Archives: Presenters

Billy Y. S. Yiu received his B.Eng. degree (Hons.) in medical engineering and the M.Phil degree in electrical and electronic engineering from The University of Hong Kong in 2007 and 2010, respectively. He was awarded his Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2019. He was a research staff member with the Biomedical Ultrasound Laboratory in The University of Hong Kong from 2010 to 2016, and currently serves as an associate scientist with the Laboratory on Innovative Technology in Medical Ultrasound (LITMUS), University of Waterloo.
Billy’s research interests are in advanced ultrasound imaging techniques and systems innovations; GPU implementation of these novel imaging techniques on research platforms for real-time performance has been of his long-standing interest dating back to 2010. Some of his contributions include high-frame-rate DAS beamforming, adaptive beamforming, eigen-based clutter filtering and speckle imaging in which he has published several journal articles based on these works.

Peter Kaczkowski is a Consulting Scientist with Verasonics, Inc., currently working on development of Ultrasound-guided Focused Ultrasound systems, novel imaging applications, and providing education and training. He obtained his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado in Boulder, an MS in Exploration Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. As a researcher at the University of Washington, he worked in HIFU therapy planning, guidance, delivery, and assessment using ultrasound methods. His work ranged from instrumentation development to in vitro and preclinical studies, with a primary emphasis on ultrasound thermometry for real-time monitoring of thermal therapies. Other research included acoustic metrology of high intensity fields, study of HIFU-induced bioeffects in the context of thermal ablation, and signal processing for tissue characterization. Prior work in scattering theory emphasized simulation of acoustic propagation, especially in random media. He is a co-inventor on several patents at the University of Washington and at Verasonics.

Susan Trolier-McKinstry is an Evan Pugh University Professor and Steward S. Flaschen Professor of Ceramic Science and Engineering, and Professor of Electrical Engineering. Her main research interests include thin films for dielectric and piezoelectric applications. She directs both the Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics and the Center for Three-Dimensional Ferroelectric Microelectronics. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Ceramic Society, IEEE, and the Materials Research Society, and an academician of the World Academy of Ceramics. She currently serves as an associate editor for Applied Physics Letters.

Prof. Songbin Gong received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, in 2010. He is currently an Associate Professor and an Intel Alumni Fellow with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. His research primarily focuses on the design and implementation of RF-MEMS devices, components, and subsystems for reconfigurable RF front ends. In addition, his research explores hybrid microsystems based on the integration of MEMS devices with circuits or photonics for signal processing. He is a recipient of the 2014 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Young Faculty Award, the 2017 NASA Early Career Faculty Award, 2019 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, and 2019 IEEE Ultrasonics early career investigator award. Along with his students and postdocs, he received the Best Paper Awards from the 2017 and 2019 IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium and the 2018, 2019, and 2020 IEEE International Ultrasonic Symposium and the 2nd and 3rd place in the Best Paper Competition at 2018 and 2020 International Microwave Symposium. He has been a Technical Committee Member of MTT-6 Microwave Acoustics and RF-MEMS of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, International Frequency Control Symposium, and International Electron Devices Meeting and is serving as an associate editor for JMEMS, T-UFFC, and JMW.

Prof. Tao Han received his Dr.E. degrees in Instrument Science and Technology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2002, and has been promoted to a tenured professor in 2017. He has ever been a visiting professor at Tohoku University, Japan in 2003; at Chiba University, Japan in 2013; at Lorraine University, France in 2019, respectively. At present, he is serving as a TPC member of IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium (Group 4).
Dr. Han’s research interests include precise modeling of acoustic wave devices, wireless and passive sensing system, and ultrasound-based measurement. His research group has developed surface acoustic wave wireless sensing systems, which have been successfully used for the temperature monitoring of the electric-power equipment. He was sponsored by the program for new century excellent talents of Ministry of Education of China in 2012, and he was invited as an invited speaker and a tutorial lecturer in 2016 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium on surface acoustic wave based wireless sensors.

