<p>The Ming Hsieh Institute at USC was launched in 2010. The institute focuses on development of intelligent technologies to empower mankind through invention, creativity and research. In addition, the institute will assist outstanding Ph.D. students in their career development with finanical help, travel to other institutions and faculty mentorship.</p>
<p>This week the Ming Hsieh Institute announced the selection of five outstanding Ph.D. students as 2011-2012 Hsieh Scholars. These five will receive a monetary prize and financial help to travel to other institutions. They will play leadership roles in various activities and institute events. The five Ph.D. students from SC are:</p>
<p>Mattthew Black
Focus: Behavioral Signal Processing: Case Studies in Education and Psychology</p>
<p>Chenxi Lin
Focus: Optical absorption enhancement in nano-textured silicon thin film for photovoltaics</p>
<p>Sunil Narang
Focus: Perfect reconstruction, critically sampled, two-channel wavelet filterbanks on graphs</p>
<p>Bardia Zandian
Focus: A Cross-layer Framework for Wearout Monitoring</p>
<p>Srinivas Yerramalli
Focus: Enabling Underwater Acoustic Communications--from Single Links to an Ocean Wide Network</p>
<p>Dr. Shrikanth Narayanan, the Andrew Viterbi Professor of Engineering, is the Director of the Ming Hsieh Institute at USC.</p>