Molnar Group with Alumni, ISSCC 2023
Principal Investigator
Dr. Alyosha “Al” Molnar is the Ida and Charles Lee Professor of Engineering in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. He received his B.S. in engineering from Swarthmore College in 1997. After spending a season as a deckhand on a commercial Tuna fishing boat, Al worked for Conexant Systems for 3 years designing RFICs. He was a co-responsible engineer developing their first-generation direct-conversion receiver for the GSM cellular standard. That chip, and subsequent variants, have sold in excess of 100 million parts (and are still selling), as well as yielding several highly recognized papers.
When he entered graduate school in 2001, Al worked on an early, ultra-low-power radio transceiver for wireless sensor networks while taking multiple classes in neurobiology. Upon receiving his master’s degree, he changed groups and worked on dissecting the structure and function of neural circuits in the mammalian retina, using a combination of electrophysiological, anatomical, and pharmacological techniques, as well as analysis techniques drawn from his Circuits background. In 2009, he joined Cornell as an assistant professor focusing on RF integrated circuits, computational imaging, and neural interfaces.
Contact: molnar “at” ece “dot” cornell “dot” edu
Ph.D. Students
Shimin Huang
Shimin graduated from Drexel University with B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering. His research interests include RF integrated circuit design.
Christine Ou
Christine graduated from Cornell University in 2019 with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her research interests include mixed-signal circuit design for biomedical applications.
Jamie Ye
Jamie graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2019 with a BASc in Engineering Physics. His research interests include RF and mixed-signal circuit design. Outside of research, Jamie enjoys snowboarding, playing piano, and riding motorcycles.
Sanaz Sadeghi
Sanaz graduated from M.Sc. program of Sharif University of Technology on 2017, where she also earned her B.Sc. degree on 2015, both in Electrical engineering. Her research interests include RF, and analog integrated circuit design.
Shahaboddin Ghajari
Shahab graduated from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2015 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in 2017. His research interests include analog and mixed-signal circuit design.
Devesh Khilwani
Devesh graduated in 2019 from Indian Institute Technology Bombay with a B. Tech. and M. Tech. in Electrical Engineering. Research interests are mixed signal design for biological and optoelectronic applications. Hobbies are hiking and swimming.
Damla Dimlioglu
Damla received the B.S. degree in EEE with a minor in Solid-State Physics from METU, Turkey in 2012 and the M.S. degree in EE with a minor in Semiconductor Devices from UC Davis, CA in 2015. Her research interests are RF, mmWave, and sub-THz IC design for high data rate wireless communications. She serves as a reviewer for IEEE Solid-State Circuits Letters, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I, IEEE Journal of Microwaves, and IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. Damla is a member of the MTT-14 Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Integrated Circuits Committee and IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) Technical Program Review Committee.
Alex Coy
Alex graduated from Cornell University in 2021 with a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include RF, analog, and mixed signal circuit design. He also enjoys cooking, music, audiovisual production, hiking, and biking.
M.Eng. Researchers
Undergraduate Researchers
Alumni
Caroline Andrews
Ph.D. ’11
Dissertation
“Analysis and Design of Wideband Passive Mixer-First Receivers”
Current Position
Electrical Engineering Manager
Planet, CA
Albert Wang
Ph.D. 2012
Dissertation
“Angle Sensitive Pixels for Integrated Light Field Sensing”
*Cornell ECE Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award winner
Current Position
R&D Engineer,
PsiQuantum, CA
Ben Johnson
Ph.D. 2014
Dissertation
“Optimized Circuitry for Sensor Interfaces: In CMOS and in Brains”
Current Position
Assistant Professor,
Boise State University, ID
Changhyuk Lee
Ph.D. 2014
Dissertation
“CMOS based Lensless Imaging Systems and Support Circuits”
Current Position
Senior Researcher,
Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)
Dong Yang
Ph.D. 2015
Dissertation
“Wideband Highly Integrated Software-Defined Radio for Duplex Communication”
Current Position
Staff Electrical Engineer,
Cypress Semiconductor Corporation, CA
Sriram
Sivaramakrishnan
Ph.D. 2015
Dissertation
“Integrated CMOS Image Sensors for Computational Imaging”
Current Position
Staff RF/MS IC Design Engineer,
MaxLinear Inc.
Suren Jayasuriya
Ph.D. 2017
Dissertation
“Plenoptic Imaging and Vision using Angle Sensitive Pixels”
Current Position
Assistant Professor,
Arizona State University, AZ
E. Rose Agger
M.S. 2017
Hazal Yüksel
Ph.D. 2018
Dissertation
“Design and Theoretical Analysis of Wideband Tunable Duplexing Transceivers”
Current Position
Senior Staff Engineer,
Eridan Communications, CA
Zach Boynton
Ph.D. 2020
Dissertation
“Linear Periodic Time-Varying Circuits for Interference Tolerant Radios”
Current Position
Engineer Teacher,
The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, MA
Robin Ying
Ph.D. 2020
Dissertation
“Local Oscillator Generation and Mixer Core Design for Millimeter N-Path Receivers”
Current Position
RF/MMIC Design Engineer,
HRL Laboratories, CA
Alejandro Cortese
Postdoctoral Associate, 2019 – 2021
Current Position
Co-Founder and CEO
OWiC Technologies, NY
Daniel Palmer
Ph.D. 2022
Dissertation
“Autonomous Integrated Circuits for Tracking & Control of Millimeter- and Micron-Scale Mobile Platforms”
Current Position
Engineering Consultant Associate,
Exponent, NY
Ed Szoka
Ph.D. 2022
Dissertation
“Design of CMOS Neural Probes utilizing Micro-Coil Magnetic Neurostimulation”
Current Position
ASIC Design Engineer,
Draper Labs, MA
Mel White
Ph.D. 2022
Dissertation
“CMOS Computational Camera Sensors for Imaging through Scattering Media”
Current Position
Postdoctoral Scholar,
Rice University, TX
Alex Metzger
Graduate Student Researcher, 2020 – 2022
Sunwoo Lee
Postdoctoral Associate, 2016 – 2020
Research Associate, 2020 – 2022
Current Position
Assistant Professor
Nanyang Technology University, Singapore
