USC Viterbi Faculty and Staff Awards 2023: “The Sapphire Anniversary”

April 27^th marked 45 years of USC Viterbi Faculty and Staff Awards. Although 45^th anniversaries are traditionally celebrated with sapphires there were no gemstones present at the awards ceremony luncheon, only comradery and the celebration of the faculty and staff’s tremendous achievements were needed. Due to the magnitude of Viterbi’s star power, It was difficult to contain the number of accomplishments and recognized people to an hour and half program, here are some of the highlights.

The ceremony began with remarks from dean Yortsos who noted that in the past year several other milestone anniversaries passed for Viterbi programs. Three 50th (golden or golden jubilee) anniversaries: of the USC Information Sciences Institute; of the Distance Education program (DEN); and of the Institute of Image and Signal Processing (SIPI). As well as the 20^th (china) anniversary of the naming of the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

The Information Sciences Institute (ISI) was further recognized for providing research that was foundational in the development of OpenAI’s ChatGPT by pioneering Natural Language Processing (NLP). It was noted that the fundamental technical paper published in 2017 by two USC Viterbi alumni, has now been cited more than 65,000 times today.

DEN was also celebrated not only for defining hybrid learning long before COVID made it a household term but also for providing the infrastructure that allowed more than 50 Afghani women students to connect remotely to the iPodia program’s online engineering classes. The program allowed the girls and women to continue their education that was abruptly interrupted and no longer possible under the Taliban regime, and they continue to attend online this semester.

No USC Viterbi anniversary is complete without celebrating longevity and enduring innovation of the institution which was encapsulated in the USC Viterbi “Year in Review” video. The video highlighted several of the many accomplishments, some of which are shared below.

• The U.S. Space Force announced an official partnership with USC, the only university on the West Coast with this affiliation.
• The naming of the Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, the fifth department in the school to be named so far. The transformative gift marks one of the largest naming gifts to a biomedical engineering department in the nation.
• Earlier in the semester the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), which deals in AI, mixed reality, computer graphics, and virtual humans, became an integral part of USC Viterbi. This formally established the long-standing relationship between ICT and Viterbi, that began at the inception of ICT, as the winning proposal was written by ISI researchers.
• USC Viterbi’s 2023 admitted class hails from 38 states, 26 countries, and is 49.1% female.
• USC’s aviation safety and security program, established in 1952, has now served over 70 years as the gold standard of aviation safety management and education.
• The establishment of the Ershaghi Center for Energy Transition (E-CET) funded by Gary and Mary Buntmann to bring together thought leaders from academia and industry to collaborate on research and educational programs that will foster an energy transition towards a low-carbon future.

Dean Yortsos also shared that he believed the key to Viterbi’s success and ongoing commitment in maintaining the school’s original initiatives in the exponentially and fast-changing world are the “Bold, uninhibited vision to accomplish something new, exciting, and transformative, ahead of its time.” Coupled with the “Agility, speed, commitment and steadfastness to implement, launch and materialize the vision.” He concluded that the marriage of these elements would continue driving the mission of engineering a better world for all humanity.

As a chemical engineer Dean Yortsos could also not help but analogize the interactions between the more than 300 faculty, 10,000 students and 500 staff of Viterbi to chemical interactions. Noting that the thousands of interactions or “reactions” across Viterbi define the culture and initiatives of the school.

“I have often paralleled the role of our staff as that of catalysts- they catalyze the positive transformation of our students, enabled by our faculty.”

After acknowledging the spectacular and lengthy distinctions Viterbi faculty and staff achieved in the past year, Dean Yortsos and other USC Viterbi leaders presented this year’s staff and faculty awards. Awardees included:

• Alicia Williams: Staff Early Career Award
• Maria Mallari: Staff Award for Excellence
• Xiang Ren and Cristina Zavaleta: Junior Research Awards
• Antonio Ortega: Senior Research Award
• David Barnhart: Use-Inspired Research Award
• Birendra Jha: Chevron Research Innovation Award
• Felipe De Barros: Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award
• Robert Parke: Dean’s Award for Innovation in Teaching and Education
• Maja Matarić: John O’Brien Faculty Service Award
• Ted Low: Linda Rock Staff Award for Service
• Mark Manley and Catherine Spear: Special Service Awards

Congratulations to this year’s impressive awardees who shine like sapphires:

Alicia Williams, Staff Early Career Award

Maria Mallari, Staff Award for Excellence

Xiang Ren, Junior Research Awards

Cristina Zavaleta, Junior Research Awards

Antonio Ortega, Senior Research Award

David Barnhart, Use-Inspired Research Award

Birendra Jha, Chevron Research Innovation Award

Felipe De Barros, Northrop Grumman Excellence in Teaching Award

Robert Parke, Dean’s Award for Innovation in Teaching and Education

Maja Matarić, John O’Brien Faculty Service Award

Ted Low, Linda Rock Staff Award for Service

Mark Manley & Catherine Spear, Special Service Awards

Published on May 11th, 2023

Last updated on January 11th, 2024