Aug 16, 2022

The Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is excited to welcome new faculty members. ECE's newest members bring extensive and diverse academic expertise in the fields of nanoelectronics, cybersecurity, machine learning, and much more.

New tenured and tenure-track faculty members include:

New academic professionals include:

Learn more about the School’s newest academic members below and hear why they're excited to be joining one of the country’s top ECE programs.

New Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Members

Amirali Aghazadeh
Assistant Professor

Amirali is joining ECE from the EECS department at UC Berkeley. In addition to ECE, he is a program faculty and a member of the machine learning (ML) Ph.D. program and an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Data Science and Engineering (IDEAS), one of Tech’s ten interdisciplinary research institutes.

The goal of his research is to find innovative statistical and computational solutions to problems in the sciences by developing probabilistic modeling, learning, and inference methods that work efficiently at large scale. He builds foundational algorithms motivated by real-world applications, focusing on emerging areas that bridge machine learning, optimization, and high-dimensional statistics with biology, chemistry, and physics. 

“There is no better time than now to work on machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) as they are transforming every aspect of our life from healthcare to finance, and transportation to the sciences. I am very fortunate to join the amazing faculties in the digital signal processing (DSP) group at Georgia Tech. I look forward to bringing my knowledge and expertise from signal processing, applied mathematics, and statistics to address some of the most pressing challenges ML/AI face in the future, especially in the sciences.”


Suman Datta
Professor; Joseph M. Pettit Chair in Advanced Computing; Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar; Joint appointment with the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)

Suman Datta, one of the nation’s top researchers in semiconductor and nanoelectronic device research, is joining ECE as the Joseph M. Pettit Chair and a Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar. He will also have a joint appointment with the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). Prior to ECE, Datta was the Stinson Chair Professor of Nanotechnology at the University of Notre Dame, as well as the director of the six-university Center for Extremely Energy Efficient Collective Electronics (EXCEL) and ASCENT (Applications and Systems-Driven Center for Energy-Efficient Integrated NanoTechnologies).

Datta’s research involves high-performance, heterogenous computing, in-memory computing, brain-inspired computing, and collective state computing using advanced CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) and beyond-CMOS devices. He also focuses on the development of semiconductor technologies for other types of computing, including intermittent computing, cryogenic computing, and harsh environment computing.

“I have been fortunate to pursue a career in semiconductor science and technology, a field inherently multi-disciplinary that touches many areas of physical sciences. Looking ahead, with new paradigms of computing, communication, and information storage on the horizon, I see traditional boundaries between computing and physical sciences blurring. This is why I’m thrilled to join the Georgia Tech family in ECE and MSE. Additionally, as a new member of the Georgia Research Alliance, I look forward to bringing my technology development experience in the private sector and contributing to the larger tech transfer and commercialization ecosystem in the State of Georgia.”


Fabian Monrose
Professor; Julian T. Hightower Chair in Cybersecurity

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Fabian Monrose was a Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). From 2014 to 2018, he also served as the Director of Computer and Information Security at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). RENCI develops and deploys advanced technologies to facilitate research discoveries and practical innovations. After earning his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University in 1999, he joined the Systems Security Group at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. In 2002, he joined Johns Hopkins University where he served as a founding member of their Information Security Institute. In 2008, he relocated to UNC as an associate professor.

As a prominent leader in the field, Monrose has served as the program chair for several cybersecurity venues. He has published over 100 papers in flagship computer and communications security conferences. His research has received numerous awards, including Best Paper Awards at the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy as well as the USENIX Security Symposium, the Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies Award, and the AT&T Best Applied Security Paper Award.

“Over the past decade, my research focus has been driven by my interest in finding solutions to several troubling problems in computer security. For the most part, my philosophy has been to pursue problems that have significant pragmatic value and has therefore centered around systems-oriented aspects of the field. Given the fact that Georgia Tech is the preeminent research and technology hub for high-impact cybersecurity innovation, it just felt like the natural fit for continuing my research endeavors. Alas, my long-standing history of successful collaborations with colleagues here (both within ECE and the new School for Cybersecurity and Privacy) made Georgia Tech just feel like home. Some might say the decision to finally move to Atlanta was long overdue. I’m excited about the opportunities to continue to participate on projects that are of critical importance to national security and for building capacity in cybersecurity via the diverse array of degree programs we offer.”


