Alumni Directory (Yener)
Post-Doc Alumni
Shirin Saeedi Bidokhti
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Tehran, in 2005, the M.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in Computer and Communication Sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland, in 2007 and 2012, respectively. During April-June 2017, she was a postdoctoral research associate at WCAN. She joined the Electrical Engineering and Systems Engineering Department at University of Pennsylvania as a Research Assistant Professor in 2017. Her current research interest includes network information theory, data Compression for big data, network coding, cooperation in networks, and caching in networks. Website
Rémi A. Chou
received the Engineering degree from Supélec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France in 2011. He received the M.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 2011 and 2015, respectively. Between 2015 and 2017, he was a postdoctoral research associate at WCAN. He joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Wichita State University as an Assistant Professor in 2017. His current research interest includes information theory, secure communication, cyber-physical security, and machine learning. Website
Ebrahim MolavianJazi
received the dual-degree B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Isfahan University of Technology, in 2007, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Notre Dame in 2009 and 2014. He joined WCAN in August 2014 and worked as a post doctoral scholar until 2016 when he joined Motorola.
Igor Stanojev
received the Dipl.Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, in 2001, his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Newark, NJ, USA, in 2006, his Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from NJIT, Newark, NJ, USA. He joined WCAN in August 2010 and worked as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate until June 2012. He joined the Department of General Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in June 2012 as an assistant professor. Website
Satashu Goel
received the B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2003, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2007 and 2009. He joined WCAN in July 2009 and worked as a post doctoral research associate until 2010 when he joined Qualcomm.
PhD Graduates
Abdelrahman Ibrahim
received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, in 2011; the M.Sc. degree in Communication and Information Technology, Nile University, Giza, Egypt, in 2014. He joined WCAN in August 2014 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Data Storage and Energy Management in Emerging Networks" in April, 2019. He received his PhD Degree in August 2019 and subsequently joined Qualcomm as a Senior Systems Engineer. Website
Ahmed A. Zewail
received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, in 2011; the M.Sc. degree in Communication and Information Technology, Nile University, Giza, Egypt, in 2013. He joined WCAN in August 2013 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Secrecy Guarantees in Emerging Networks" in April, 2019. He received his PhD Degree in August 2019 and subsequently joined Qualcomm as a Senior Engineer. Website
Mohamed Nafea
received the B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, in 2010; the M.Sc. degree in Wireless Communications from Wireless Intelligent Networks Center (WINC), Nile University, Giza, Egypt, in 2012, and the M.A. degree in Mathematics from the Department of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, in 2017. He joined WCAN in August 2012 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Information Theoretic Security Guarantees against More Capable Adversaries" in August, 2018. He received his PhD Degree in December 2018 and subsequently joined Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Georgia Institute of Technology as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate. Website
Burak Varan
received the B.S degree in Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2011. He joined WCAN in August 2011 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Energy and Signal Cooperation in Competitive Wireless Networks with Energy Harvesting" on August 29, 2017. He received his PhD Degree in August 2017 and subsequently joined Amazon Lab126 as a Software Development Engineer. Website
Basak Guler
received the B.S degree in Electrical Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 2009. She received her M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2012. She joined WCAN in August 2012 as a PhD candidate. She successfully defended her thesis entitled "Information Transmission in Networks with Social and Semantic Constraints" on August 28, 2017. She received her PhD Degree in August 2017 and subsequently joined the Electrical Engineering Department at University of Southern California as a postdoctoral research associate. Website
Kaya Tutuncuoglu
received the B.S degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and the B.S. degree in Physics from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 2008 and 2009, respectively. He joined WCAN in August 2009 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Energy Harvesting Wireless Networks: Transmission Policies and Coding Schemes" on May 18, 2015. He received his PhD Degree in August 2015 and subsequently joined Facebook Inc. as a research scientist.
Ye Tian
received the B.Eng degree in Information Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Beijing in 2007. He joined WCAN in July 2007 as a PhD candidate. He successfully defended his thesis entitled "Cooperation and Interference for Wireless Networks" on January 30, 2013. He received his PhD Degree in January 2013 and subsequently joined Broadcom.
