UC Davis College of Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

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Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of California, Davis, 2009 - present
  Major : Electrical Engineering
  Minor : Mathematics
  Advisor : Prof. Anna Scaglione
  

• Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), The University of Hong Kong, 2007 - 2009
  Major : Electrical and Electronic Engineering
  Thesis : Channel Estimation and Timing Synchronization for Cooperative Communication Systems
  Advisor : Dr. Yik-Chung Wu

• Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.), Sun Yat-Sen University, 2003 - 2007
  Major : Electrical Engineering (overall GPA : 91/100 major GPA : 93/100)
  Thesis : Superimposed Pilot Assisted Estimation for Rapidly Time-Varying OFDM Channels Based on Basis Expansion Model, Outstanding Bachelor Thesis
  

Awards and Honors

• IEEE SAM 2012 Travel Award
  2012, US ONR Collaborative Science Program
  
• UCD Research Awards Fellowship
  2009-2010, University of California, Davis
  
• University Block Grant Fellowship
  2009-2010, University of California, Davis
  
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award
  2008-2009, The University of Hong Kong
  
• P.K. Yu Memorial Scholarship
  2008-2009, The University of Hong Kong
  
• Graduate Student Fellowship
  2007-2008/2008-2009, The University of Hong Kong
  
• Outstanding Graduate
  2006-2007, Sun Yat-Sen University
  
• University Scholarship for Comprehensive Excellence
  2003-2004/2004-2005/2005-2006, Sun Yat-Sen University
  
• Provincial Level Outstanding Student
  2003, Ministry of Education, Guangdong Province, China
  

Research Experience

• Graduate Student Researcher, University of California, Davis @ Sept. 2009 - Present.

  • Information Processing in Smart Transmission and Distribution Grid
    
    • Optimal PMU Placement Design for Power Grid Stability
      Formulated the PMU placement design problem that optimizes the stability and accuracy for power system state estimation, proposed a solution via semidefinite programming and an efficient heuristic;
    • Decentralized Hybrid Power System State Estimation
      Developed a hybrid state estimation scheme via network gossiping, with convergence analysis, which accommodates sensor measurements obtained at different rates from SCADA and WAMS;
    • State-Aware Distributed Database System
      Proposed a decentralized architecture with wide-area situation awareness for data processing, data compression and data transcription.
  • Distributed Optimization, Adaptive Learning and Network Formation
    
    • Decentralized Gauss-Newton Algorithm for Non-linear Least Squares (NLLS)
      Proposed a decentralized Gauss-Newton algorithm for solving general NLLS problems in a network using exclusively near-neighbor communications, with comprehensive analyses on the iterative error dynamics and convergence conditions;
    • Decentralized Subspace Tracking
      Proposed a decentralized subspace tracking algorithm via gossiping and Oja's learning rule, with applications in decentralized estimation and detection.
  • Acquisition, Management and Inference of Big Data
    
    • Joint Delay-Doppler Recovery for Modulated Pulse Streams
      Proposed an efficient sampling structure via compressive sensing for delay-Doppler estimation using rate-of-innovation samples.
    • Compressive Link Acquisition with an Optimal Sampling Structure
      Developed an optimal sampling architecture for compressive sequential link acquisition, which greatly reduces storage and processing requirements while maintaining estimation/detection performances;
    • Low-Complexity GPS Acquisition
      Proposed a low-complexity acquisition algorithm for GPS receiver to lower the hardware implementation cost and computational complexity.

• Research Assistant, The University of Hong Kong @ Sept. 2007 - Aug. 2009.

  • Timing Synchronization for Cooperative Communications
    
    • Decode-and-Forward (DF) Systems
      Proposed a Zero-Forcing (ZF) re-synchronization filter for re-aligning asynchronous cooperative signals at the destination node;
    • Amplify-and-Forward (AF) Systems
      Proposed a joint optimum and robust design of precoder and equalizer at both the source and the sink nodes for timing re-synchronization with parameter uncertainties;
    • Performance Bounds for Timing Estimation in Fading Channels
      Pointed out the inapplicability of traditional CRB in timing estimation in fading channels and proposed a weighted Bayesian CRB for timing estimation;
  • Frequency Synchronization with Model Uncertainty
    Developed a frequency offset estimation algorithm for OFDM under timing ambiguity and channel length uncertainty.

Teaching Experience

• Teaching Assistant, University of California, Davis
  • ENG 017, Circuits
• Teaching Assistant, The University of Hong Kong
  • ENGG 1008, Electric Circuit and Digital Logic
  • ELEC 1808, First Year Project
  • ELEC 3201, Communications Systems

Professional Activities

• Reviewer
  • IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing
  • IEEE Signal Processing Letters
  • IEEE Trans. on Communications
  • IEEE Communications Letters
  • Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
  • IEEE Trans. on Vehicular Technology
  • EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking
  • EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing
  • IEEE conferences including (but not limited to) ICC, Globecom, ICASSP, WCNC, PIMRC, VTC, ISCAS etc.

• Talks/Presentations
  • ‘‘Networked Loads in the Distribution Grid’’, Cybersecurity for Energy Delivery Systems Peer Review, DC, Washington, Jul. 2012.
  • ‘‘Decentralized Data Processing and Management for Smart Grid via Gossiping’’, IEEE SAM 2012, New Jersey, USA.
  • ‘‘Optimal Sampling Structure for Asynchronous Multi-access Channels’’, IEEE ICASSP 2012, Kyoto, Japan, Mar. 2012.
  • ‘‘Compressive Link Acquisition for Multiuser Communications’’, Chinese University of Hong Kong and The University of Hong Kong, Jan. 2012.
  • ‘‘Low Complexity Acquisition of GPS Signals’’, IEEE SPAWC 2011, San Francisco, CA, USA, Jun. 2011.
  • ‘‘On Performance Bounds for Timing Estimation under Fading Channels’’, IEEE WCNC 2009, Budapest, Hungary, May. 2009.

• Technical Skills
  • C++, MATLAB, Mathematica, HTML, VHDL, LaTeX

• Languages
  • Mandarin and Cantonese (Native)
  • English and Japanese (Fluent)
  • Spanish (working knowledge)