2/15/2013 Rick Kubetz, College of Engineering
Written by Rick Kubetz, College of Engineering
Negar Kiyavash, an assistant professor in industrial and enterprise systems engineering (ISE), is one of 43 scientists and engineers who submitted winning research proposals through the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program (YIP).
Operated under the auspices of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the YIP's objective is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering.
Kiyavash's research interests are in information theory and statistical signal processing with applications to computer, communication, and multimedia security. In her winning YIP proposal, she plans to investigate information-theoretic approaches to network forensics.
Prior to joining the the ISE department in January 2009, Kiyavash served on the research faculty in the Department of Computer Science and as a research scientist at the Information Trust Institute at Illinois. She received a BS degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran; MS and PhD degrees, also in electrical and computer engineering, both from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is also a faculty researcher with the Coordinated Science Laboratory at Illinois.
The YIP is open to scientists and engineers at research institutions across the United States who received PhD or equivalent degrees in the last five years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The intense competition for the YIP Award resulted in AFOSR receiving 242 proposals in response to its broad agency announcement in major areas of interest to the Air Force including, aerospace, chemical and material sciences; physics and electronics; and mathematics, information and life sciences. Those selected will receive the grants over a three to five year period.
In March 2010, Kiyavash was a faculty fellowship for the 2010 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. The program, administered by American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE), offers hands-on exposure to Air Force research challenges at its research facilities.