ECE faculty Yingying Chen inducted to ACM Fellow

We are happy to report that Professor and Department Chair Yingying Chen has been elevated to ACM Fellow. 

The following is the news release came out from ACM today:

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ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has named 68 Fellows for transformative contributions to computing science and technology. 

All the 2023 inductees are longstanding ACM Members who were selected by their peers for groundbreaking innovations that have improved how we live, work, and play.

“The announcement each year that a new class of ACM Fellows has been selected is met with great excitement,” said ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “ACM is proud to include nearly 110,000 computing professionals in our ranks and ACM Fellows represent just 1% of our entire global membership. This year’s inductees include the inventor of the World Wide Web, the “godfathers of AI, and other colleagues whose contributions have all been important building blocks in forming the digital society that shapes our modern world.

In keeping with ACM’s global reach, the 2023 Fellows represent universities, corporations, and research centers in Canada, China, Germany, India, Israel, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The contributions of the 2023 Fellows run the gamut of the computing field―including algorithm design, computer graphics, cybersecurity, energy-efficient computing, mobile computing, software analytics, and web search, to name a few.

Additional information about the 2023 ACM Fellows, as well as previously named ACM Fellows, is available through the ACM Fellows website.

Yingying Chen Named Top Professor of the Year 2023 in ECE by International Association of Top Professionals

The International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP) is a highly selective invitation-only international networking group for leaders from a range of professions.

In December 2023, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) professor and chair Yingying Chen was chosen by the IAOTP, based on her credentials, as the Top Professor of the Year in ECE.

“This accomplishment is related to my work in mobile sensing, mobile healthcare, and mobile security, which have significant impacts for the general public and society,” explains Chen. “We are developing trustworthy AI-based sensing and healthcare systems to help solve practical problems.”

Chen, who is a fellow of both the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and other honorees were featured on the NASDQ billboard in Times Square and honored at the IAOTP’s annual awards gala at the Plaza Hotel on December 2.

Chen’s fellow 2023 IAOTP honorees include Top Cardiologist and Internist Dr. Peter McCullough; Top Human Rights Advocate Heather McWilliam, CEO/Director of Brave Inspires Brave; Lifetime Achievement Awardee and Top Musician of the Decade Mark Rivera; Top Legendary Baseball Manager & Lifetime Achievement Bobby Valentine; and Top Professor of the Year in Mathematics, Mulatu Lemma of Savannah State University.

“This award means a lot to me,” says Chen. “My work and achievements have been recognized by a broader community beyond academia for its benefits to society. I feel very proud that my name has been included with many other distinguished people from many other disciplines and professions.”

Rutgers Researcher, Through Spinoff, Develops a Handheld White Blood Cell Tracker

White blood cell levels, a critical signal of a patients immune system status, can be easily and rapidly tracked with a device developed by a Rutgers professor and his Rutgers startup company.

Device could enable rapid testing and improved triaging for infections and aid treatment for cancer or mental illness

A Rutgers researcher, through his spinoff company, has led a team to design and test a device that quickly counts a person’s white blood cells with a single drop of blood, similar to the way glucometers rapidly scan for blood sugar levels.

The development of the device by researchers at Rutgers startup RizLab Health Inc. along with the clinical validation is described in the science and medical journal PLoS One. Mehdi Javanmard, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Rutgers School of Engineering, is the co-founder and CEO of RizLab Health Inc, based in Princeton. He launched the startup based on advances in his Rutgers lab and with support from the Office for Research.

“Normally, doing a blood count requires a phlebotomist taking a needle stick and collecting significant amounts of venous blood and sending the samples off to labs where they are tested, sometimes taking hours or even days,” Javanmard said. “Our handheld device enables near-patient testing, while only requiring a tiny amount of blood and returning results within minutes, allowing clinicians to make decisions almost immediately.”

Called the CytoTracker Leukometer, the device is designed to quickly aid the detection of elevated or reduced white blood cell counts, a critical signal of a patient’s immune system status. A high or low white blood cell count may indicate the intensity of an infection, the presence of life-threatening conditions such as sepsis or determine how patients are responding to chemotherapy and psychotropic drugs.

In collaboration with a clinical team at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Pediatric Clinical Research Center led by Dr. Tanaya Bhowmick and the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine, the device was successfully tested in trials by pitting the device in a head-to-head comparison with a lab benchtop hematology analyzer, a conventional blood testing technique. javanmard-white-blood-cell-tracker.jpg

“Rapid test results have revolutionized the field of medicine,” said Bhowmick, an infectious disease physician and co-author of the paper. “The white blood count is a parameter that physicians routinely order to evaluate a patient for possible infection.  Having this information rapidly can help triage patients in the outpatient setting."

