Armour College of Engineering Professor Jafar Saniie has been named the new Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department. Former Chair Ashfaq Khokar has left Illinois Tech due to an excellent opportunity that was presented to him.
Saniie has assumed full responsibilities of the ECE department chair duties, and will hold the position until July 31, 2018. A search for a full five-year term ECE Chair will start in the fall of 2017 with August 1, 2018 as an expected start date.
Saniie has demonstrated the ability and commitment to lead ECE in this transitional period, not only by attending to the day-to-day administrative duties of the ECE department but also by working closely with all ECE faculty on maintaining and enhancing ECE’s excellence in its educational and research programs.
Saniie joined the ECE department at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1983. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Electrical Engineering at Purdue University. He is currently ECE chair, Filmer Endowed Chair Professor, and director of the Embedded Computing and Signal Processing Research Laboratory.
Saniie’s research interests and activities are in ultrasonic signal and image processing, statistical pattern recognition, neural networks, data compression, estimation and detection, smart sensors, machine vision, and embedded digital and computing systems. In particular, he has performed extensive work in the areas of frequency diverse ultrasonic target detection techniques, order statistics, embedded signal processing architectures and system-on-chip design for ultrasonic imaging applications. Over the years, his research has been funded by NSF, ONR, DoD, EPRI, University of Chicago, and Argonne National Laboratory.
Saniie has supervised 32 Ph.D. and 22 MS dissertations to completion. He has over 300 publications in technical journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, and technical reports. He has been the research advisor to students who received the Bendix Award (1986), the IEEE Region 4 Best Paper Award (1986), IEEE Ultrasonics Best Student Paper Award (2006, 2013), and ECE Best Ph.D. Paper Competition (2007 and 2008). He received the 2007 University Excellence in Teaching Award, and the 2006 ECE Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence and Contributions to Electrical and Computer Engineering Programs.
Saniie’s recent professional activities include serving as the vice president of Ultrasonics (2014-2017), IEEE UFFC Society, general chair for the 2014 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, publication chair for the 2013 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium, associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (1994 – present), and lead guest editor of three specials issues in ultrasonic imaging and system-on-chip design. He has been recognized as an IEEE Fellow for contributions to Ultrasonic Signal Processing in Detection, Estimation, and Imaging. He has received numerous recognitions for his service to the IEEE Ultrasonics Society.