Three faculty members elected to the National Academy of Engineering

Feb 8, 2018

By UCLA Samueli Newsroom

Election to the academy is among the highest distinctions for an engineer

Three faculty members in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science – Ann Karagozian, Stanley Osher , and Ali Sayed – have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, among the highest professional honors that can be accorded to an American engineer. The academy announced its 2018 class  of 83 members and 13 foreign members on Feb. 7.

Ann R. Karagozian, distinguished professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
For contributions to combustion and propulsion, education of future aerospace engineers, and service to the country.

Stanley J. Osher, distinguished professor of mathematics, with appointments in computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and chemical and biomolecular engineering.
For contributions to imaging, computer vision, and graphics including level-set methods and efficient compressed sensing.

Ali H. Sayed, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCLA, currently on leave of absence. Dean of engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland.
For contributions to the theory and applications of adaptive signal processing.

With their election, the school now includes 30 affiliated faculty members who are members of  the academy.

Click here to read more about the three new National Academy of Engineering members

 


Ann R. Karagozian directs UCLA’s Energy and Propulsion Research Laboratory and is the director of the Collaborative Center for Aerospace Sciences a joint venture between the Air Force Research Laboratory and UCLA.

Her research interests are in fluid mechanics and combustion, with applications to improved engine efficiency, reduced emissions, alternative fuels, and advanced rocket and air breathing propulsion systems.

For more than a decade, Karagozian has served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, including as vice chair from 2005 to 2009. The board provides the Air Force with independent advice on matters of science and technology relating to its mission

She has received numerous honors, including the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service (in 2001 and 2010), UCLA MAE Department Award for Outstanding Teaching, and the TRW-UCLA Excellence in Teaching Award. She is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Since 2011, she has served on the Board of Trustees for the Institute for Defense Analyses, a not-for-profit corporation that operates three federally funded research and development centers in the public interest. . She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the American University of Armenia, a UC affiliate.

Karagozian has served UCLA in many roles, including as interim vice chancellor for research and chair of the Academic Senate.

Karagozian received her bachelor’s degree in engineering from UCLA, graduating summa cum laude. She received her master’s degree and doctorate from Caltech. She joined the UCLA faculty in 1982 and has advised 26 Ph.D. recipients, 53 M.S. recipients, and has supervised 13 postdoctoral scholars and visiting scientists.

Stanley J. Osher serves as director of special projects for the Institute for Pure & Applied Math at UCLA, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. He was also the former director of UCLA’s applied mathematics program.

He has made pioneering contributions across several fields in applied mathematics. In particular his research has been used to develop new and powerful methods for sensing, modeling and analyzing the physical world.

He has collaborated with colleagues across many fields and has pioneered influential mathematical techniques. For example, his research has helped make major improvements in MRI scans and medical image analysis, and in advanced computer chip design. They have also enhanced computer vision and graphics, provided new ways to forecast weather and identify the source of earthquakes, and revolutionized computer modeling for supersonic jet design.

Osher’s many honors include the being the third recipient of the Carl Freidrich Gauss Prize, the highest honor in applied mathematics, which was awarded to him in 2014 at the International Congress of Mathematicians. He received the William Benter Prize in Applied Mathematics, awarded by City University of Hong Kong, in 2016.

He is member of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and or the American Mathematical Society. He has been an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow.

He has cofounded three fairly successful companies, largely based on his own research.

He has consistently been among the top 1 percent of the most frequently cited scholars in both mathematics and computer science, and he recently  surpassed a milestone of 100,000 citations for his scholarly work. Osher was selected to give a plenary address at the 2010 International Conference of Mathematicians and the John von Neumann Lecture at the 2013 meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Osher joined the UCLA faculty in 1977. He had previous appointments at SUNY Stony Brook and at UC Berkeley.   He has trained more than 50 doctoral students and even more post-doctoral scholars. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. from New York University, and his B.S. from Brooklyn College.

Ali H. Sayed leads the UCLA  Adaptive Systems Laboratory. His research interests are in adaptation and learning, network science, information processing theories, and biologically-inspired designs. In 2017, Sayed become the dean of engineering at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland. He is on a leave of absence from UCLA.

Sayed’s many honors include IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Education Award and the Meritorious Service Award Technical Achievement Award; the Athanasious Papoulis Award from the European Association for Signal Processing; the Terman Award from the American Society for Engineering Education; the 2003 Kuwait Prize; and the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize. He is a fellow of both the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Sayed has been recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters.

Sayed is currently serving as the president of IEEE Signal Processing Society. He also was the chair of the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department, from 2005 to 2010. He is the author of more than 480 scholarly publications and six books.

Born in Brazil, Sayed earned his M.S. from the University of São Paulo in 1989 and his Ph.D. in from Stanford University in 1992. He started his academic career at UC Santa Barbara. He moved to UCLA in 1996.

Photo of Osher by Christelle Snow/UCLA Newsroom

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