Awards

The Ph.D. dissertation of Stefan Vlaski, entitled Distributed Stochastic Optimization in Nondifferentiable and Nonconvex Environments, has been selected to receive the 2024 Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the European Association for Signal Processing.  The award recognizes Ph.D. dissertations for their scientific impact and the evaluation of independent experts.  [Read more]

The Ph.D. dissertation of Virginia Bordignon, entitled Opinion Formation over Adaptive Networks, has been selected to receive the 2023 Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society.  The award recognizes Ph.D. dissertations for their scientific impact on the discipline and for their overall quality in terms of creativity, novelty, rigor, and timeliness. [Read more]

Ph.D. student Mert Kayaalp receives the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop, held in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 2-5, 2023 for the article entitled:

M. Kayaalp, Y. Inan, V. Koivunen, E. Telatar, and A. H. Sayed,  "On fusion strategies for federated decision making,'' Proc. IEEE SSP Workshop, pp. 1-5, Hanoi, Vietnam, July 2023. [Read more]

The IEEE Board of Directors shapes the future direction of IEEE and is committed to ensuring IEEE remains a strong and vibrant organization—serving the needs of its members and the engineering and technology community worldwide—while fulfilling the IEEE mission of advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.

This article features IEEE Board of Directors members Theresa Brunasso, Vickie Ozburn, and Ali H. Sayed. [Link to the article]

Professor and Dean of the School of Engineering, Ali H. Sayed, has been awarded the 2022 IEEE Fourier Technical Field Award for his "contributions to the theory and practice of adaptive signal processing." The IEEE Fourier Award for Signal Processing is a Technical Field Award that recognizes “outstanding contribution to the advancement of signal processing, other than in the areas of speech and audio processing”. The winner is judged on the basis of the impact on the field of signal processing technology, including innovation, leadership, honors or seminal contributions as evidenced by publications or patents or transition to practice, and quality of the nomination. [Read more here]

Ali H. Sayed, dean of the School of Engineering at EPFL, talks about engineering today and how it impacts our daily life. He also explains the diversity of engineering and how the school works on the World's main challenges.

[Link to online article]   [pdf version]

Professor Sayed has been elected to The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) for the advancement of science in developing countries. TWAS supports sustainable prosperity through research, education, policy and diplomacy. It is a global science academy based in Trieste, Italy. TWAS was founded in 1983 by a distinguished group of scientists led by Nobel Laureate and physicist Abdus Salam. Today, TWAS has 1,278 elected Fellows representing more than 100 countries; 14 of them are Nobel laureates. About 84% come from developing nations, and the rest are scientists and engineers from the developed world whose work has had a significant impact in the South. TWAS Fellows are some of the world's most accomplished scientists and engineers.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2020 Norbet Wiener Society Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society for "contributions to adaptive and statistical signal processing and outstanding leadership in the Signal Processing Society." The Norbert Wiener Award is the Society's highest honor. It recognizes outstanding technical contributions in a field within the scope of the Signal Processing Society and outstanding leadership within that field.  The awardee is expected to deliver the Norbert Wiener Lecture at the flagship ICASSP Conference.  [Watch video lecture here]

Professor A. H. Sayed has been elevated to EURASIP Fellow ``for contributions to adaptation and learning theories.''  Each year,  the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP) elevates a select group of up to a maximum of four scholars to “EURASIP Fellow”,  the Association's most prestigious honor, in recognition of their outstanding achievements in the broad field of Signal Processing.

Professor Sayed has been elected to the US National Academy of Engineering ``for contributions to the theory and applications of adaptive signal processing.” Election to the academy is one of the most prominent distinctions that can be accorded to engineers in the United States. The NAE honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to engineering literature" and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

Professor Sayed was recognized by Web of Science/Clarivate Analytics (formerly, Thomson Reuters) in their 2017, 2018, 2019 Highly Cited Researchers lists. According to the ranking methodology, researchers in the list are internationally renowned experts who have published influential articles that are ranked among the top 1 percent of the most cited works in their fields over a period of 10 years, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.

UCLA ranks 10th among all universities and research institutions worldwide and sixth in the U.S. in terms of number of faculty named to the list of highly-cited researchers.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/29-ucla-faculty-on-thomson-reuters-most-cited-list-for-influential-scholarship

PhD student Stefan Vlaski receives a Best Student Paper recognition in the area of Signal Processing Theory and Methods for the article:

S. Vlaski, L. Vandenberghe, and A. H. Sayed, ``Diffusion stochastic optimization with non-smooth regularizers,'' Proc. IEEE ICASSP, pp. 1-5, Shanghai, China, March 2016.

