Behnaam Aazhang (born December 7, 1957) is the J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University and Director of the Rice Neuroengineering Initiative.

Early life and education

Aazhang was born in Bandar-Anzali, Iran, and attended

Sharif University of Technology Sharif University of Technology (SUT; fa, دانشگاه صنعتی شریف) is a public research university in Tehran, Iran. It is widely considered as the nation's most prestigious and leading institution for science, technology, engineering, ...

in Tehran, Iran from 1975 until 1978. He moved to the United States in 1979. Aazhang received his B.S.,

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1981, 1983, and 1986, respectively, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Aazhang was a research assistant in the

Coordinated Science Laboratory The Coordinated Science Laboratory (CSL) is a major scientific research laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With deep roots in information technology, CSL has invented and deployed many landmark innovations, such as the el ...

at the University of Illinois from 1981 to 1985. In August 1985, he joined the faculty of Rice University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Career and Research

Aazhang served as founding director of Rice’s Center for Multimedia Communications (CMC) from 1998 until 2006. He was the Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2004 until 2014. He held an Academy of Finland Distinguished Visiting Professorship appointment (FiDiPro) at the University of Oulu in Finland from 2006 until 2014. For his contributions, he received an honorary doctorate in 2017 (the highest honor the university can bestow). During his career, he served as visiting professor or visiting scientist at several institutions, including IBM Federal Systems Company,

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

, Helsinki University of Technology and Nokia Mobile. He has been the Director of the Rice Neuroengineering Initiative since 2018.

Awards and honors

Aazhang was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1999 and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012. He received the

SIGMOBILE SIGMOBILE is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Mobility of Systems, Users, Data and Computing, which specializes in the field of mobile computing and wireless networks and wearable computing. Conceived in early 19 ...

Test of Time (ToT) Award in 2019 which recognizes outstanding papers that have had a lasting impact on the field of mobile computing, for the paper “Design of WARP: a wireless open-access research platform”.

Personal life

Aazhang lives in Houston, TX with his wife, Lisa. He has four children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aazhang, Behnaam Rice University faculty Sharif University of Technology alumni Living people 1957 births Iranian emigrants to the United States People from Bandar-e Anzali American people of Iranian descent