About Me
I am the Philip L. and Marsha Dowd University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. I am a member of the US National Academy of Engineers, see IEEE Technical SPOTLIGHT announcement, or the IEEE Signal Processing Society Newsletter announcement, Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors, a corresponding member of the Portugal Academy of Science, an IEEE Fellow, and a Fellow of the AAAS. I am a member of the US National Academies Navy Studies Board. Technology of two of my patents (co-inventor Alek Kavcic) is found in over 3 billion hard-disk-drives (about 60% of all computers sold worldwide in the last 12 years). This was the subject of a $750 Million settlement between CMU and a chip manufacturer (2016), the largest ever IP settlement in the information technologies area. Technology developed in my research group was licensed by Intel (as an add-on library to Intel's IPP library) and Siemens, among others. I co-founded Spiralgen.
I received several awards, including the IEEE Signal Processing Society Society Award for outstanding technical contributions and leadership in signal processing and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Achievement Award for fundamental contributions to statistical signal processing.
I hold a D. Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, M.Sc., and EE degrees all from MIT and an EE degree from Instituto Superior Técnico (IST, Portugal). I was a visiting Professor at the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and at NYU in 2013-2014, a visiting Professor at MIT (2006-2007, 1999-2000, and 1984-86), a visiting scholar at USC (Summers of 79-81), and was on the faculty of IST (Portugal).
My research interests are in Data Science and Signal Processing on Graphs, also referred to as Graph Signal Processing, including distributed decision and inference in networked systems. Recent other projects included distributed detection in sensor networks, robust detection and imaging by time reversal, bioimaging, SPIRAL, DSP on Graphs, SMART, and image/video processing. My work has been sponsored by several US federal agencies including Darpa, NIH, ONR, ARO, AFOSR, and NSF grants, and several industrial grants. I contribute regularly to IEEE publications.
In 2016 I was IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities and IEEE Board Member and Director. In 2012-13, I was on the Board of Directors of the IEEE and served as IEEE Division IX Director. I was the President of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2008-2009), Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and acting Editor in Chief for the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. I was on the Editorial Board of several Journals, including the ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks and the IEEE Proceedings. I was in the steering committee of the IEEE International Symposium on Bioimaging (ISBI) and on the steering committee of the ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Information Procesing in Sensor Networks (IPSN). I have served on several IEEE Boards including the IEEE Products and Services Board (PSPB), the Education Activities Board (EAB) (2010), Technical Activities Board (2008-09), Press Board, the TAB Periodicals, and the TAB Publications Review Committee, and chaired the TAB Transactions Committee (joining all IEEE Editors in Chief). I served as Vice-Chair of the IEEE Publications Services and Products Board (PSPB) (2008). I have guest eduited several journal issues, including the February 2005 Special Issue of the IEEE Proceedings on Program Generation, Optimization, and Platform Adaptation and co-guest edited the 2004 January Special Issue of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine on iterative signal processing.
I received, in 2000, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal for outstanding achievements and contributions, the 2003 IEEE Signal Processing Meritorious Service Award, in 2006 an IBM Faculty Award, the 2007 CMU's College of Engineering Outstanding Research Award (with Markus Püschel), and the 2008 Philip L. Dowd Fellowship Award for Contributions to Engineering Education. In 2010, I was elected University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University to recognize my professional achievement as well as breadth of interests and competence and which is conferred on faculty members with exceptional national or international distinction. In 2016, I received CMU's Distinguished Professor of Engineering Award in recognition of exceptional achievements that have enhanced the reputation of the college of engineering.