Six Georgia Institute of Technology faculty members have been elevated to Fellow status by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology. 

The IEEE grade of Fellow is conferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any IEEE field of interest. 

The Georgia Tech faculty members promoted to IEEE Fellow, effective Jan. 1, 2011, include three professors from the College of Engineering’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, one from the college’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and two from the College of Computing’s School of Computer Science.

Mark G. Allen, Regents’ Professor and Joseph M. Pettit Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received his IEEE Fellow citation “for contributions to micro and nanofabrication technologies for microelectromechanical systems.”

Allen, who joined Georgia Tech in 1989 and also a joint appointment with the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, researches new approaches to fabricate devices in the micro- to nanoscale from both silicon and non-silicon materials. He has published about 100 journal articles and 200 conference proceedings articles, and holds roughly 40 patents. Allen is co-founder of several companies, including CardioMEMS, which commercializes wireless implantable microsensors for treatment of aneurysms and congestive heart failure, and Axion Biosystems, which develops microelectrode arrays for in-vitro neural interfacing.  

Mary Jean Harrold, professor in the School of Computer Science in the College of Computing, earned her IEEE Fellow status “for contributions to software systems.”

Harrold’s research involves developing efficient techniques and tools that will automate or partially automate development, testing and maintenance tasks. Her focus is on the investigation of the scalability issues of these techniques through algorithm development and empirical evaluation. Harrold is the ADVANCE Professor of Computing and former associate dean of the College.

Jay Lee, an adjunct professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was elevated to IEEE Fellow status “for contributions to model-based predictive control applications.”

In 2000, Lee joined the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, after serving on the faculty at Auburn and Purdue universities. In 2010, Lee became the head of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, Korea.

He was a 1993 recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Young Investigator Award. The author of more than 120 manuscripts in SCI journals with more than 2,500 ISI citations, Lee’s research interests are in the areas of system identification, state estimation, robust control, model predictive control, and approximate dynamic programming.  

John Papapolymerou, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was awarded the IEEE Fellow citation “for contributions to flexible, microwave and wireless components and systems.”

Papapolymerou has been instrumental in the development of conformal, flexible and lightweight radio frequency hardware for wireless communication systems and radars. The focus of this work is to build high performance but low profile and low cost radio frequency components (e.g. antennas, transmitters and receivers) and front ends that can be used in high speed commercial wireless systems, radars for environmental sensing and defense applications, and sensors and communication modules for smart grid systems.

Gabriel Rincón-Mora, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, earned the IEEE Fellow citation “for contributions to energy- and power-integrated circuit design.”

Rincón-Mora researches design and development of system-on-chip and system-in-package integrated circuits that derive energy and power from miniaturized fuel cells, thin-film lithium-ion batteries, wireless microsensors, and other mobile and portable applications.

A senior integrated circuit designer for Texas Instruments from 1994-2003, Rincón-Mora served as an adjunct professor at Georgia Tech from 1999-2001 before joining the faculty in 2001. He has written eight books, one book chapter, and more than 120 scientific publications. He holds 37 issued patents and more than 26 commercial power chip designs.

Ellen Zegura, professor and chair of the School of Computer Science in the College of Computing, was elevated to IEEE Fellow status “for contributions to disruption-tolerant networking.”

Zegura’s research focuses on development of wide-area (Internet) networking services and mobile wireless networking. Her focus is on services implemented both at the network layer, as part of network infrastructure, and at the application layer. In the context of mobile wireless networking, she is interested in challenged environments where traditional ad hoc and infrastructure-based networking approaches fail. Zegura is one of the prime movers behind the College’s Computer for Good initiative. 

For a full list of the IEEE Class of 2011 Fellows, visit the IEEE website.