Two New Electrical Engineering Faculty to Join WI

Hochwald, who has been named a Frank M. Freimann Professor of Electrical Engineering, most recently served as vice president of systems engineering and chief scientist at Beceem Communications. He has also worked as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, and served as a visiting and consulting faculty member at several universities. His research interests encompass probability and information theory, communications systems and signal processing.

The inventor of numerous patents, Hochwald is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) Fellow. He received his Ph.D. in engineering from Yale University.

Minero joins the University and WI as an assistant professor. Previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at San Diego, Minero’s research focuses on the analysis, design, and control of wireless systems. Topics of special interest to him include the capacity of networks, control over networks and random access systems.

A member of the IEEE and that organization’s Information Theory Society, Minero received a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California at San Diego.

“We are extremely excited about our newest members,” says J. Nicholas Laneman, the director of the WI and associate professor of electrical engineering. “Hochwald brings over a decade of industrial innovations and engineering leadership, which we expect will dramatically advance our engagement with and impact on the wireless industry, and Minero’s distinctive research program shows great promise and complements the expertise of several other WI faculty. These hires in tight economic times clearly signal Notre Dame’s commitment to addressing wireless technology and policy challenges that have a great impact on society.”

Launched in 2010 and housed in the College of Engineering, the WI engages faculty from the departments of electrical engineering, computer science and engineering, finance and sociology. A total of 16 faculty, 35 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers share $2 million in annual research funding, 4,000 square feet of laboratory space and $4 million in laboratory equipment.