SEECS New Faculty Members

SEECS Welcome Seven New Faculty Members

Talented, exceptional professors add new dimensions to faculty

The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is proud to welcome several new faculty members. The school's search and recruitment process drew interest from more than 200 qualified candidates - a pool that was eventually narrowed down to seven new colleagues.

Meet the Faculty

With a variety of research interests, from networking and wireless systems to Realistic Image Synthesis and Display, these new educators will continue to enhance the school's growing international prominence in key research areas. They also contribute a wealth of professional experience and a variety of educational backgrounds.
After an extremely productive and successful 2000-2001 school year, we expanded our faculty to include the talents and skills of the following:

Abdel Ejnioui
Abdel Ejnioui joins us as an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of South Florida and brings valuable industrial experience from Avant! in California.

Dr. Ejnioui's research interests include automatic synthesis and integration of programmable arrays in system-on-chips as well as reconfigurable architectures, VLSI CAD and parallel processing. He says that interacting with eager students is one of the best parts of his new position at UCF. He is currently teaching Introduction to Digital Circuits and Systems and Digital Computer Systems.

Taskin Kocak
Taskin Kocak,an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, has an educational background that includes a B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a B.S. in Physics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. He earned his M.S. and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University. Prior to joining us, he spent two years at Mitsubishi Electronics America, Inc. His research areas include analog/mixed-signal VLSI design, artificial neural networks, intelligent control sensor fusion, mine detection and networking and wireless systems.

Christine Lisetti
Christine Lisetti just joined us as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. From 1998 to 2001, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida Business School in its Information Systems Department. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University from 1996 to 1998 in the Department of Psychology where she worked with the famous neural network expert, Professor Dave Rumelhart. Her various degrees are in Computer Science from Florida International University. She has been honored with several awards including the National Institute of Health Individual Research Service Award and the Nils Nilsson Award for Integrating AI Technologies, which was given at the AAAI 2000 Mobile Robot Competition. Dr. Lisetti leads the "Affective Social Computing Lab" at UCF, which focuses on studying and modeling the role of affect, emotion and personality in intelligence - in particular in communication and decision-making. Her funded research projects currently focus on building Multimodal Affective Intelligent User Interfaces (MAUI) and developing emotion-based architecture for intelligent agents and robots.

Dan C. Marinescu
Dan Marinescu is the Provost's Research Professor of Computer Science. Before coming to UCF, Dr. Marinescu was a professor at Purdue University's Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering school, associate professor of EECS at the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania and then a senior researcher at G.S.I. in Darmstadt, Germany. During the summer of 1993, he was a visiting scientist at the Scalable Systems Division of Intel. Dr. Marinescu was the chief architect of a real-time data acquisition and analysis system used in experiments leading to the discovery of the superheavy elements: meitnerium, hessium and nielsbohrium. He currently leads a project on the development of parallel algorithms and methods for the 3-D atomic structure deterioration of large macromolecules such as viruses. He is also involved in the Scalable I/O Initiative. His research interests cover computer networks, parallel and distributed systems, Petri Netts, scientific computing, software agents and Internet process coordination.

Sumanta Pattanaik
Sumanta Pattanaik is an Associate Professor of Computer Science. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1993 at the Birla Institute of Science and Technology in Pilani, India. Dr. Pattanaik has had a variety of professional experience including the positions of research associate in the Program of Computer Graphics at Cornell University, post-doctoral researcher at Rennes, France and later at Cornell, senior staff scientist at the Department of Computer Graphics at the National Center for Software Technology in Bombay, India and scientific officer, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay, India. Currently, he is teaching Computer Graphics Systems I and his research interests are in the areas of realistic image synthesis and display and visualization. Dr. Pattanaik has authored numerous publications, including ACM-SIGGRAPH articles, journal articles, conference and workshop articles, conference tutorials and has edited a recent book entitled "Proceedings of IFIP-ICCG93."

Guy Schiavone
Guy Schiavone Schiavone is an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering. He has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience working in the areas of computer modeling and simulation, numerical analysis, image processing and electromagnetics. During 1993 - 1997, he held an appointment as Research Scientist in the Visual Systems Laboratory at the Institute for Simulation and Training. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College. Serving as technical lead on the Visual Testbed Project (CCTT extension), and as Principal Investigator on the "Special Weapons Effects for DIS" Project, Dr. Schiavone oversaw development of software for testing and validating terrain database interoperability for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) applications. Funded research projects include "Research and Support for the Advanced Tactical Engagement Simulations Science and Technology Objective," "Application of Beowulf Cluster Supercomputing to Simulation," and "Design of an Integrated Feature and Terrain Triangulation Algorithm for Driving Simulation Terrain Database Generation." Other research activities include computational geometry, terrain databases, geostatistics, real-time visualization and image processing. Dr. Schiavone has published numerous papers and has several conference presentations in the areas of electromagnetics, terrain database analysis and visualization and Distributed Interactive Simulation.

