Stories

The School of Engineering is profoundly grateful to have incredibly talented faculty who have achieved remarkable accomplishments and accolades, including those who have reached the rankings of Fellow at the world's largest and most exclusive technical professional organization, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE is an international organization “dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.” To be distinguished as an IEEE Fellow, one must have extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest that are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation. The requirements to become a Fellow include a nomination by an existing Fellow and contributing significantly to the “advancement or application of engineering, science, and technology, bringing the realization of significant value to society.” Still, only one-tenth of one percent of the IEEE voting membership on record as of 31 December of the year preceding can be selected for membership. This past year, Andy Wolfe (Electrical and Computer Engineering) was among those to receive this honor, making him the eighth SCU School of Engineering faculty to be recognized.

Andy Wolfe
Lecturer, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Andy Wolfe is an IEEE Fellow and an IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Contributor. He previously served on the faculty at Princeton University and taught classes at Stanford. In addition to his academic roles, Wolfe served as Senior VP and CTO at S3/SonicBlue, where he led several chip design teams and helped launch more than 30 digital audio and video products. Wolfe has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and is the named inventor on over 50 U.S. patents.

Wolfe was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2022 for his “contributions in hardware code compression of embedded software, power consumption analysis, and optimization. The process of hardware code compression of embedded software involves reducing software memory to make it cheaper and more efficient. His work on code compression was found in technology from the ‘90s through today, such as in laptops, phones, laser printers, and ARM. 

Sally Wood
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sally Wood is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, an IEEE Fellow, and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. She is the recipient of the Brutocao Family Foundation Award for Curriculum Innovation, Santa Clara University, 2014.

Wood was elevated to an IEEE Fellow in 2006 for her “contributions to engineering education at university and pre-college levels.” With National Science Foundation funding, she developed college course modules with interactive visualizations to help students become successful engineers. 

Cary Yang
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Cary Yang is the Director of TENT Laboratory, an SCU facility inside NASA AMES. He is an IEEE Fellow and has served as Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, President of the IEEE Electron Devices Society, and an elected member of the IEEE Board of Directors. Yang founded the Silicon Valley-based company Surface Analytic Research, which focuses on sponsored research projects related to various applications of surfaces and nanostructures.

Yang was elected IEEE Fellow in 1999 for his “contributions to microelectronic education and the understanding of interfacial properties of silicon-based devices.” Micro/nanoelectronics encompasses design, device/process technology development, and manufacturing of integrated circuits in the semiconductor industry. Yang has performed extensive research in the field and has developed over 20 undergraduate and graduate micro/nanoelectronics courses since he joined the faculty in 1983.

Katie Wilson
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Katie Wilson is an IEEE Fellow and has served as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Letters from 2009-2011, and has been an associate editor for several IEEE journals. She was the IEEE Communications Society Director of Journals for 2012-2013 and the Vice-President for Publications for the IEEE Communications Society for 2014-2015.

Wilson was elevated to an IEEE Fellow in 2014 for her contributions to orthogonal frequency multiplexing (OFDM). OFDM transmits information and encodes data on multiple carrier frequencies. Her early work and contributions to OFDM have significantly moved communications technology forward. As a result, her papers have been regularly cited and referenced in the field of communications. 

Nam Ling
Professor, Computer Science and Engineering

Nam Ling is chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He is an IEEE Fellow, was named IEEE Distinguished Lecturer twice, and was also an APSIPA Distinguished Lecturer. In addition, Ling has made significant contributions to the IEEE, where he held many positions and served as a keynote speaker at several conferences.

Ling was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2008 for his contributions to video coding algorithms and architectures. He and his team’s research produced one of the world’s three fastest motion estimation methods in video coding at the time, which sped up the video compression process without degrading picture quality. The method was adopted into the mainstream video coding standard.  also contributed significantly to adaptive rate-control and architecture for video coding.