UCLA Electrical and Computer Engineer Mona Jarrahi Named Guggenheim Fellow

Electrical and computer engineering professor Mona Jarrahi from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has been named a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow. The only honoree in the engineering category for the 100^th class of fellows, Jarrahi is among 198 distinguished individuals in 53 scholarly disciplines recognized by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for their exceptional achievements and continued promise.

“At a time when intellectual life is under attack, the Guggenheim Fellowship celebrates a century of support for the lives and work of visionary scientists, scholars, writers and artists,” said Edward Hirsch, award-winning poet and President of the Guggenheim Foundation in the announcement on April 15. “We believe that these creative thinkers can take on the challenges we all face today and guide our society towards a better and more hopeful future.”

Jarrahi, who holds the Northrop Grumman Chair in Electrical Engineering, directs the Terahertz Electronics Laboratory, where she studies ultrafast electronic and optoelectronic devices. A member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, Jarrahi’s research focuses on expanding the capabilities and applications of terahertz sensing, imaging and communication systems. Widely recognized for her innovative plasmonic and optical advancements, Jarrahi is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Physical Society, the optical society Optica, the international society for optics and photonics SPIE, and the Institute of Physics.

Among the many honors she has received are the Institution of Engineering and Technology A.F. Harvey Prize, the Moore Inventor Fellowship from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She is also a recipient of UCLA Samueli’s Watanabe Excellence in Research award.

Jarrahi is one of five UCLA faculty members appointed to the class of 2025 Guggenheim Fellows. Other professors are Suk-Young Kim of theater, film & television; Jingyi “Jessica” Li of statistics, biostatistics, human genetics, and computational medicine, and human genetics and biomathematics; Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni of earth, planetary and space sciences; and Park Williams of geography.

Established in 1925 by the late U.S. Senator Simon Guggenheim and his wife Olga in memory of their son John Simon, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has granted over $400 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 individuals. Among the recipients are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of the national academies, and winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award and other internationally recognized honors.