Lei Wei
Lei Wei joins us as an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of South Australia in 1995, where he worked with the Telecommunications Engineering Group. From 1996 - 2000 he was a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Information Technology at the Australian National University in Canberra. His research interests include mobile communications, wireless systems and error control coding. He is teaching Information Theory this spring and Advanced Topics in Communications: Error Control Coding in the summer. Dr. Wei is extremely pleased with the direction SEECS is moving in, and he feels that the school's proximity to industry is a tremendous advantage to the faculty. He has published more than 100 refereed papers. He was the founder and chair of the IEEE Australian Information Theory Chapter, and he is co-chair of the IEEE Information Theory Workshop, Cairns, Australia. Dr. Wei is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications in the area of wireless communications.

seecs network - issue 1 - spring 2002

For information or to submit story ideas contact Michelle Berberet, Information Specialist, at (407) 823-2750 or email: michelle@cs.ucf.edu

SEECS Network is a publication of the
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Engineering and Computer Science at UCF:
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Phone: (407) 823-2341 * Fax: (407) 823-5419
©2002 www.seecs.ucf.edu

Abdel Ejnioui Abdel Ejnioui joins us as an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from the University of South Florida and brings valuable industrial experience from Avant! in California. Dr. Ejnioui's research interests include automatic synthesis and integration of programmable arrays in system-on-chips as well as reconfigurable architectures, VLSI CAD and parallel processing. He says that interacting with eager students is one of the best parts of his new position at UCF. He is currently teaching Introduction to Digital Circuits and Systems and Digital Computer Systems.
Taskin Kocak Taskin Kocak,an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, has an educational background that includes a B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a B.S. in Physics from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey. He earned his M.S. and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Duke University. Prior to joining us, he spent two years at Mitsubishi Electronics America, Inc. His research areas include analog/mixed-signal VLSI design, artificial neural networks, intelligent control sensor fusion, mine detection and networking and wireless systems.
Christine Lisetti Christine Lisetti just joined us as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science. From 1998 to 2001, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida Business School in its Information Systems Department. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University from 1996 to 1998 in the Department of Psychology where she worked with the famous neural network expert, Professor Dave Rumelhart. Her various degrees are in Computer Science from Florida International University. She has been honored with several awards including the National Institute of Health Individual Research Service Award and the Nils Nilsson Award for Integrating AI Technologies, which was given at the AAAI 2000 Mobile Robot Competition. Dr. Lisetti leads the "Affective Social Computing Lab" at UCF, which focuses on studying and modeling the role of affect, emotion and personality in intelligence - in particular in communication and decision-making. Her funded research projects currently focus on building Multimodal Affective Intelligent User Interfaces (MAUI) and developing emotion-based architecture for intelligent agents and robots.
Dan C. Marinescu Dan Marinescu is the Provost's Research Professor of Computer Science. Before coming to UCF, Dr. Marinescu was a professor at Purdue University's Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering school, associate professor of EECS at the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania and then a senior researcher at G.S.I. in Darmstadt, Germany. During the summer of 1993, he was a visiting scientist at the Scalable Systems Division of Intel. Dr. Marinescu was the chief architect of a real-time data acquisition and analysis system used in experiments leading to the discovery of the superheavy elements: meitnerium, hessium and nielsbohrium. He currently leads a project on the development of parallel algorithms and methods for the 3-D atomic structure deterioration of large macromolecules such as viruses. He is also involved in the Scalable I/O Initiative. His research interests cover computer networks, parallel and distributed systems, Petri Netts, scientific computing, software agents and Internet process coordination.
Sumanta Pattanaik Sumanta Pattanaik is an Associate Professor of Computer Science. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1993 at the Birla Institute of Science and Technology in Pilani, India. Dr. Pattanaik has had a variety of professional experience including the positions of research associate in the Program of Computer Graphics at Cornell University, post-doctoral researcher at Rennes, France and later at Cornell, senior staff scientist at the Department of Computer Graphics at the National Center for Software Technology in Bombay, India and scientific officer, Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay, India. Currently, he is teaching Computer Graphics Systems I and his research interests are in the areas of realistic image synthesis and display and visualization. Dr. Pattanaik has authored numerous publications, including ACM-SIGGRAPH articles, journal articles, conference and workshop articles, conference tutorials and has edited a recent book entitled "Proceedings of IFIP-ICCG93."
Guy Schiavone Guy Schiavone Schiavone is an Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering. He has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience working in the areas of computer modeling and simulation, numerical analysis, image processing and electromagnetics. During 1993 - 1997, he held an appointment as Research Scientist in the Visual Systems Laboratory at the Institute for Simulation and Training. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College. Serving as technical lead on the Visual Testbed Project (CCTT extension), and as Principal Investigator on the "Special Weapons Effects for DIS" Project, Dr. Schiavone oversaw development of software for testing and validating terrain database interoperability for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) applications. Funded research projects include "Research and Support for the Advanced Tactical Engagement Simulations Science and Technology Objective," "Application of Beowulf Cluster Supercomputing to Simulation," and "Design of an Integrated Feature and Terrain Triangulation Algorithm for Driving Simulation Terrain Database Generation." Other research activities include computational geometry, terrain databases, geostatistics, real-time visualization and image processing. Dr. Schiavone has published numerous papers and has several conference presentations in the areas of electromagnetics, terrain database analysis and visualization and Distributed Interactive Simulation.
Lei Wei Lei Wei joins us as an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of South Australia in 1995, where he worked with the Telecommunications Engineering Group. From 1996 - 2000 he was a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Information Technology at the Australian National University in Canberra. His research interests include mobile communications, wireless systems and error control coding. He is teaching Information Theory this spring and Advanced Topics in Communications: Error Control Coding in the summer. Dr. Wei is extremely pleased with the direction SEECS is moving in, and he feels that the school's proximity to industry is a tremendous advantage to the faculty. He has published more than 100 refereed papers. He was the founder and chair of the IEEE Australian Information Theory Chapter, and he is co-chair of the IEEE Information Theory Workshop, Cairns, Australia. Dr. Wei is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications in the area of wireless communications.