The 2020-2021 Professor Narendra Puri Scholarship was awarded to Jeffrey Isaacs, Zhaoyi Xu, and Shounak Rangwala.

Dr. Narendra Nath Puri was a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers for 38 years. He was dedicated to excellence in Electrical Engineering and countless students, faculty and alumni have benefited from his efforts. Dr. Puri passed away on December 4, 2015 at the age of 82. Dr. Kamal Puri, the wife of Dr. Puri, has generously donated this scholarship in honor of her husband and his work. This year's award was given to three students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Jeffrey Isaacs

Jeffrey Isaacs is an MS student working independently on global localization for indoor autonomous mobile robots. He received his undergraduate degree in computer engineering at Rutgers in 2019. His research focuses on 2D map processing, sensor fusion, and covariance tracking across multiple sensor modalities.  

Zhaoyi Xu

Zhaoyi Xu received his B.E at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in May 2018. He currently is a PhD student working with Dr. Athina Petropulu in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University. His research focuses on the dual-function radar communication system and MIMO radar.

Shounak Rangwala

I am a second-year Master's student specializing in Computer Engineering. My interests lie in software development incorporating principles of parallel computing and deep learning. I am grateful to all my professors, especially Prof. Shantenu Jha and Prof. Ivan Seskar, for giving me the opportunity of working on projects in these fields. I am currently working as a researcher, in WINLAB, on my project regarding the design of self-driving cars using ROS. My spare time is divided between watching football (GO CHIEFS!!) and working on pet web-application projects. My goal is to put my skills to use by joining the industry after I graduate.

Dr. Muhammad A. Lodhi, who obtained his PhD degree in ECE under the supervision of Prof. Waheed U. Bajwa in May 2020, has been recognized by the Rutgers School of Graduate Studies (SGS) for his groundbreaking research on signal processing and its applications to cancer diagnostics through an Outstanding Doctoral Student Award for 2020. The Outstanding Doctoral Student Award recognizes excellence in doctoral research and scholarship, with award criteria including outstanding achievements in academic research and scholarship, importance of research to a given field of study, and track record of academic and professional excellence. Muhammad was a model PhD scholar during his time at Rutgers from 2014 to 2020. He was an excellent student (4.0 CGPA at Rutgers), a phenomenal instructor (2014–2015 ECE TA of the Year Award), an award-winning researcher (Gallo Award for Scientific Excellence, NSF INTERN Award, and ECE Research Excellence Award), a prolific scholar (4 published journal papers; 2 in-preparation journal papers; 8 peer-reviewed conference papers), and a wonderful mentor of junior PhD students. The School of Graduate Studies awarded a total of four Outstanding Doctoral Student Awards across Rutgers-New Brunswick and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, and Muhammad was selected for this award among all PhD awardees in 2020 within the broad category of Physical Sciences and Engineering.

Congratulations to Muhammad and Waheed!

Corey Norton, a graduate student in assistant professor Umer Hassan’s laboratory has won the Excellence in Outreach and Service Award from the School of Graduate studies (SGS).The Excellence in Outreach and Service Award recognizes SGS graduate students who have made significant contributions to organizations outside Rutgers University. Two awards were made in this category across all of Rutgers, with Corey being the only recipient in the School of Engineering.

Advancing the mission of Hassan’s lab (LIMPH: Laboratory of Immuno-engineering and Micro-nano Technologies for Personalized Healthcare)  for broader community outreach and developing global health engineering solutions, Corey has been involved in many outreach and service activities. This includes serving on the advisory board for Rutgers chapter of ‘Engineers Without Borders’ and providing technical and logistical advice for ongoing international engineering projects in Kenya, Tanzania, and Guatemala and one domestic engineering project in Camden, NJ. Additionally, Corey works closely with the head of the engineering program at Bergen County Technical High School where he serves both as an advisory board member and a capstone project mentor. As an advisory board member, he aids in designing the engineering program’s curriculum and providing the students with experiential learning opportunities outside of the classroom.

As a capstone project mentor, he works directly with the program’s senior students to guide them through their capstone design projects by providing technical expertise and teaching them good project management practices. Finally, he also serves as an instructor and program architect for USTEM (a registered non-profit) that provides interactive STEM programs for students in under-privileged communities. For this organization, he designs and leads a variety of interactive STEM curricula for students in grades 1-12 and trains other volunteers to lead these programs as well. Corey received his undergraduate degree in ECE from Rutgers.

Congratulations to Corey!