The Industrial Advisory Board Members are leading figures in the San Diego electronics and high-tech industry. The Industrial Advisory board provides critical strategic guidance to the ECE Department on its educational and research missions.

Current Members

 

 

Ryan Aguinaldo

Senior Manager, Disruptive Mission Concepts, Northrop Grumman

Ryan leads Disruptive Mission Concepts, a contract R&D organization and operating unit of Northrop Grumman. In this capacity, he guides a cross-disciplinary team that applies advanced scientific and deep tech concepts to solve our customers’ hardest problems by transforming ideas at the frontier of science into leap-ahead mission capabilities. He has a broad technical background that spans military mission systems, quantum information science, photonic integrated circuits, nanoscale optics, quantum dot solar cells, and semiconductor manufacturing. He received the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering / Applied Physics from UC San Diego and the MS degree in Materials Science and BS degree in Microelectronic Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

 

 

Nick Colsey

Vice President, Business Development, Sony Electronics Inc.

Nick Colsey is vice president of Business Development at Sony Electronics. In this role, he works with multiple Sony product categories and divisions to bring the connected user experience to consumers worldwide.

A Sony veteran for over 30 years, Colsey was an integral member of the team responsible for Sony's BRAVIA Internet Video, the world’s first smart TV platform. A pioneer in bringing Internet Video service providers to the TV screen, he led the team that launched the world's first 4K video store. Colsey leads a team that negotiates and executes partnerships with 3rd parties for Sony smart TVs, professional displays and XR products.

Previously, Colsey worked in product planning in Sony HQ in Tokyo.

Colsey holds an Industrial Design degree from Central-St. Martins in London.

 

 

Satish Iyer

Vice President of Innovation & Ecosystem, Office of the CTO/AI, Dell Technologies

Satish is the Vice President for Innovation & Ecosystem from the Office of CTO/AI at Dell. In this role he is responsible for AI Strategy, Technology incubation and Ecosystem development across start-ups, venture capital firms and partners in support of Dell’s strategic research agenda. Previously, he was Vice President / GM for Emerging Services responsible for driving and transforming services for Dell’s APEX, Multi-Cloud and Telecom Services business across Product, Strategy, Engineering, SRE and Delivery.

Recently prior to Dell, Satish was the Vice President of Products, at HPE GreenLake Cloud Services, driving Product Strategy & Product Management thereby enabling customers in their -aaS and Cloud transformation.

 

 

Mark Pierpoint

Vice President of Strategic Innovation and Partnerships, Keysight Technologies

Mark served as SVP at Keysight Technologies from 2017 - 2025 where he was responsible for leading the company’s growth in wireline communications, growing its position in cybersecurity and later leading Keysight’s strategic innovation and corporate strategy. Dr Pierpoint joined HP in 1987 and during the transition of the company through Agilent and then to Keysight lead teams across sales, marketing, R&D and strategy as well as general management roles in corporate technology, EDA and various product entities.

Mark was responsible for many strategic change initiatives including novel funnel management, R&D productivity, and development of modular approaches in both hardware and software. He has also contributed to several company wide leadership development initiatives.

Mark serves in several advisory board and is the vice-chair of NIST’s Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology. He holds a BSc (Hons) and PhD degrees from the University of Leeds, UK.

 

 

Nevena Rakuljic

Engineering Director, Analog Devices

Nevena Rakuljic received her B.S, M.S and Ph.D degrees from the University of California, San Diego in 2006, 2008 and 2012, respectively. Since 2012 she has been with Analog Devices, San Diego, CA where she is currently an Engineering Director. She serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Paper.

 

 

Thomas Schuelke

President, Fraunhofer

Thomas serves as the President of Fraunhofer USA, overseeing the applied research and development business of Fraunhofer’s laboratories in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Michigan. In this capacity, he also as a professor at Michigan State University’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department. Thomas’s technical expertise lies in plasma physics and the related processes utilized in diverse manufacturing industries. He holds both a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in physics.

 

 

John Smee

Senior VP Engineering, Global Head of Wireless Research, Qualcomm Inc.

John Smee is Senior Vice President of Engineering and Global Head of Wireless Research at Qualcomm, where he oversees all 5G/6G and Wi-Fi R&D projects including systems design, standards contributions, and advanced radio, hardware, and software research testbeds and technology trials with industry partners. He joined Qualcomm in 2000, holds over 200 U.S. Patents, and has focused on the innovation and commercial launches of wireless communications across 5G NR, 4G LTE, 3G CDMA, and IEEE 802.11. He also leads Qualcomm’s companywide academic collaboration program across AI, augmented/virtual reality, automotive, IOT, security, semiconductor, and wireless. John was chosen to participate in the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering program and served on the National Academy of Medicine Committee on Emerging Science, Technology, and Innovation. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University and holds an M.A. from Princeton and an M.Sc. and B.Sc. from Queen's University.