Yook-Kong Yong is professor at Rutgers University, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey, U.S.A. He received the B.S. degree in civil engineering (1979) from Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., the M.A. (1981) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees in structures/mechanics from Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.
He is a registered Professional Engineer in New Jersey. He serves as an associate editor for the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control. At the IEEE Society, he serves as the chair of Technical Program Committee for the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium 2011, and as a member of the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE Ultrasonics Symposia, and IEEE Frequency Control Symposia in the years 1989 to present. He is the recipient of the Carrol Phillips Bassett Civil Engineering Prize from Lafayette College. His research interests are in the numerical modeling of bulk acoustic wave and surface acoustic wave piezoelectric resonators and filters; their frequency-temperature behavior, acceleration sensitivity, noise characteristics and thermal stress behavior. He has thirteen patents on related quartz resonator technologies. He has also practiced as a consultant to the industry.

Professor Ji Wang has been a Qianjiang Chair Professor of Zhejiang Province at Ningbo University since 2002. He also served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate, School of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Ningbo University, from 2013 to 2019. Professor Ji Wang is the founding director of the Piezoelectric Device Laboratory, which is a designated Key Laboratory of City of Ningbo. Professor Ji Wang was employed at SaRonix, Menlo Park, CA, as a senior engineer from 2001 to 2002; NetFront Communications, Sunnyvale, CA, as senior engineer and manager from 1999 to 2001; Epson Palo Alto Laboratory, Palo Alto, CA, as Senior Member of Technical Staff from 1995 to 1999. Professor Ji Wang also held visiting positions at Chiba University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Argonne National Laboratory. He received his PhD and Master degrees from Princeton University in 1996 and 1993 and bachelor from Gansu University of Technology in 1983.
Professor Wang has been working on acoustic waves and high frequency vibrations of elastic and piezoelectric solids for resonator design and analysis with several US and Chinese patents, about 200 journal papers, and frequent invited, keynote, and plenary presentations in major conferences around world. He has been board members, advisors, and consultants to many leading companies in acoustic wave device industry. Professor Wang has been a member of many international conference committees and currently serving the IEEE UFFC Technical Program Committees of the Frequency Control and Ultrasonics Symposia, the IEEE MTT-S, and the IEC TC-49. He is also the funding chair of Committee on Mechanics of Electronic and Magnetic Devices, CSTAM, and the SPAWDA. From 2015, Profess Wang is the editor-in-chief of Structural Longevity and members of the editorial boards of several international journals.

Alex Maznev received Diploma in physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and PhD from the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (thesis on laser-generated SAWs including the first experimental observation of surface phonon focusing). He held postdoctoral positions at the Freie Universität Berlin, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, and at MIT, where he developed an optical heterodyning scheme for laser-induced transient grating experiment currently used in many labs. Subsequently, he worked as an industrial researcher (mainly at Philips Electronics North America) developing metrology systems for semiconductor industry using optical and optoacoustic techniques, before returning to MIT as a staff scientist. His current interests involve a broad range of topics pertaining to wave propagation phenomena, primarily in acoustics and related fields such as phonon-mediated heat transport on micro/nanoscale. He is collaborating with many groups around the world and has held visiting positions at Université du Maine in France, Hokkaido University in Japan, University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and Universität Heidelberg in Germany. In 2004 he received the IPPA Junior Prize from the International Photoacoustic and Photothermal Association.

Dr. Charles Courtney is a Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath. His research covers ultrasonic Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and manipulation of microparticles using ultrasound. He has a physics background (to PhD level at the University of Reading), worked as a researcher in the Ultrasound and Non-destructive Testing group at the University of Bristol for seven years and has worked at Bath for 8 years.

At Bristol, Dr Courtney demonstrated manipulation of particles in a closed chamber by varying the relative phase of opposing ultrasonic transducers, extended this to two-dimensional manipulation of particles arranged on a repeating grid using two pairs of transducers and created circular array acoustic tweezers that could independently manipulate two or more microparticles.

Dr Courtney’s current research is divided between developing new NDT techniques for composites and new applications of the acoustic radiation force in microfabrication.