ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS


Tulay Adali, PI and Curtis R. Menyuk, Co-PI have recently received an award from NSF to support their research in signal processing for optical communications. The title of the award is "Ultra-High-Capacity Optical Communications and Networking: Signal Processing for High-Data-Rate Optical Communications Systems," and the award is for $250,000 for the period January 1, 2002 - December 31, 2004.

Chein-I Chang has written a paper coauthored with the former Ph.D. student, Daniel Heinz, who won the second paper prize in the student paper prize competition in International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2001, Sydney, Australia, July 24-28, 2001. Dr. Chang has also written one of the best papers in the 5th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Orlando, Florida, USA, July 22-25, 2001.

S.-C. Yang, P.C. Chung, C.-I Chang, S.K. Lee, Y.N. Chung, C.W. Yang, M.C. Lu and C.S. Lo "An automated system for detection and segmentation of masses in digital mammgrams," 5th World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Orlando, Florida, USA, July 22-25, 2001.

He is also an Associate Editor in Hyperspectral Signal Processing for IEEE Transaction on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

Chein-I Chang was elected SPIE Fellow. SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering will honor 25 new Fellows of the Society at its 47th Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, this summer. Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the fields of optics, Photonics, and imaging.

"The annual recognition of Fellows provides an opportunity for us to acknowledge outstanding members for their service to the general optics community," said James A. Harrington, SPIE President. The Fellows Committee, chaired by Prof. Henri H. Arensault, University Laval, selected Chein-I Chang to be honored along with other award winners at a banquet on Wednesday, 10 July 2002. Each new Fellow joins a prestigious list of more than 420 SPIE members so honored for their contribution to the discipline since the Societyıs inception in 1955.

SPIE Fellow for 2002.

Chein-I Chang, Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA, for his achievements in hyperspectral image processing. Chang is credited with design and development of many hyperspectral imaging techniques for subpixel detection and mixed pixel classification. He has authored and co-authored more than 30 refereed archival journal articles in hyperspectral imaging and several patents pending in this area. He is also the author of a forthcoming book entitled "Hyperspectral Imaging: Techniques for Spectral Detection and Classification", which will be published in late 2002. Chang is currently the associate editor of hyperspectral signal processing for the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and on the editorial board of the Journal of High Speed Networks.

SPIE is an international not-for-profit technical society dedicated to providing education and information services to the Optical Engineering community and to promoting the engineering, scientific and commercial development and application of optical, Photonic, imaging and optoelectronic technologies through its education and communications programs together with its meetings and publications. For more information, contact media@spie.org or visit our website at http://spie.org

Dr. Ray Chen, Professor CSEE Department, received the 2002 Presidential Research Award.

Dr. Hillol Kargupta became an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on System, Man, and Cybernetics--Part B.

Dr. Sam Lomonaco received a grant from DARPA for $535,000 to carry out research in quantum computation. The title of the grant is "Search for New Quantum Algorithms." This grant is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Materiel Command, USAF, under agreement number F30602-01-2-0522. His new book has gone to press, and is entitled "Quantum Computation - A Grand Mathematical Challenge for the Twenty-First Century and the Millennium." For details, please refer to: http://www.csee.umbc.edu/~lomonaco/ams/Lecture_Notes.html

Also, his second book entitled: "Quantum Computation and Information" is almost complete, and is expected to be published by the American Mathematical Society in July of this year. For information, please refer to: http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~lomonaco/ams/Special.html

His most recent paper is entitled "Quantum Hidden Subgroup Algorithms: A Mathematical Perspective." It can be found at: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/0201095

Alan Sherman has been awarded a Program Initiation Award from NSA in the amount of $37,000 with Co-PI's, Peng Liu and John Pinkston for the year 2001-2002.

This is to support the UMBC Center for Information Security and Assurance, including initial steps toward developing a hacking lab, distinguished lecture series, and travel.

College Chess Achievement Awards

Today, UMBC won its fifth Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship--The World Series of College Chess (UMBC also won in 96, 98, 99, 00). As happened last year, UMBC and UTD (University of Texas at Dallas) tied with 5.5 points out of 6. After tie breaks, the top five finishers were:
  1. UMBC A
  2. UTD A
  3. Stanford
  4. UMBC B
  5. UTD B
UMBC and UTD also tied on individual game points, with UMBC winning the trophy on secondary tie breaks. 26 teams entered the six-round team Swiss event, held Dec 26-29, in the Marriott in Providence, RI. Schools included MIT, Harvard, University of Chicago, RI College, and Catholic University of Peru. UMBC entered three teams. UMBC and its arch rival UTD dominated the event, with their B Teams finishing higher than all other schools than Stanford. Individual winners included UMBC's Alex Woitkevich for top player on Board 1, Joey Gasis for top alternate in the Open, and Dr. Alan T. Sherman for top Univ. faculty/coach in the Open. The Open is a separate individual tournament held concurrently with the Team event. UMBC Team Captain Eugene Perelshteyn (International Master and US Junior Champion) is a CSEE major. (A minor computer programming note: The tournament director (TD) began using the SwissSys program version 4 for pairing teams. But after one game ended in a 0-0F loss and forfeiture, SwissSys could not deal with the unusual 2-1 match score for a four-board match. From that point on, the TD paired teams by hand.) A pep rally is planned for the spring term. Team A
  1. Woitkevich, Alex (International Grandmaster), USCF rating 2657
  2. Perelshteyn, Eugene (International Master), 2522
  3. Morrison, William ("The Exterminator"), 2409
  4. Smith, Bryan, 2377
  5. alternate: Gershov, Yevgenniy

Jim Milani, Director, Administration, COE, received the 2002 Presidential Distinguished Professional Staff Award, and Board of Regents Award for Exceptional Contribution to the Institution.

Jill Randles, Director of Student Services COE, recipient of the 2002 President's Commission for Women Achievement Award.