White House Honors UNM’s Yasamin Mostofi with Presidential Early Career Award

Yasamin Mostofi

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama announced that Yasamin Mostofi, assis­tant pro­fes­sor in the UNM Elec­tri­cal and Com­puter Engi­neer­ing depart­ment, has been awarded the highly pres­ti­gious Pres­i­den­tial Early Career Award for Sci­en­tists and Engi­neers (PECASE). As stated in the White House press release, the PECASE award is “the high­est honor bestowed by the United States gov­ern­ment on sci­ence and engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als in the early stages of their inde­pen­dent research careers.”

“It is inspir­ing to see the inno­v­a­tive work being done by these sci­en­tists and engi­neers as they ramp up their careers—careers that I know will be not only per­son­ally reward­ing but also invalu­able to the nation,” Pres­i­dent Obama said. “That so many of them are also devot­ing time to men­tor­ing and other forms of com­mu­nity ser­vice speaks vol­umes about their poten­tial for lead­er­ship, not only as sci­en­tists but as model citizens.”

The PECASE award was estab­lished by Pres­i­dent Bill Clin­ton in 1996 to rec­og­nize the most promis­ing researchers in the nation in the fields of sci­ence and technology. Researchers are nom­i­nated by 16 fed­eral depart­ments and agen­cies, who iden­tify the most mer­i­to­ri­ous young sci­en­tists and engi­neers with excep­tional promise for lead­er­ship at the fron­tiers of sci­en­tific knowl­edge. The White House Office of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy Pol­icy then selects the final­ists for approval by the President. There are 94 awardees this year and Mostofi is one of 21 researchers nom­i­nated by the National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF).

“Wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion, in its mod­ern inte­gra­tion with the dig­i­tal world, rep­re­sents a major dis­rup­tive tech­nol­ogy which changed the way we live and work,” said Catalin Roman, dean of the UNM School of Engineering. “Dr. Mostofi’s research on mobile multi-agent sys­tems that are cog­nizant of the dynam­ics of the wire­less envi­ron­ment rep­re­sents an inno­v­a­tive and excit­ing inves­ti­ga­tion likely to impact future tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment in sig­nif­i­cant ways. This award rec­og­nizes both her impor­tant achieve­ments to date and the promise they hold for the future. We are delighted to have a mem­ber of our own com­mu­nity being hon­ored by our President.”

Mostofi received her Ph.D. in wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tions from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity in 2004, and was a post­doc­toral scholar in con­trol and dynam­i­cal sys­tems at the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy from 2004 to 2006, before join­ing UNM. The PECASE award cita­tion states that she is being hon­ored for her “ground­break­ing research” on mobile sen­sor net­works, as well as ded­i­cated edu­ca­tional activities.

“Due to the com­plex nature of multi-agent sys­tems, the best solu­tions are not the prod­uct of research in one sin­gle area any­more,” says Mostofi.  “Instead, new multi-disciplinary approaches are needed.”

This is the main moti­va­tion for Mostofi’s cur­rent research, which has resulted in inno­v­a­tive ways of inte­grat­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tions, sens­ing and con­trol aspects of these networks. Her work allows the agents to bet­ter under­stand their envi­ron­ment with min­i­mal sens­ing, opti­mize the flow of infor­ma­tion between them and suc­cess­fully oper­ate under uncer­tainty and resource constraints. She acknowl­edges the hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of her stu­dents who have been work­ing on related projects for the past few years.

“Dr. Mostofi exem­pli­fies excel­lence in research at UNM,” said UNM Interim Provost Chaouki Abdal­lah. “In the short time since her join­ing UNM, she has built a world-class research group. She is an exam­ple of the cal­iber of fac­ulty that UNM has been able to attract and hope to retain.”

Mostofi and the other PECASE hon­orees will receive their awards in a pri­vate cer­e­mony at the White House later this year.

For more infor­ma­tion visit:
White House Press Release

Mostofi’s Web site

Media con­tact: Karen Went­worth (505) 277‑5627; kwent2@unm.edu