Min Li
received the B.S. degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2006 and his M.E. degree in Information and Communication Engineering from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China in 2008. He joined WCAN in August 2008 as a PhD candidate. His successfully defended his thesis entitled "Information Theoretic Limits of Multi-User Channels with State" on June 4, 2012. He received his PhD degree in Electrical engineering in August 2012, and subsequently joined Macquarie University in Sydney as a post-doctoral researcher. He joined College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, as a ZJU100 Young Professor, from March 2019. Website
Ertugrul Necdet Ciftcioglu
received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 2004 and his M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering and Computer Science from Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey in 2006. He joined WCAN in August 2006 as a PhD candidate. His successfully defended his thesis entitled "Wireless Relay Networks with Stochastic Arrivals" on November 2, 2011. He received his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering April 2012, and subsequently joined BBN Technologies as a postdoc.
Xiang He
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China in 2003, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China in 2006. He joined WCAN in the fall of 2006 as a PhD candidate. His successfully defended his thesis entitled "Cooperation and Information Theoretic Security in Wireless Networks" on April 30, 2010. He graduated with his PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in August 2010. Upon graduation, he joined Microsoft Corporation at Seattle. Website
Min Chen
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China in 2000, and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University, China in 2002. She joined WCAN in the fall of 2003 as a PhD candidate. She successfully defended her thesis entitled "Resource Management for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks" on September 11, 2009. She received her PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in December 2009. Upon graduation, she joined Microsoft Corporation at Seattle.
Ender Tekin
received the B.S. degree in Electrical-Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey in June 2000. He started his graduate studies at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA in August 2000 where he received his MS in December 2001. He joined WCAN in 2001 as a PhD candidate. During his Ph.D. study, he worked on information theoretic secrecy for wireless communication channels. He successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Information Theoretic Secrecy for Some Multiuser Wireless Communication Channels" on April 21, 2008. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2008. Upon graduation, he joined Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center in San Francisco, CA as a Research Associate.
Kyounghwan Lee
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Seoul, Seoul, Korea in February 2000, and the M.S. degree in Information and Communication Engineering from Gwanju Institue of Science and Technology, Korea in February 2002. He joined WCAN in January 2004 as a PhD candidate. During his Ph.D., he worked on resource management for hybrid wireless relay neworks. He successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Cognitive Hybrid Wireless Relay Networks" on October 16, 2007. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in December 2007. Upon graduation, he joined POSDATA AMERICA in Santa Clara, CA, working on WiMAX forum and IEEE 802.16.
Changyoon Oh
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea in February 1999. He started his graduate studies at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA in August 1999 where he received his MS in 2001. He joined WCAN in January 2002 as a PhD candidate. During his Ph.D., he worked on radio resource management for beyond 3G wireless systems. His research has resulted in 3 conference and 2 journal papers. He was also a teaching assistant at the Department of Electrical Engineering. He successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled "Resource Allocation Techniques for Performance Improvement of Multiuser Systems" on May 3, 2005. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2005, and subsequently joined Samsung, Korea as a Systems Engineer.
Semih Serbetli
received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2000. He joined WCAN in September 2001 as a Rossin fellow and a research assistant at Lehigh University. He transferred to Penn State in January 2002 as a PhD student and was a research assistant at WCAN until his graduation. During his Ph.D. studies, he focused on transceiver optimization for multiuser multiple antenna systems and resource allocation for relay assisted communications. His research was supported by NSF. His research has resulted in 10 conference and 5 journal papers. He successfully defended his PhD thesis on April 19, 2005 and received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2005. He was a Post Doctoral Research Associate at WCAN, August-November 2005. He joined Philips Research in Eindhoven, The Netherlands as a research scientist in December 2005.
MS Graduates
Basak Guler
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey in 2009. She joined WCAN in August 2009 as an M.S. candidate. She successfully defended her M.S. thesis entitled "Interference Management for Femtocell Networks" on April 12, 2012, and received her M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2012. She is currently a member of WCAN as a Ph.D. candidate. Website
Chien-Jen Huang
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. He joined WCAN as a MS candidate in 2004. He received the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in December 2007.
