

Principal Investigator
Dr. Alyosha “Al” Molnar is an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University. He received his BS in engineering from Swarthmore college in 1997. After spending a season as a deck-hand on a commercial Tuna fishing boat, Al worked for Conexant systems for 3 years designing RFICs. He was 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 Al: molnar “at” ece “dot” cornell “dot” edu.

Research Associate
Dr. Sunwoo Lee is a postdoctoral researcher in Molnar Group. He received his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2010. Sunwoo obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in 2012 and 2016 respectively. During his Ph.D., he had worked on chemical vapor synthesis of high quality graphene, and signal processing and force-sensing based on graphene nano-electro-mechanical systems (GNEMS) resonators. Sunwoo is currently working on microscale opto-electronically transduced electrodes (MOTEs) for tetherless neural recording.
Sunwoo has received Outstanding TA Award from Mechanical Engineering Department at Columbia University in 2011, Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship 2012 and 2013 (first to win two years in a row), and Pi-Star Award for Young Researcher Presentation, CARBONHAGEN in 2015.
Contact Sunwoo: sl933 “at” cornell “dot” edu
CV
Google Scholar
Ph.D. Students

Ed Szoka
Ed graduated from Cornell University in the spring of 2013 with a B.S. and in the fall of 2013 with an M.Eng. with both degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include mixed-signal circuit design for RF and biomedical applications.
***Reigning 2020 Molnar Group Bowling Champion***

Mel White
Mel comes to the Molnar group with a background in signal processing. She holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a BA in International Relations from William & Mary. Her primary research interest is in adaptive signal processing and applied math for communication and sensing devices. Outside of research, she enjoys playing banjo, racquetball, learning languages, and hiking with her dog.

Daniel Palmer
Daniel graduated from Swarthmore College in 2016 with the B.S. in Engineering. He researches mixed-signal circuits for ultra-low-power sensing.

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-mmWave 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, 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 Metzger
Alex graduated from NC State University in 2020 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. His research interests include RF, analog, and mixed signal circuit design. Alex has participated in and supported collegiate recovery communities in the past and is passionate about helping students of all backgrounds.

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

Thomas Sand
Thomas graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 2020. He previously worked in the lab at Eridan Communications testing polar transmitters. His interests include hockey and Linux.

Hamilton Lee
Hamilton is a Master’s student studying Electrical and Computer Engineering with an expected graduation date in May 2022. His research interests include analog and mixed-signal integrated circuit design. Outside of research, Hamilton enjoys drawing, hiking, and watching movies.
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