Seun Sangodoyin
Assistant Professor; Sutterfield Family Early Career Professor

Oluwaseun (Seun) Sangodoyin received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) in 2018. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech ECE from 2018-2021 and a Sutterfield Family Postdoctoral Scholar from 2021-2022, where he worked with professors Alenka Zajic (ECE) and Stanislav Emelianov (BME/ECE), respectively. 

Sangodoyin specializes in the design and prototype implementation of biosensing circuits, communication (biotelemetry) systems and imaging algorithms for diagnosis, biopsy and therapeutic applications in hard-to-reach areas in the human body. He is also engaged in the development of devices that provide prosthetics services to augment damaged biological functionalities and protect implantable and ingestible devices from security vulnerability attacks.

"I believe that preventive medicine is the future of healthcare and that this will require anticipatory actions such as having regular screening for diseases. I believe engineers must lead this charge by providing non-invasive to minimally invasive screening tools to facilitate procedures done at a convenience to examinees. Development of such solutions are marked with challenges ranging from miniaturization (to a few millimeters or less) of sensing devices to attaining energy efficient multi-functional devices with low complexity constraint, and merging (interfacing) integrated circuits with biological tissues. These solutions can only be achieved through multi-disciplinary research. Georgia Tech affords the opportunity to tackle such objectives due to its large body of faculty — a significant pool for collaboration on multidisciplinary work."


Visvesh Sathe
Associate Professor

Sathe is joining ECE from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Washington where his group conducted research over a variety of areas covering circuits and architectures for low power computing and biomedical systems. His areas of interests span digital, mixed-signal and integrated power circuits, with an emphasis on exploiting computing and system-circuit-technology co-design for enhancing system capabilities.

Sathe led the research and development effort while working at Advanced Micro Devices that resulted in the first-ever resonant clocked commercial microprocessor. In addition, several of his other inventions in the area of high-speed digital design, low-power processing, and adaptive clocking for supply droop mitigation have been adopted for use in future-generation microprocessors.

“I’ve been fortunate to have worked over a range of problems spanning computing, communication, and interface electronics, and cross-pollinating ideas between these areas. I expect future advances will increasingly require efforts that are simultaneously rigorous and cross-cutting. I’m therefore thrilled to be joining the Georgia Tech community at such a time and looking forward to contributing to its leadership and its broader culture of excellence in engineering and the physical sciences.”


Saman Zonouz
Associate Professor ECE and School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP)

Zonouz is joining Georgia Tech as an associate professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) in the College of Computing, with a joint appointment in ECE. Previously, he was an associate professor at Rutgers University.

His research focuses on security and privacy research problems in cyber-physical systems including the attack detection and response capabilities using techniques from systems security and control theory. Zonouz 's research has been awarded by Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NSF CAREER Award in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Significant Research in Cyber Security by the National Security Agency (NSA), and Faculty Fellowship Award by Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). Saman obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011.

“I love my topic of research — its problems are real and challenging. The cyber-physical systems security requires solid expertise in cybersecurity such as malware analysis and reverse engineering as well as decent knowledge of control theory and formal methods. I am humbled and feel super excited to join the Georgia Tech family, the Schools of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) and ECE; they host the best researchers of the aforementioned topics in the world. Moving forward, I am full of positive energy to push forward for real impact by staying in the moment, consistent hard work, and collaborative endeavors!”

Mohamed Aly Saad Aly 
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Aly Saad Aly recently joined ECE at Georgia Tech as an adjunct assistant professor, and assistant professor at Georgia Tech-Shenzhen In. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from University of South Florida in 2005 and 2006, respectively. He earned Ph.D. in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada in 2016. His Ph.D. work focused on microfabrication, microfluidics and Lab-on-chip (LOC) for biomedical applications such as on-chip bacterial cell lysis and DNA isolation.

