Students and Researchers from EE Department Accept Tenure Track Faculty Positions

In light of Covid-19, we are proud to share some positive news about some of our students and researchers in the Electrical Engineering Department at Columbia University who have recently accepted positions as tenure track faculty members.

Tingjun Chen started his M.S./Ph.D. program in EE in Fall 2014 after graduating with a B.Eng. degree in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University. Chen worked with Professor Gil Zussman in the Wireless & Mobile Networking (WiMNet) lab. His research interests are in the areas of future wireless networks and the Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems, where he has been applying tools from networking, optimization, and system design. He is the student co-lead of the Columbia FlexICoN project and is highly involved in the design and deployment of the NSF PAWR COSMOS testbed. He was also involved in the Columbia EnHANTs project.

Chen will be joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University as a tenure-track assistant professor starting on August 1, 2021. He will be working on various components - from emerging Physical technologies to cross-layered design and optimization of networked systems - to further push the frontier of future wireless networks and IoT systems, with the goal of providing ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency services to the users.

“My journey at Columbia EE started all the way back when I did a research internship in Gil's group in summer 2013 (when I was a junior undergrad at Tsinghua). Things have been really amazing here in the past couple of years: I’ve met wonderful people and enjoy living in the city, I have been fortunate to have amazing mentors and collaborators and we work on exciting research topics in wireless networks and systems, and I really like the dynamic, vibrant, and collaborative environment at Columbia,” said Chen.

Qing Qu graduated from the EE PhD program at Columbia in 2018 where he worked with Prof. John Wright in signal processing, data science, and machine learning. Currently, Qu is a Moore-Sloane Data Science Fellow at NYU Center for Data Science (December 2018-December 2020 (expected). Qing will be joining the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor as a tenure-track assistant professor starting on Jan. 1st 2021. Qu's interests broadly lies in the intersection of data science, machine learning and numerical optimization and his research focuses on developing theoretical guarentees and provable methods for solving high-dimensional nonconvex optimization problems. His collaborative work with Prof. Ju Sun and Prof. John Wright on sparse subspace learning and phase retrieval problems has made broad impacts in signal processing, numerical optimizatio, and machine learning communities.

His current interests are in developing provable and efficient computational methods for learning low-complexity models frrom high-dimensional data, leveraging tools from machine learning, numerical optimization, and high dimensional geometry. He also has interests in applying our data-driven methods to carious engineering provlems in imaging sciences, scientific discovery and healthcare.

"I am indebted to the great platform that Columbia EE has provided for pursuing my intellectual freedom and academic dreams. The amazing environment and wonderful people here have made huge influence on me as a researcher, and more importantly as a person. In particular, I am really fortunate to have Prof. John Wright as my mentor and advisor. I can never imagine my achievements today without his encouragement and guidance throughout all these years," said Qu.

Qixiang Cheng joined Columbia University in 2016 as a Post-Doctoral Researcher and theN got promoted to Associate Research Scientist working closely with Prof. Keren Bergmen in the Lightwave Research Lab.Cheng researched in the field of silicon photonic integrated circuits for data centers. He recently joined the University of Cambridge, UK with a permanent faculty position as a University Lecturer where he researches advanced photonic integrated circuits in silicon, InP, and Si/SiN + InP. He teaches an undergraduate course 3B6 - photonic technologies.

 “My time at EE Columbia has provided me crucial training for my academic career. I'm truly grateful for that,” said Cheng.

Jonathan Ostrometzky joined CU EE in March 2018 as a postdoctoral research Scientist. Ostrometzky’s host was Prof. Gil Zussman from the Wireless & Mobile Networking (WiMNet) lab. Apart from working with Prof. Zussman’s and his group, he also joined a number of multidisciplinary research projects that involved close collaboration with Prof. Daniel Bienstock, and with Prof. Zoran Kostic. He also worked with Emily Ford and Karen Cheng from CU SEAS on outreach activities as part of the NYU and CU teams of the COSMOS RET summer program the summers of 2018 and 2019, and on the Verizon 5G EdTech Challenge.

Jonathan led WiMNet lab’s NSF-BSF project in the area of wireless networks robustness via weather-sensitive predictive management and will continue to work on it in Tel Aviv university. Moreover, he has performed research in the area of power grid resilience and worked on the COSMOS project. In particular, Jonathan focused on the COSMOS program for middle and high school teachers.

Ostrometzky recently joined the Faculty of Engineering at Tel-Aviv University in a tenure-track position. In his new position, he will be teaching a number of courses in the new program “Sciences for Hi-Tech” that has been recently opened for both undergrads and graduate students in the Faculty of Engineering at Tel-Aviv University, with the goal to train high-quality students multidisciplinary skills. He will continue his research, which is focused on statistical signal processing for challenges such as cybersecurity and resilience of smart-city and power infrastructure, and opportunistic environmental monitoring.

“The experience and the knowledge I gained during my time at Columbia University made a huge impact on me as a person and as a researcher. And although I am starting a new position at Tel-Aviv University, which is located half-way around the world, The people I got to know and the collaborations that were established during my appointment at Columbia will follow me for years to come, and will certainly shape my academic career,” said Ostrometzky.