jointly at Stanford University and University College London. He joined the CMU faculty in 2010.
Dr. Gerard G. Elia
Gerard Elia earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1972, a Master of Science degree in 1973, and a Doctorate in 1977 in Mechanical Engineering from CIT. Sadly, Dr. Elia passed away in 1995. At the time of his death, he was a senior engineer with Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
In 1996, Gerard’s parents, Benjamin and Rose M. Elia, established the Gerard G. Elia Career Development Professorship in Engineering in 1996 in loving memory of their son, to support an assistant or associate faculty member in CIT. This career development chair was established to reward the accomplishments of a young teacher and scholar, as well as promote the individual’s future development.
In addition to the professorship, the Elia Estate also named a laboratory in Roberts Engineering Hall for Gerard.