Aly Saad Aly joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tulane University during his postdoctoral fellowship. During his work at Tulane, he collaborated with a team of researchers in designing and fabricating a portable platform used in neurophysiological studies. He then joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Miami College of Henan University. Before joining GTSI, Aly Saad Aly was a research professor at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science & Technology (DGIST). At DGIST his research work related to cell isolation/purification, hydrogel-based immunocytochemistry platform, and electroceutical approach for enhancing neural cells myelination and treatment for sarcopenia.  Aly Saad Aly worked in industrial environment where he was involved in several projects focused on microelectrodes arrays (meas): design, simulation, and fabrication; diagnostic and real-time image-guided surgery x-ray bio-imaging systems (such as c or u arm); design, simulation and testing of portable electrochemical biosensors integrated into optical imaging systems.


New Academic Professionals Members

Shanthi Rajaraman
Senior Academic Professional

Shanthi Rajaraman received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Rutgers University respectively. After over 15 years of teaching and undergraduate research mentoring experience in a liberal arts college, she is joining the Georgia Tech ECE program as a senior academic professional. Her research interests span the areas of synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry, complementary and alternative medicines and chemical education. In her prior position as a chemistry faculty, in addition to teaching chemistry courses, she utilized her training in the South Indian classical dance style Bharatanatyam, and offered classes in the General Studies curriculum. As part of this, she has guided students to do service-learning and community engagement projects. She also led efforts on assessment of student learning in the Organic Chemistry division within the Chemistry program.

"I am passionate about teaching and mentoring undergraduate research. I look for ways to integrate service-learning and community engagement in my classes. I am excited to join the ORS program in the School of ECE at Georgia Tech. It affords a unique platform for me to best utilize my skills and experience, and contribute to a rewarding and fulfilling research experience for students."


Jacqueline Rohde
Academic Professional

Jacqueline (Jacki) Rohde holds degrees from Clemson University (bioengineering) and Purdue University (engineering education). She was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship sponsoring her dissertation work on engineering students’ career decision-making.

As the assessment coordinator fo­­r ECE, Jacki compiles the data and documents to prepare annual reports and Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) documentation. She also supports instructors who are interested in making changes in their classroom or doing educational research. She is passionate about professional development, student belonging, engineering culture, and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

“I like to think of assessment work from a systems engineering perspective. As a student moves through the ECE program, they get to experience all kinds of lectures, labs, and extracurricular experiences that feed into a top-level engineering degree. Assessment work helps us figure out how to make the system operate more smoothly, where both students and instructors are getting everything they need to succeed. I’m very excited to help elevate the curricula and document our improvement efforts.”


Michael (Mick) West
Principal Academic Professional

Michael (Mick) West is joining ECE from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Hawaii (UH) in 2006 and has over 28 years of professional experience with over 40 refereed journals and conference papers.

West specializes in the development unmanned systems in extreme environments (under-ice, planetary, deep ocean, polar). He has been an invited speaker for United States Congressional leaders and their staff and top military personnel in the development of roadmaps for advancing current robotics research.  He has served as PI on several Unmanned Systems programs developing novel enabling technologies including advanced control and power systems on underwater, ground, air and space platforms. West developed the first-of-its-kind under-ice vehicle, Icefin, in order to gather information about the changing polar ice and provide insight into areas of climate science, as well as biology and planetary science. The vehicle has been deployed over five seasons through the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and provided never before seen images and scientific data of the Antarctic seafloor.

“I believe that I have chosen an exciting career path for myself as a university electrical engineering researcher and instructor. This has placed me in a unique position to contribute to answering some of our world’s toughest problems from climate change to [extraterrestrial life]. For over 28 years, I have strived to pass on knowledge gained from these endeavors to other researchers. But, more importantly, I have sought the audience of students to pass these skills to the next generation. As someone who has practiced in the electrical engineering profession for a number of years, I believe that it is an important duty to impart our lessons learned onto inquisitive Georgia Tech ECE students that are eagerly going into the challenging and demanding engineering workforce.”

Contact

Dan Watson
dwatson@ece.gatech.edu