Laren Huie
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York, in 2005. She joined WCAN in August 2005 as an MS candidate. She was also a teaching assistant at the Department of Electrical Engineering while persuing her M.S. degree. She successfully defended her M.S. thesis entitled "Joint Temporal Power Scheduling and Estimator Optimization for Sensor Networks" on July 31, 2007, and received her M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2007. Upon graduation, she joined the Airforce Research Laboratory in Rome, NY as a researcher.
Sandeep Bethanabhotla
received the B.S. degree in Electronics and Communications from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati in 2003. He joined WCAN in the fall of 2003 and graduated with his masters degree in EE in December 2005. His thesis is entitled "Transmit Strategies for Lifetime Maximization of Wireless Sensor Networks". He joined Broadcom, Irvine, CA in December 2005.
Sung-Min Bae
was a masters student in the EE department between 2003-2005. He was a member of WCAN in 2005 working on RFID networks. He received the MS degree in Electrical Engineering in December 2005. His master's paper was entitled "The Listing Protocol for the RFID Reader Collision Problem".
Girish Khandelwal
received the B.E. degree in the Electronics and Communications Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Jaipur, India, in 1997. Between 1997 and 2003, he held several technical positions in the industry mainly focused on GSM, GPRS and VoIP systems. He joined WCAN in August 2003 as an MS candidate and reseach assistant. His research was supported by USMC/PTI in 2003-2004, and by PDG in 2005. Pursuing his M.S., he studied Efficient MAC layer design for dense and time constrained RFID systems. He successfully defended his M.S. thesis on July 25, 2005, and received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2005. He was a Consultant at Detecon between August 2005 to May 2006. He joined Qualcomm, San Diego, CA as a senior engineer in May 2006.
Onder Filiz
received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2001. He joined WCAN as an MS candidate and a research assistant in September 2001 at Lehigh University. His work at Lehigh was supported by the AT&T foundation. He transferred to Penn State in January 2002. During his M.S., he studied spatial and temporal interference suppression techniques for CDMA systems. His research has resulted in 1 journal and 2 conference papers. He successfully defended his MS thesis entitled "Rank Constrained Temporal-Spatial Filtering for CDMA Systems" on July 1, 2003, and received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in August 2003. Upon graduation, he joined Turkcell, Istanbul, Turkey as a wireless communications engineer.
Battal Ozdemir
received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2001. He joined WCAN as a research assistant in September 2001 at Lehigh University. He transferred to Penn State in January 2002. During his M.S., he focused on cross-layer design for ad hoc wireless networks. He successfully defended his MS paper entitled "Adaptive Probing Based Medium Access Control (PMAC) Protocol for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks" on April 3, 2003. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2003. Upon graduation, he joined Tubitak, Istanbul, Turkey as a Research Engineer.
Atul Divakaran
joined WCAN in the fall of 2002. During his M.S., he studied adaptive channel allocation strategies for wireless communications. He successfully defended his MS paper entitled "An Adaptive Channel Allocation Strategy for Wireless Multimedia QoS" on August 27, 2003. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in September 2003, and subsequently joined T-Mobile.
Undergraduate Alumni
Michael Wang
joined WCAN in fall 2010 as a senior. His research in ad-hoc networks has resulted in the B.S. honor's thesis "MIMO Wireless Ad-hoc Communication Networks: Evaluation of Performance". He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2011. Upon graduation, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University as a PhD Student.
Chip McArtor
joined WCAN in fall 2004 as a senior. His research in sensor networks has resulted in the B.S. honor's thesis "Lifetime Optimization of Sensor Networks: A network Layer Approach". He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2005.
Mikhail Lisovich
joined WCAN in fall 2005 as a senior. His research in ad hoc networks has resulted in the B.S. honor's thesis "Capacity Scaling Laws in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks". He received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in May 2006. He received his PhD degree from Cornell University in 2010.