Ga Tech's Ayazi named 2013 IEEE Fellow

Farrokh Ayazi, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is among the 298 individuals worldwide named a 2013 IEEE Fellow. Dr. Ayazi is being recognized for contributions to micro-electro-mechanical resonators and resonant gyroscopes.

A vast majority of microsystems used in computers and mobile phones rely on accurate timing signals that are generated by microresonators. Gyroscopes, a class of inertial sensors, are resonant microdevices used in gaming devices, navigation, health care, and robotics for motion and position processing. They also provide image stabilization in cameras and electronic stability control in cars.

The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person with an outstanding record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. It is the highest grade of membership and is recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.

A faculty member in ECE since 2000, Dr. Ayazi leads the Integrated MEMS Laboratory and is the director of the Georgia Tech Center for MEMS and Microsystems Technologies (CMMT). In 2008, he co-founded and became the CTO of Qualtré, a spinout company of his research lab that develops gyroscopes and motion sensors that power today's consumer electronics and personal navigation systems. To date, Dr. Ayazi has attracted more than $23 million from the private sector to commercialize his research ideas. Another of his resonator technologies and its associated patent portfolio was licensed to Integrated Device Technology, and the first product offering based on this technology, CrystalFreeTM pMEMSTM Oscillators, was announced by IDT earlier this year.

Dr. Ayazi was recently named editor of the IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices and has been the editor of the IEEE/ASME Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems since 2005. He serves on technical program committees for the top workshops and conferences in his field and is the general co-chair for the 2014 IEEE Micro-Electro-Mechanical (MEMS) Conference, to be held in San Francisco.

The author of over 200 refereed journal and conference papers, Dr. Ayazi and his students have received several best conference paper awards. He is a past recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and has received the Outstanding Junior Faculty Member Award and the Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award from the School of ECE.

Dr. Ayazi holds 30 US patents. He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran in 1994 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1997 and 2000, respectively, from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

- The Georgia Institute of Technology contributed to this story