The following article has been selected to receive the 2015 Best Paper Award from the European Association for Signal and Image Processing (EURASIP):

J. Li and A. H. Sayed, "Modeling bee swarming behavior through diffusion adaptation with asymmetric information sharing,'' EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing, 2012:18, doi:10.1186/1687-6180-2012-18, January 2012. [pdf]

The article employs powerful diffusion learning strategies developed by Professor Sayed's research group to emulate the swarming behavior of bees.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2015 Education Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society for "the writing of scholarly and influential texts in the areas of adaptive systems and statistical signal processing." The award honors educators who have made pioneering and significant contributions to signal processing education. With this recognition, the IEEE SP Society has honored Professor Sayed for his research (2012 Technical Achievement Award), service (2013 Meritorious Service Award), and educational (2015 Education Award) activities in the broad field of Signal Processing.

Professor Sayed has been voted to serve as President-Elect of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for the two-year period Jan 2016 through Dec 2017. The position of President-Elect automatically succeeds to President for the two-year period Jan 2018 through Dec 2019. The IEEE Signal Processing Society is the first technical society established by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the world’s premier international organization for signal processing scientists and professionals since 1948. It is also one of the largest IEEE societies with close to 18K members worldwide, 160+ US and international chapters,15+ wholly-owned and jointly-published journals, and several conferences, workshops, and seasonal schools.

The following article has been selected to receive the 2014 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society:

F. Cattivelli and A. H. Sayed, "Diffusion LMS strategies for distributed estimation", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 58, no. 3, pp. 1035-1048, March 2010. [pdf]

Professor Sayed was recognized by Thomson Reuters in their 2014, 2015, and 2016  Highly Cited Researchers lists. According to the ranking methodology, researchers in the list are internationally renowned experts who have published influential articles that are ranked among the top 1 percent of the most cited works in their fields over a 10 year period, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2014 Athanasios Papoulis Award from the European Association for Signal and Image Processing for his "fundamental contributions to the advancement of research and education in adaptive and statistical signal processing". The award honors scientists whose work has had a major impact on signal processing education. The award is offered only on demand, every time there is an exceptional candidate, rather than on a regular basis.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2013 Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society for his "exemplary service to and leadership in the Signal Processing Society". In addition to his research activities and university service, Professor Sayed has been diligent in serving the signal processing community in various capacities. Among other roles, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2003-2005), General Chairman of ICASSP 2008, and Vice-President of Publications of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2009-2011). He also served as member of the Board of Governors (2007-2011), Awards Board (2005), Publications Board (2003-2005), Conference Board (2007-2011), Technical Directions Board (2008-2009), and Long Range Planning Committee (2007-2009) of the same Society.

Professor Sayed has been selected as Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science. Members are chosen for their distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The selection of fellows has been an AAAS tradition since 1874. Professor Sayed was honored for ``distinguished contributions to adaptation, learning, and statistical signal processing. The author of more than 400 scholarly publications and five books, Sayed focuses on research in several areas, including adaptation and learning, network science, biologically inspired designs and information-processing theories.

Professor Sayed has been awarded a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship for the three-year period 2013-2015 from The Leverhulme Trust, a foundation established in 1925 in the United Kingdom in support of scholarly research and education. The objective of the Leverhumle Trust awards is to enable distinguished academics from overseas to visit and pursue research collaborations with universities in the United Kingdom. Under this award, Professor Sayed visited Newcastle University and Imperial College, London.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2012 Technical Achievement Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society for his "fundamental contributions to adaptive and statistical signal processing". IEEE's first society and one of the largest, the Signal Processing Society is the world’s premier professional society for signal processing scientists and professionals since 1948. The Technical Achievement Award honors a person who, over a period of years, has made outstanding technical contributions to theory and/or practice in technical areas within the scope of the Society, as demonstrated by publications, patents, or recognized impact on the field.

The following article has been selected to receive the 2012 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society:

Z. Quan, S. Cui, and A. H. Sayed, "Optimal linear cooperation for spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks", IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 28-40, Feb. 2008. [pdf]

This award is sponsored by the European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP) and was presented to the work:

P. Di Lorenzo, S. Barbarossa, and A. H. Sayed, ``Bio-inspired swarming for dynamic radio access based on diffusion adaptation,'' Proc. EUSIPCO, Barcelona, Spain, August-September 2011.

This award was presented to Zhi Quan, a former PhD student of the laboratory (2005-2009) for his outstanding academic achievements. His PhD dissertation dealt with the development of cooperative spectrum sensing algorithms for cognitive radio systems. He proposed and analyzed liner fusion techniques for cooperative sensing at low SNR conditions. His PhD thesis is entitled

Z. Quan, Cooperative Spectrum Sensing for Cognitive Radios, PhD Dissertation, UCLA Elecrtical Engineering Department, June 2009.

This award was presented to Alireza Tarighat, a former PhD student of the laboratory (2002-2005) for his outstanding academic achievements. His PhD dissertation dealt with the development of enhanced receivers for MIMO OFDM communications in the presence of physical impairments. His PhD thesis is entitled

A. Tarighat, Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) OFDM Systems with Implementation Impairments PhD Dissertation, UCLA Elecrtical Engineering Department, July 2005.

