ECE faculty member wins part of $16.6 million Air Force grant

One Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty member is among those selected to receive part of approximately $16.6 million in grants via the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

In total, 57 scientists and engineers from 42 research institutions and small businesses were selected after submitting winning research proposals through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program (YIP).

Dr. Yuejie Chi, an assistant professor in the ECE and Department of Biomedical Informatics since 2012, learned this week she was among the winners. 

“I am thrilled about this award,” Chi said.

She thanked ECE staff and faculty for their "continuous support" in her research. For the next three years, the grant funds will go toward her work in Low-Complexity Inference Strategies for Large-Scale Data Streams.

According to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), “the YIP is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States who received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years and who show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research.”

This year AFOSR received over 200 proposals to choose from, in areas such as: Dynamical Systems and Control, Quantum and Non-Equilibrium Processes, Information, Decision and Complex Networks, Complex Materials and Devices, and Energy, Power and Propulsion. 

Those selected receive the grants over a three-year period.  

Chi completed her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University in 2012, where she worked with Prof. Robert Calderbank. She went on to receive a M.A. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University in 2009, and a B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2007. 

Earlier in January, Chi’s paper “3D Multifocus Astigmatism and Compressed Sensing (3D MACS) Based Superresolution Reconstruction,” was accepted to Biomedical Optics Express. Her paper “Compressive Two-Dimensional Harmonic Retrieval via Atomic Norm Minimization” was also accepted to IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing.

Other OSU professors selected include:
- Dr. Lawrence Baker, The Ohio State University, Understanding the Mechanism of Catalytic Selectivity During Electrochemical CO2 Reduction Using Nonlinear Soft X-Ray Spectroscopy
- Dr. Cosmin Blaga, The Ohio State University, Studies of Complex Systems in Intense, Ultrafast Mid-Infrared Laser Fields

Click here for a full release on all the winners.