Two Purdue ECE alumni elected to National Academy of Engineering
Two alumni of Purdue University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Khaled B. Letaief and Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport each received their BS, MS, and PhD from Purdue ECE. They are among 106 new members and 23 international members of the NAE. For contributions to the characterization of radio frequency propagation in millimeter wave bands for cellular communication networks.
Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature" and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education." Letaief is being recognized by the NAE “for contributions to adaptive resource allocation in multiuser orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing wireless systems and for academic leadership.” Rappaport is being honored “for contributions to the characterization of radio frequency propagation in millimeter wave bands for cellular communication networks.”
Khaled B. Letaief (BSEE ’84, MSEE ’86, PhD ECE ’90) is the New Bright Professor of Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST Hong Kong). He is an internationally recognized leader in wireless communications and networks with research interest in artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data analytics systems, tactile Internet, and 5G systems and beyond. In these areas, Letaief has more than 620 journal and conference papers with over 35,000 citations. He also has 15 patents, including 11 US inventions and served as consultants for different organizations including Huawei, ASTRI, ZTE, Nortel, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Motorola. Letaief is recognized as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher, which puts him among preeminent researchers who are most highly cited and comprise less than one-half of one percent of all published authors. He received the Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer award from Purdue ECE in 2010.
Theodore (Ted) S. Rappaport (BSEE ’82, MSEE ’84, PhD ECE ’87) is the David Lee/Ernst Weber Professor of Electrical Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering (NYU-Tandon) and is a professor of computer science at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He is also a professor of radiology at the NYU School of Medicine. Rappaport is a pioneer in radio wave propagation for cellular and personal communications, wireless communication system design, and broadband wireless communications circuits and systems at millimeter wave frequencies. His research has influenced many international wireless-standards bodies, and he and his students invented the technology of site-specific radio frequency (RF) channel modeling and design for wireless network deployment - a technology now used routinely throughout wireless communications. Rappaport received the Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer award from Purdue ECE in 2004 and the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from Purdue’s College of Engineering in 2013.
Election of new NAE members is the culmination of a yearlong process. Individuals in the newly elected class will be formally inducted during the NAE's annual meeting on Oct. 3, 2021.