2022 IEEE President K.J. Ray Liu Honored for Leadership

Unlike many budding designers, K.J. Ray Liu wasn’t influenced to get in the area by playing with electronics or adhering to in the footsteps of a relative. Growing up in Taichung, Taiwan , he addressed his federal government’s ask for pupils to end up being electrical designers to aid make semiconductors in the 1970 s, when the country’s economy was battling.

“Trainees that were good in math, science, and physics all intended to be an electric designer because that was the top priority of the government,” Liu says. “That’s just how I entered into engineering. Currently Taiwan is a world leader in semiconductors.”

But by the time he finished from college in 1983, semiconductor facilities were still incomplete, so there were no tasks available.

Instead, he went on to have a successful career as an instructor and entrepreneur in the USA

For 31 years, he was a teacher of information technology and a digital signal processing scientist at the University of Maryland in University Park until he retired in 2021

Liu was the chairman, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, and CTO of Origin Wireless , a startup he founded in Rockville, Md. Origin, which was acquired by ADT in February, leaders artificial intelligence for cordless noticing and interior monitoring.

Liu, an IEEE Fellow, is an active IEEE volunteer that acted as the organization’s president in 2022

IEEE honored him with this year’s Haraden Pratt Award for “transformative and impactful leadership.”

Liu is credited with increasing the variety of nominees for IEEE’s Other program , which is the highest level of membership. He also led the effort to realign the company’s regions geographically to guarantee even more equitable international depiction on the IEEE Board of Directors

He received the Pratt honor on 24 April throughout a ceremony in New York City The IEEE Structure funded the Board-level honor.

“More than anything, I share the honor with the volunteers and staff I had the opportunity to function alongside,” he claims. “Our effort is fueled by our common dedication to this expert home we like and care for a lot.”

In the 1970 s, Taiwan’s policymakers decided to enhance the nation’s economic climate by rotating from making products such as footwear and umbrellas to making electronics.

The market obtained its beginning in 1976 when RCA , a major electronic devices company at the time, accepted move accredited semiconductor procedures to Taiwan’s Industrial Modern Technology Study Institute ITRI dilated a number of semiconductor-related business consisting of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. TSMC , released in 1987, is the world’s biggest specialized semiconductor foundry

Liu graduated in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical design from National Taiwan College , in Taipei At the time, there were no semiconductor business to help, he says.

“Nowadays, much of the country’s college graduates go right to TSMC to get a task, “he says.” However at that time, there was no genuine task market

“A lot of my schoolmates– including me– concerned the united state for graduate research studies. Most of us remained and, over the last three to four years, contributed to the growth of digital computer interaction technology in the U.S.”

Liu left Taiwan after a two-year mandatory stint in the Republic of China Army to attend the College of Michigan , in Ann Arbor, where in 1987 he made a master’s level in electrical engineering.

“If I can aid make IEEE a much better specialist home for future participants, that is something that I can pay back to IEEE.”

He went on to earn a Ph.D. in electric, electronics, and interactions engineering in 1990 from the College of California, Los Angeles His rate of interest in electronic signal processing and very-large-scale integration ( VLSI was triggered while at UCLA Today VLSI powers all modern electronics.

“When I was a college student, there was no cordless interaction Everybody had a landline,” he discusses.

VLSI was a crucial, energetic research study area at the time.

“My research rate of interest was electronic signal handling,” he states. “Eventually I saw a book on VLSI signal handling on my professor’s bookshelf. I promptly believed to myself: That is the area I wish to seek.

“VLSI is one lane, digital signal processing is the various other, and there is a bridge connecting both. I had an interest in both areas, so I did my Ph.D. thesis on VLSI signal handling.”

After graduating, Liu joined the College of Maryland , where he is attributed with developing its signal processing research program

Along with mentor, he performed research study on a wide variety of signal processing and interaction aspects. The topics include bioinformatics , video game theory , signal handling algorithms and architectures, and wireless sensing and communications.

He has actually authored more than 10 books and 900 documents, and he holds 250 patents You can discover his study papers in the IEEE Xplore Virtual Library

Ambient-sensing pioneer

Liu is thought about to be a pioneer in the area of ambient sensing. The modern technology collects ecological information and is made use of in protection systems and health-monitoring devices.

He developed the idea, he states, while servicing a job in 2009 for the U.S. Navy He was trying to solve a problem the Navy was having with the wireless communication systems used in its submarines Because submarines are made of steel, radio waves were incapable to permeate the vessels’ areas and rather jumped around, creating interference, he claims.