The results showed the CytoTracker Leukometer to be at least 97% accurate and meet clinical standards.

White blood cells, or leukocytes, protect the body from infection. Colorless, they constitute about 1 percent of human blood and are formed mostly in the bone marrow. Certain subtypes of leukocytes have different functions. For example, neutrophils kill bacteria, fungi and foreign debris.

A low white blood cell count indicates that a person is prone to infection. A high white blood cell count means either an infection exists or there is an underlying medical condition.

Javanmard said he envisions multiple uses for the device. Sepsis in a patient entering an emergency room could more quickly be detected on the device than through present methods requiring a blood draw and a lab test, he said. Cancer doctors could rapidly determine whether patients undergoing chemotherapy need a white blood cell stimulant.

The device also may make it easier for psychiatry patients to stay on their medications. Patients taking clozapine, a common treatment for disorders such as schizophrenia, often experience neutropenia, or low levels of neutrophils. These patients are required to undergo regular testing for neutrophil levels before they can obtain a prescription. Javanmard said this often prevents patients from procuring much-needed treatment.

In his Rutgers lab, Javanmard and his students have sought to perfect the capabilities of a miniaturized electronic cytometric technique that detects microscopic particles by directing them through minute channels containing electrodes. The process is akin to scanning people as they move individually through an airport security gate, however using electrical signals instead of videography. In one recent advance, Javanmard said he and lab members used the cell-flow technique to develop a test so sensitive it could someday revolutionize medical approaches to epidemics. RizLab Health has focused on further advanced development and manufacturing of electronic cytometry with the goal of obtaining regulatory approval and ultimately commercialization.

Javanmard is excited about applying lab insights to practical problems to produce inventions like the CytoTracker Leukometer.

“We set out to solve one of the holy grails of medicine, which is to analyze a tiny amount of a patient's blood in a way to give guidance to clinicians and improve clinical outcomes,” Javanmard said. “We believe this will have a huge impact in infectious disease, oncology, and psychiatry.”

 Javanmard added: “Others have made failed attempts to tackle this holy grail by aiming to identify dozens or even hundreds of biochemical constituents with a single drop of blood. Such attempts are fundamentally very difficult. As a result, we found it to be much more realistic to focus only on the white blood cells with the key sub-types as a start.”

The device must be approved by the Food and Drug Administration before it can be commercialized and used for clinical applications, Javanmard said. It is presently for research use only.

Other scientists on the paper from Rutgers included Fei Chen, a staff nurse at the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Pediatric Clinical Research Center, and Sunanda Gaur, a pediatric infectious disease physician and director of the medical school’s Pediatric Clinical Research Center. Scientists at Baylor included Kelly Keene, Farzad Soleimani and Zubaid Rafique.

By: Kitta MacPherson
January 18, 2024
 
Media Contact
Kitta MacPherson

Rutgers ECE at ICCE 2024!

A team of 5 students (Rohan Gorajia, Erwei He, Olivia Doung, Surabhi Panda, and Arpan Gupta) and 2 Rutgers ECE Professors (Haghani and Striki ) presented 6 papers at the 42nd IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)  in January 2024 in Las Vegas, NV. ICCE is the IEEE Consumer Technology Society’s annual flagship conference. The papers are the results of our students' capstone projects advised by Professors Daniel Burbano Lombana, Maria Striki, Demetrios Lambropoulos and Sasan Haghani
 

 
 
Here is the list of the papers.
 
[1] E. He, Z. Liu, and S. Haghani, “Design and Implementation of a Smart Rain Barrel Network via the Blynk IoT Platform,” to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024.
 
[2] O. Duong, J. Carew, J. Rea, S. Haghani and M. Striki, “A Multi-Functional Drone for Agriculture Maintenance and Monitoring in Small-Scale Farming,” to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024.
 
[3] R. Gorajia, A. Perez, N. Lluen, M. Striki and S. Haghani, “RUSafe: An Interactive Platform to Enhance Crime Alert Systems on University Campuses,” to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024.
 
[4] W. Gou, D. Banyamin, M. Rezk, W. Fedorowait, D. Burbano, and S. Haghani, “The LanternPredator: A Machine-Learning-Based Robot for Controlling the Spread of Invasive Species,” to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024.
 
[5] A. Gupta, M. Irving, A. Karakoti, J. Canvari, and S. Haghani, “Early Alzheimer's Detection Through VOC Analysis: A Novel Device Approach,” to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024.
 
