From left, Alexander “Sandy” Sawchuk, Maryam Shanechi, Mariette Sawchuk and Dean Yannis Yortsos attended Shanechi’s recent installation ceremony as holder of the Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Photo: Cha Cha Studio
Over the course of his decorated and decades-long career, USC Viterbi Professor Emeritus Alexander “Sandy” Sawchuk has received countless awards and honors.
But perhaps none of them is as meaningful as the ones that have recognized his profound connection with his students.
They include the USC Viterbi Outstanding Teaching Award (1995), the USC Mellon Academic Mentoring Support Program Certificate of Recognition (2005), and the USC Associates Award for Excellence in Teaching (2007).
Bookending his extraordinary Trojan run, Sawchuk (with his wife, Mariette) has become one of the first faculty members to establish a chair at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. On November 8, Maryam Shanechi, the inaugural holder of the Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was honored at an event held in the Ming Hsieh Boardroom in Ronald Tutor Hall.
“Maryam’s ability to integrate medicine and engineering to advance research shows a creativity grounded in exceptional scientific training and imagination,” Sawchuk said. “She will continue her research at the highest levels and mentor students not only by directing their research but also by inspiring them.”
For her part, Shanechi expressed her pride in holding this particular chair.
“It is a true honor particularly because it has Sandy’s name attached,” she said. “He is a great mentor and beloved by all.”
A career unmatched
Since joining USC in 1971, Sawchuk has innovated and advanced the fields of image processing, machine learning and optics in countless ways; he is known for his world-renowned research in optoelectronic devices and systems for parallel optical computing, interconnections and network and data storage applications.
From 2005-2012, he was the chair of the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Systems). And he served in the past as director of the Signal and Image Processing Institute (SIPI) for more than 10 years and as deputy director of the Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC).
It has been a career full of firsts and bests, but he’s hard-pressed to choose one specific “favorite.”
“There have been many exciting moments in my career,” he says. “But I can tell you that I am very proud that our basic research in SIPI is the foundation of developments in technology such as digital imaging, streaming media and medical imaging. It has enabled huge advances in scientific knowledge resulting in astonishing images of the universe through the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.”
Earlier in the day, the Sawchuks, Professor Shanechi and Dean Yortsos gathered in front of the USC Viterbi chair wall in Ronald Tutor Hall.
He has seen engineering pivot — as a field and as an academic pursuit — to a more collaborative endeavor. Or, as Yannis Yortsos, dean of USC Viterbi School, has coined it: Engineering+. Indeed, the new USC School of Advanced Computing will serve as the epicenter of all computing-related activities across USC. Among the school’s many ambitious initiatives is to ensure that every USC student, regardless of major, is fluent in the ethical use of computing technology.
“Current and future research problems are so complex that no single person or research group with narrow expertise can solve them,” he says. “USC Viterbi and the new School of Advanced Computing (SAC) will be leaders in vigorously encouraging interdisciplinary work to solve these difficult problems that affect everyone globally. Their solution will require many different disciplines working together with imagination and teamwork.”
As for giving back to the institution he has called home for more than 50 years, Sawchuk is reminded of his past while remaining focused on the future.
“I was fortunate to receive a lot of mentoring,” Sawchuk says. “So this chair is a return and a continuation. The goal is to (support) the environment that made my own work possible and to inspire future interdisciplinary research in the spirit of collaboration and collegiality.”
Published on December 9th, 2024
Last updated on December 9th, 2024
