Mehdi Kiani, Qing Li, and Wencen Wu–all recently graduated Ph.D. students of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)–were chosen for Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Ph.D. Thesis Awards earlier this spring. They were honored for their achievements at the Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Awards Dinner on April 10.

Kiani’s thesis was entitled “Wireless Power and Data Transmission to High-Performance Implantable Medical Devices.” His proposed wireless data and power transmission techniques have promising prospects for use in implantable medical devices such as biosensors and neural recording/stimulation devices, neural interfacing experiments in enriched environments, RFID, smartcards, near-field communication, wireless sensors, and charging mobile devices and electric vehicles. Advised by Maysam Ghovanloo, Kiani defended his thesis in December 2013 and graduated on May 2. He currently works as a postdoctoral fellow in the GT-Bionics Lab in the School of ECE at Georgia Tech.

Li’s thesis was entitled “Densely Integrated Photonic Circuits for On-Chip Signal Processing.” In his thesis, Li demonstrated photonic structures that are essential for state-of-the-art photonic signal processing systems for RF and wireless signals. Advised by Ali Adibi, Li graduated in May 2013 and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Wu’s thesis was entitled “Bio-Inspired Cooperative Exploration Using Mobile Sensor Networks.” The algorithms developed in her research can be applied to allow networked mobile robots to track pollutants in the environment during events such as oil spills or water contamination. Advised by Fumin Zhang, Wu graduated in August 2013. She is now an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, located in Troy, N.Y.