Alumna Zheng Earns Tenure at UC-Santa Barbara

ECE alumna Heather (Haitao) Zheng (M.S., '98; Ph.D., '99) has been promoted to the position of Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, effective July 1, 2009. She was advised by Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and Research and Professor K. J. Ray Liu.

Prof. Zheng's general research area includes wireless networking and systems, mobile computing and multimedia computing, as well as security and distributed systems. Her research has focused on cognitive radio technology as a method for enabling wireless devices to more efficiently share available bandwidth. Zheng’s research addresses the problem of competing wireless devices and dearth of available radio spectrum, given the competing frequency ranges dedicated to AM radio, VHF television, cell phones, citizen's-band radio, pagers, and other electronic media.

Zheng was featured in MIT Technology Review’s Ten Emerging Technologies in 2007, a short list of technological innovations “ready to have a big impact on business, medicine, [and] culture.” She was also named to the magazine's TR 35 list, which features the top 35 technology innovators under the age of 35.

Published April 7, 2009