His option was to utilize a relatively unknown concept in physics: time-reversal signal processing The strategy catches waves, such as sound and electromagnetic signals, and sends them back via the exact same tool in reverse, turning the signal from last-in to first-out, and re-emits them.

“By using time-reversal feed, we might enhance the signal-to-noise ratio by four times,” he claims. “That enhanced efficiency drastically.”

He came to be amazed by the physics of time-reversal signal handling, he says, and questioned just how he could use the concept to serve culture. After three years of study, he created the concept of using wireless noticing applications with ambient radio waves from surrounding Wi-Fi networks.

“I found out to turn Wi-Fi networks right into sensing networks that understand our activities,” he claims. “We can recognize whatever taking place around us– our activities, breathing, heartbeat, also fall detection– without any wearables.”

With the university’s incubator , which urges faculty to work on jobs with an influence on culture, he launched Origin in 2013 The company’s Wi-FI and AI sensing innovation allows exact indoor tracking, motion discovery, and health and wellness tracking without the need for wearable devices or cams Its products, including its remote client surveillance , received 3 advancement honors at the 2020 and 2021 Consumer Electronics shows, consisting of one for best technology.

Locating his expert home

Liu signed up with IEEE in 1986 as a college student to access its research study documents, he says.

“If you really did not join an IEEE society, you didn’t obtain its journal– which implied that you could not review the most updated study papers,” he claims. “So, I signed up with the IEEE Signal Handling Society When I attended my very first signal processing seminar, I knew I had actually located a specialist home. I fulfilled lots of similar individuals, and with each other, we built a professional home for our members worldwide.”

He ended up being an energetic volunteer, holding leading leadership placements including 2012– 2013 head of state of the Signal Handling Society and 2016– 2017 director of IEEE Division IX , which covers cultures focused on signal handling, data transmission , navigating, and transport In 2019 he was vice head of state of the Technical Activities Board

In 2022 he served as IEEE president and CEO. The 3 accomplishments throughout his term he says he is most pleased with are increasing the cash prize for the IEEE Medal of Honor , overseeing the realignment of IEEE areas , and establishing better economic transparency.

The factor for enhancing the reward for IEEE’s greatest honor– from United States $ 50, 000 to $ 2 million– in 2025, he claims, was to highlight the significance of the innovations the IEEE neighborhood creates. Those innovations consist of semiconductors , the Internet , and the GPU The money for the Medal of Honor now exceeds that of the Nobel Reward , which carries an award of approximately $ 1 million.

“We require the whole globe to understand the IEEE community has made one of the most influence on culture in the last century,” Liu states. “Nevertheless, we did not get the focus and regard we deserved, so we required to aid ourselves. We want the whole world to understand what our contributions are.”

His next accomplishment was realigning IEEE’s regions. Throughout the past numerous years, membership in Region 10 , which covers nations in Asia and the Pacific, has expanded from 10 percent of overall membership to almost 40 percent, he claims. It is the biggest and most populated of IEEE’s geographic locations , but its participants were not equitably stood for on the Board of Supervisors. Each region had one agent on the Board.

“The area has 40 percent of the participants yet just composes 10 percent of the Board,” Liu says. “That didn’t make sense to a great deal of us.”

The IEEE Board in 2022 approved area realignment. The overall variety of regions stays at 10, yet their organization is transforming. Efficient 1 January 2028, the six U.S.-based areas will be consolidated right into 5, and Area 10 will be split right into two. IEEE will certainly no more use the Area 1 classification. The brand-new Region 2 will stand for the Northeastern and Eastern U.S. Area 10 will cover North Asia, and the new Area 11 will certainly stand for South Asia and the Pacific.

Liu additionally succeeded in leading an activity that persuaded the IEEE Board to buy a much better financial coverage system to have a clearer understanding of the organization’s finances. A more contemporary system currently tracks financial transactions, agreements, expense reports, and other costs.

“Currently we understand precisely where the cash comes from and where it is invested,” he claims, “so that we can make more enlightened decisions.

“If I can help make IEEE a much better expert home for future members, that is something that I can repay to IEEE,” he adds. “I truly appreciate what IEEE used me. From trainee to professor to a well established leader, at every phase, it provided me various chances to grow. That is why I functioned really hard when I was head of state to make certain everybody realizes it is a professional home for our entire profession.”