The following article has been selected to receive the 2005 Young Author Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society:

W. Younis, A. H. Sayed, and N. Al-Dhahir, "Efficient adaptive receivers for joint equalization and interference cancellation in multiuser space-time block-coded systems," IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 51, no. 11, pp. 2849-2862, Nov. 2003. [pdf]

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2005 Frederick Emmons Terman Award by the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). The Terman Award is bestowed annually upon an outstanding young electrical engineering educator in recognition of the educator's contributions to the profession. The award is sponsored by the Hewlett-Packard Company and consists of an honorarium, a gold-plated medal, a bronze replica, a presentation scroll and reimbursement of travel expenses for the awardee to attend the ASEE Frontiers in Education Conference, where the award is presented. The recipients of the award must meet the following requirements:

1. Be the principal author of an electrical engineering textbook published prior to June 1 of the year in which the author becomes 40 years of age and judged by peers to be outstanding by virtue of its original contribution to the field.
2. Have outstanding achievements in teaching, research, guidance of students and related activities.
3. Be an electrical engineering educator under 45 years of age on June 1 of the year in which the award selection is made.
4. Be a full-time member of a college faculty and actively engaged in teaching in the United States or Canada at the time that the award winner is selected.

See list of recipients of the Terman Award.

Read Professor Sayed's acceptance speech.

Prof. Sayed served as a 2005 IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Signal Processing Society. During his one-year term, Professor Sayed was invited to deliver 32 distinguished lectures worldwide across the US (1-2), Canada (3), Denmark (1), England (3), France (1), Germany (1), Greece (2), Hong Kong (2), Spain (2), Sweden (3), and Turkey (2). His distinguished lectures covered the topics:

1. Energy Conservation in Adaptive Filtering.
2. Adaptive MIMO OFDM Receivers.
3. Signal Processing Challenges in Wireless Location.
4. Estimation and Control with Modeling Uncertainties.

Professor Sayed has been awarded the 2003 Kuwait Prize in Basic Sciences for his extensive research contributions in the areas of adaptation and learning. The Kuwait Prize is one of the highest honors awarded in Kuwait for intellectual achievement. The honor includes a monetary award, a gold medal, the shield of the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science, and a certificate of recognition. The Kuwait Prize is awarded annually in five fields ranging from Basic Sciences to Arts and Letters and Social Sciences. Prof. Sayed traveled to Kuwait to receive the award in Dec. 2004 and delivered a public lecture "On the Role of Adaptation in Modern Technologies" at Kuwait University.

The following work has been selected to receive a 2002 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society:

V. H. Nascimento and A. H. Sayed, "On the learning mechanism of adaptive filters", IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1609-1625, June 2000. [pdf]

The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the Board of Directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. Prof. Sayed has been elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow in 2001 for his contributions to adaptive filtering and estimation algorithms.

This award was presented to the work:

T. Y. Al-Naffouri and A. H. Sayed, "Transient analysis of adaptive filters -- Part II: The error nonlinearity case", Proc. 5th IEEE-EURASIP Int. Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image Proc. (NSIP), Baltimore, Maryland, June 2001. [pdf]

This award was sponsored by the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society and it was presented to the work:

N. R. Yousef and A. H. Sayed, "A unified approach to the steady-state and tracking analyses of adaptive filtering algorithms", Proc. IEEE-EURASIP International Workshop on Nonlinear Signal and Image Processing (NSIP), vol. 2, pp. 699-703, Antalya, Turkey, June 1999. [pdf]

Dr. N. Yousef, a former PhD student with the laboratory (1997-2001), was the recipient of this $20K Nokia fellowshop in 1999 for his excellent academic standing and achievements. This was the first Nokia fellowship to be awarded in the Americas region. Dr. Yousef's research focused on the development of adaptive techniques for wireless location applications (E911).

This award was presented to Ms. Junyu Mai, a former MS student of the laboratory (1997-1998) for her outstanding academic achievements. Her MS dissertation dealt with the performance of blind adaptive equalizers. Ms. Mai derived several expressions for the mean-square performance of widely used blind adaptive schemes of the constant-modulus family. Her work has resulted in the journal publication:

J. Mai and A. H. Sayed, "A feedback approach to the steady-state performance of fractionally-spaced blind adaptive equalizers," IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing , vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 80-91, January 2000. [pdf]

This award recognizes the most outstanding survey published in any of the IEEE publications. The award-winning article listed below details the authors' novel state-space approach to RLS adaptive filtering; it clarified for the first time the exact and complete relationship that exists between the field of Kalman filtering, which has been widely studied by control engineers since the early 1960s, and the field of RLS adaptive filtering. The prize winning article was:

A. H. Sayed and T. Kailath, "A state-space approach to adaptive RLS filtering", IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 18-60, Jul. 1994. [pdf ] [typos]