Three SEAS faculty elected IEEE Fellows

by Jane Stoyle Welch

This is the second year in a row that three faculty from the school have been elected as IEEE Fellows.  

The rank of Fellow is the highest grade of membership in the IEEE, and is considered both a prestigious honor and an important career achievement. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the organization’s total membership is selected for recognition with this honor annually.  

"Having these outstanding scholars from our faculty recognized for their accomplishments reflects the excellence and impact of our school and departments. Professors Langberg, Lyu, and Upadhyaya each have long been committed to distinctive scholarship in their research and educational pursuits and this honor is well deserved," says Kemper Lewis, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The UB honorees, all faculty with appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, are:

Michael Langberg, PhD, was recognized for his “contributions to the theory and practice of network coding.” He is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. His research focuses on the mathematical foundations of information, more specifically on the design and analysis of efficient and reliable schemes for the communication, management, and storage of information. An author of numerous publications in flagship IEEE journals, his research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Langberg obtained his PhD in computer science from The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in 2003, following which he held appointments at the California Institute of Technology and at the Open University of Israel, prior to joining UB in 2013.

Siwei Lyu, PhD, a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, was recognized for his “for contributions in multimedia forensics.” He is also the Director of UB Media Forensic Lab, and the founding co-director of UB’s Center for Information Integrity. His research interests include digital media forensics, computer vision, and machine learning. Lyu has published over 170 refereed journal and conference papers and his research is funded by the National Science Foundation, DARPA, NIJ, UTRC, IBM and the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a member of ACM, a member of Sigma Xi, and a member of Omicron Delta Kappa. He is the recipient of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award (2011), the National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2010), SUNY Albany's Presidential Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities (2017), SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities (2018) Google Faculty Research Award (2019), and IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation (Academic) Award (2021).

Prior to joining UB in 2020, Lyu was a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University at Albany and the founding director of its Computer Vision and Machine Learning Lab. Prior to that, he was a post-doctoral research associate at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Center for Neural Science of New York University, and an assistant researcher at Microsoft Research Asia. He received his PhD degree in computer science from Dartmouth College in 2005.

Shambhu Upadhyaya, PhD, was recognized for his “contributions to the mitigation of insider attacks and malware in cyberspace.” He is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the Center of Excellence in Information Systems Assurance Research and Education (CEISARE), designated by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. He also serves as the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education.

His research interests include cybersecurity, behavioral biometrics based user authentication, and fault tolerant computing. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 articles in refereed journals and conferences in these areas and is a fellow of IEEE. His current projects involve insider threat assessment, continuous authentication, and using deception to deal with advanced persistent threats. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, DARPA, National Security Agency, IBM, Intel Corporation, and Harris Corporation. He is recipient of the Sustained Achievement Award, UB Exceptional Scholars (2013) and the SUNY Chancellors Award for Scholarship and Creative Activities (2019), and most recently, the 2021-2022 Excellence in Graduate Student Mentoring Award from UB. He joined UB in 1986 and received his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Newcastle, Australia in 1987.