 

 

Esin Terzioglu

Vice President of Hardware Tech, Apple

Esin works in Hardware Technologies group at Apple with a focus on wireless development. He started his career at Broadcom and also served as Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm. His technical interests are in silicon technology, digital and RF chip design, systems engineering, firmware development and product integration. He received his bachelor's degree from The University of Rochester, master’s and PhD degrees from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering.

 

 

 

Jiang Zhu

Technical Director/Principal Scientist of Wireless Technology, Meta

Jiang has been an engineer, scientist and engineering leader at Apple, Google and Meta over the past 15 years. He is currently Technical Director / Principal Scientist at Meta Reality Labs focusing on wireless technology. He is the inventor of more than 100 pending and granted US patents, many of which have been commercialized in products. He has been an Editor for 7 IEEE Journals and has served on IEEE Fellow Evaluation Committee. Jiang received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto and is a Fellow of IEEE.

 

 Emeritus Members

Rohit Gaikwad, Senior Director of Engineering at Broadcom

Susie Hartzog, Department Head for Communications and Networks, NAVWARSYSCOM

Ho-Cheol Kim, Program Director, IBM Research

Gary Lyons, Vice President, Software Engineering, Sony Electronics Inc.

Philippe Marchand, Sr. Vice President of Franchise Operations, Samumed, LLC

Anton Monk, Sr. Vice President Strategy, Cohere Technologies

Michael Perry, Vice President, Reconnaissance Systems Group, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.

Ake Persson, Senior Executive Advisor and Board Director, CommNexus

Slava Rokitski, Lead Technologist, Cymer

Drew Senyei MD, Chairman, NeoSeq Ltd.

Donald Spencer, Visiting Scientist at Salk Institute, Computational Neurobiology Laboratory

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jacobs Hall, 2nd Floor
Jacobs School of Engineering
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093

Departmental Contacts:

• Graduate Student Affairs, (858) 246-0324
• Graduate Student Admissions, (858) 534-3213 | ecegradapps@ucsd.edu
• Undergraduate Student Affairs, (858) 822-0273 or (858) 534-6395 | ece-ugadvising@ucsd.edu (Email is preferred)
• MSO, (858) 822-5730
• Assistant to the Chair, (858) 534-8533
• Fiscal, (858) 822-5525
• HR/Payroll, (858) 534-7389
• Academic Personnel, (858) 246-1557

ECE At a Glance

Degrees

• B.S., M.S., Ph.D.- Electrical Engineering
• B.S., M.S., Ph.D.- Computer engineering (joint program with Computer Science and Engineering)
• B.S.- Engineering Physics
• B.A.- Electrical Engineering and Society

Faculty:                        68

Graduates:                 990

Undergraduates:     1,500

Endowed Chairs

Holder	Endowed by	In	Year
Peter Asbeck	Skyworks	High-Performance Communications Devices and Circuits	2002
Shaya Fainman	Cymer Inc.	Advanced Optical Technologies	2007
Eric Fullerton	CMRR	Magnetic Recording Research in Physics	1985
Andrew Kahng	Chancellor’s Associates and Jacobs School of Engineering corporate affiliates	High Performance Computing	2002
Laurence Milstein	Ericsson	Wireless Communications Access Techniques	2005
Alon Orlitsky	Qualcomm	Information Theory and its Applications	2002
Bhaskar Rao	Ericsson	Wireless Access Networks	2007
Ramesh Rao	Qualcomm	Telecommunications and Information Technologies	2002
Gabriel Rebeiz	Wireless Communications Industry	Wireless Communication Technology	1996
Paul Siegel	CMRR	Magnetic Recording Research Professor	1985
Stojan Radic	Charles Lee Powell	Wireless Communications	1996
Alex Vardy	Jack Keil Wolf	Electrical Engineering	2011
Paul Yu	William S.C. Chang	Electronic Devices and Materials	2008

Members of the National Academy of Engineering 

• Peter Asbeck
• Irwin Jacobs (Founding Faculty)
• Pradeep K. Khosla (Chancellor)
• James Lemke (Adjunct)
• Don Norman (Affiliate)
• Roberto Padovani (Affiliate)
• Albert P. Pisano (Jacobs School Dean)
• Gabriel Rebeiz
• Victor Rumsey (Emeritus)
• Paul Siegel
• Andrew Viterbi (Emeritus)
• Jack Keil Wolf (deceased)

Research Centers

• Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute (Director Ramesh Rao)
• Center for Information Theory and Applications  (Director Alon Orlitsky)
• Center for Memory Recording Research  (Director Eric Fullerton)
• Center for Multiscale Imaging for Brain Function (Co-Director Shaya Fainman)
• Center for Wearable Sensors (Associate Director Patrick Mercier)
• Center for Wireless Communications  (Director Sujit Dey)
• DARPA Center for RF MEMS Reliability and Design Fundamentals (Director/PI Gabriel Rebeiz)
• DARPA Soldier-Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras  (Director/PI Joseph Ford)
• NSF Center for Integrated Access Networks  (Deputy Director Shaya Fainman)
• Power Management Integration Center (Site Director Patrick Mercier)