Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) announced today that Yehia Massoud, PhD, will join the university on Sept. 1 as the new head of the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was most recently head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, as well as the W. R. Bunn Endowed Chair of Telecommunications and director of the UAB Center for Integrated Systems.
Massoud, whose research spans embedded systems, signal processing, nanotechnology, and biotechnology, says he looks forward to establishing transformational and synergistic, collaborative research programs with various engineering and science departments at WPI and other universities regionally and nationally.
"My goal is to work with WPI's faculty, students, and administration to continue the growth of this electrical and computer engineering department into a world-class program that is internationally recognized for excellence in both undergraduate education and graduate research and for having a significant impact on the future of our society," Massoud said.
"We look forward to welcoming Dr. Massoud to our community," said Selcuk Guceri, Bernard M. Gordon Dean of Engineering at WPI. "His outstanding research in electrical engineering, nanotechnology, and biomedical engineering will enhance and expand our capabilities in these important areas, and his proven academic leadership will help one of our largest engineering disciplines continue to thrive and grow in success and recognition."
Massoud received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1999 before becoming a member of the technical staff in the Advanced Technology Group at Synopsys, a world leader in electronic design automation located in Mountain View, Calif. At Synopsys, he received the Special Recognition Award for excellent performance and outstanding contributions to the company's engineering work.
Massoud began his academic career in 2003 at Rice University, where he was the founding director of the Nanoelectronics Systems Laboratory. He was an assistant professor (2003-2007) and an associate professor (2007-2010), with appointments in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science departments and the Applied Physics Program.
He was the theme leader for Novel Interconnects and Architectures in the South West Academy of Nanoelectronics from 2006 to 2011. His research was also supported by awards from the National Science Foundation's CAREER program and the National Nanotechnology Initiative. He also received awards from DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Office of Naval Research, and Texas Instruments.
Massoud is the author or co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed journal publications and conference papers. He received best paper awards at the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design and the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Nanotechnology. An elected member of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council since 2009, Massoud is an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems (VLSI), the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems, and the Journal of Circuits, Systems, and Computers, as well as a founding associate editor of the journal Nano Communication Networks. He served as the 2009 general program co-chair and the 2007 technical program co-chair of the IEEE/ACM Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI, and has also chaired or co-chaired conference tracks in many IEEE/ACM international conferences.