[6] S. Panda, A. Akbar, O. T. Khan, C. Li, R. Patel, J. Canevari, D. Lambropoulos, and S. Haghani, “A Digital Platform for Early Detection and Monitoring the Progression of Alzheimer's Disease”, to appear in the Proc. of IEEE 42nd International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE), Las Vegas, NV, USA, Jan. 2024

SOE National Engineers Week 2024

First celebrated in 1951, National Engineers Week is dedicated to ensuring a diverse and well-educated future engineering workforce by increasing understanding of and interest in engineering and technology careers. At Rutgers, EWeek is a chance to showcase what makes the School of Engineering great and to celebrate our community with fun events and some friendly competition.

Research Day 2023

On Friday, December 8, 2023, the annual ECE Research Day was held. This event was an excellent opportunity for ECE students to present their research projects, share their creative ideas, and network with their peers. More than 20 posters were presented by graduate and undergraduate students, covering a diverse range of research topics. Also, six Fall 2024 Capstone teams had a chance to showcase their senior design project:

  • Team# F23-01 - H.A.R.V.E.Y Harvesting Acceleration Robot for Vegetation Enhancement and Yielding advised by Prof. Sheng Wei
  • Team# F23-02 - Smart Fridge Mobile App advised by Anand Sarwate
  • Team# F23-03 - Wake-Up Wearable: Stopping Accidents Caused by Falling Asleep advised by Prof. Michael Caggiano
  • Team# F23-03 - RU (AI)advisor advised by Prof. Shiring Jalali
  • Tean# F23-06 - Optimized Solar-Powered Base Stations: A Simulation-Based Theoretical Framework advised by Prof. Dipankar Raychaudhuri and Ivan Seskar
  • Team# F23-07 - Intra-Body Communication: Wireless Direct Contact Communication advised by Dr. Umer Hassan

The event was well-received by faculty, students, and industry representatives. Special thanks to Prof. Laleh Najafizadeh and Prof. Yao Liu for coordinating this important event that showcases the exciting research in our department!

ECE Faculty Yingying Chen Selected as Top Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Year 2023 for IAOTP


ECE Professor Yingying Chen has been selected as Top Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Year 2023 by the International Associate of Top Professionals (IAOTP). 
While inclusion with the International Associate of Top Professionals (IAOTP) is an honor, only a few members in each discipline are chosen for this distinction. These special honorees are distinguished based on their professional accomplishments, academic achievements, leadership abilities, and contributions to their communities. Honorees are shown on the NASDAQ Billboard and invited to attend the IAOTP's Annual Awards Gala at the iconic Plaza Hotel in NYC this December to honor their achievements.  


To name a few of the honorees in IAOTP 2023, Bobby Valentine (Former MLB Baseball Player and Top Legendary Baseball Management), Judge Jeanine Pirro (World Renowned Judge & TV Show Co-Host on Fox News Channel), Ronald Whittemore (Top Senior Olympic Athlete of the Decade), Gavin Maloof (Co-Owner of NHL Stanley Cup Champions and the Vegas Golden Knights), Frank Mann (World Renowned Artist and Educator), and Mark Rivera (Award Winning American Saxophonist and Musical Director) are all among the honorees for IAOTP 2023. 
 

ECE faculty Anand Sarwate appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society 2024 to 2025

ECE Associate Professor Anand D. Sarwate has been appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society for 2024 to 2025.

The Information Theory Society established the Distinguished Lecturers Program in 2009 to promote interest in information theory by supporting chapters who wish to invite prominent information theory researchers to give talks at their events. The Society aims to maintain ten Distinguished Lecturers each serving for two year terms. Typically, the ITSoc Distinguished Lecturers program provides funding for airfare and travel, and the local chapter funds accommodation and local expenses. If traveling to a different continent, visits to two locations are required. The distinguished lectures should be freely accessible to the public.

The selection criteria are: (a) the quality of the candidates’ contributions to research in information theory and related areas, and (b) the ability of the candidates to deliver an excellent lecture to a broad audience. The candidates may be from any geographic region and any organization, e.g., academia, industry, or government. Nominations that promote diversity are encouraged. The Distinguished Lecturers are typically members of the IEEE Information Theory Society.

Current Rutgers faculty and former PhD students have also been ITSOC Distinguished Lecturers: current faculty Emina Soljanin (2015-2016) and Roy Yates (2019-2021), and former PhD students Sennur Ulukus (2018-2019), Aylin Yener (2019-2021), and Lalitha Sankar (2021-2022).

Congratulations to Anand!

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