Dr. Radu Dogaru,  Professor of Intelligent Systems
Polytechnic University of Bucharest, Romania
Dept. of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering

E-mail: radu_d@ieee.org,
Web page: http://users.pcnet.ro/radu_d

           Teaching, consulting and research in the areas of intelligent and information systems, nonlinear signal processing, bio-inspired computing architectures and algorithms, complex adaptive systems, human computer interaction, evolvable hardware and software.

Education

• August 1996- August 1998:  Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar, University  of California at Berkeley, Research and specialization in the area of cellular neural computing architectures and computational emergence in arrays of adaptive nonlinear systems. Sponsored by a Fulbright award and several ONR (Office of Naval Research) grants.

• April 1996:  Dr. Sc. (Ph.D)., Electrical Engineering,  Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

Dissertation title: "Aspects of Information Generation and Processing with Neural and Fuzzy Systems", GPA: 10/10
• October 1995: M.Sc. in Computer Aided Electrical Engineering - VLSI systems,  Joint European TEMPUS Postgraduate School - Polytechnic University of Bucharest and TIMA-CMP Laboratory, National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France. GPA 40/40.

Dissertation title: "VLSI-friendly design of Neural and Fuzzy Systems", GPA: 10/10
• July 1987 : M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bucharest.

Dissertation title: "Advanced algorithms and hardware for image processing", GPA: 10/10.

• Massively parallel cellular computing architectures (cellular neural networks)
• Intelligent and Information Systems
• Emergent computation in nonlinear cellular arrays and applications for  high speed signal processing and biological systems modeling
• Applications of cellular neural networks for human-computer interaction and multimedia
• Evolvable neural cells exploiting quantum effects in resonant tunneling diodes

• 2001-present : Full Professor, Dept. of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bucharest
• 1999-2001: Associate Professor, the same department as above.
• 1999-2000: Visiting Scholar -University of California at Berkeley, Electronics Research Laboratory, Nonlinear Electronics Lab.
• 1998 (Nov.-Dec.): Visiting Researcher, Institute of Microelectronic Systems - Signal Processing and Multimedia Group, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
• 1997-1998: Postdoctoral Visiting Researcher, Nonlinear Electronics Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley
• 1996-1997: Fulbright Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar,  Nonlinear Electronics Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley
• 1996-1999: Assistant Professor, Dept. of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
• 1996 (April-May): DAAD-sponsored Graduate Research Assistant, Institute of Microelectronic Systems - Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems group, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
• 1995 (Sept.-Oct.):  DAAD-sponsored Graduate Research Assistant, Institute of Microelectronic Systems - Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems Group, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Group, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
• 1994 (March-August): Research Scholar (preparing the dissertation for the M.Sc. degree), TIMA-CMP Laboratory, National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France.
• 1990-1996: Teaching Assistant and Ph.D. student (begining with 1992), Dept. of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering, Polytechnic University of Bucharest.
• 1987-1990: Research & Development Engineer, IMSAT-Bucharest  Department for Naval Electronics and Automation - Constanta Harbor. Research and development of software/hardware technologies for naval computing, orientation and communication systems.

• 2004: The Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, awarded for a research project concerning emergence in cellular systems and with applications in pattern recognition and compression (starting 2005).
  
• 2001: The Volkswagen Stiftung Grant (2 years) supporting the project “Advanced Reconfigurable Neural Architectures for Compact Intelligent Signal Processing in Portable and Mobile Devices”, in cooperation with T.U. Darmstadt, Inst. of Microlectronic Systems.
  
• 1996 : The Fulbright Award, consisting in a scholarship to U.C.Berkeley, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Dept., Nonlinear Electronics Laboratory.
• 1996: The Romanian Academy of Science Award "Tudor Tanasescu" for collective works on "Computational Intelligence in Digital Signal Processing"

• 1998: Center for Adaptive Systems - Boston University Paper fellowship for attending and presenting the poster "Emergent computation in cellular neural networks with FitzHugh-Nagumo cells: a novel approach based on the local activity theory"  at the CNS'98 meeting in Boston
• 1995 and 1996:  DAAD (German Academic Exchange Program) fellowship consisting in research stages at Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany
• 1994: TEMPUS (European Academic Exchange Program) scholarship (6 months) at I.N.P. Grenoble (France) to complete a M.Sc. dissertation.

Committees, boards, journals

• since 2003:  Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I 
• 2002:  Program Committee member for the session " Bioengineered and Bioinspired Systems" SPIE's First International Symposium on Microtechnologies for the New Millennium 2003, 19-21 May 2003, Canary Islands, Spain .
• Member of Ph.D. examining comissions
  
• 1998 : Program Committee member Second International
Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware ( ICES98).

• Conferences: ECCTD (European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design),
             CNNA, (Workshop on Cellular Neural Networks and their Applications),
       ICES, (Int'l Conference on Evolvable Systems), ISCAS (Int'l Syposium for Circuits and Systems), SCS, etc. 
• Journals:
• IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks
• IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems I (Theory) and II (Applications)
• International Journal on Circuit Theory and Applications
• International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos
• International Journal of Chaos Theory and Applications, AATI Lausanne

Professional Experience

• Teaching experience

I am a member of teaching staff at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest where I teach courses as follows at the Department of Applied Electronics and Information Engineering (graduate and undergraduate level) and at the Department of Biomedicine and Bioengineering: 
• New courses developed and taught (Graduate level): (1) Theory of Complex Adaptive Systems - 1998-1999, (2) Neuro-informatics 1995-1996, (3) Cellular Computing Systems, 2001, (4) Numerical methods in bioengineering (cellular systems), (5) Nonlinear models of biological systems
• New courses developed and taught (Undergraduate level): (1) Intelligent Integrated Systems - 1998-1999, (2) Computational Intelligence: 1998-1999, (3) Biological System Modeling and Simulation: 1998-1999
• Regular Course Taught (Undergraduate Level): (1) Software Engineering 1992-1996, (2) Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems 1995-present, (3) Object Oriented Analysis and Design 1995-present, (4) Optimization Algorithms: 2001,
• Manuals and laboratory textbooks: 4 (in Romanian language).
• Other disciplines (covered with project and laboratory themes and seminars): Information Theory 1990-, Computers' Architecture, Programmable Electronic Systems.
• B.Sc. and M.Sc. theses supervised (starting year - number of students):  1998-7, 1995-8, 1994-6,1993-4,1991-4.
• During my stages as a visiting scholar at U.C.Berkeley I assisted lecture and project activities for the EE109 (Nonlinear and Neural Information Processing).
• Research experience

    During the last 10 years I was involved in major research grants and contracts sponsored by the ONR (U.S. Office of Naval Research), Institute of Microelectronic Systems (T.U. Darmstadt - Germany), The Romanian Academy of Sciences, The National (Romanian) Agency for Research and Technology, The Romanian Space Agency. They include (in chronological order): (i) Theoretical studies on the possibility to generate and use complex dynamics in artificial neural networks for  secure communication over satellite links (ii) Comparative studies of the performances and implementation capabilities of various neural and neuro-fuzzy architectures for signal classification, (iii) The use of neural and neuro-fuzzy systems for various industrial applications, e.g. dangerous event detection using chemical sensors (iv) The design of several VLSI-friendly intelligent architectures (v) The development of a family of novel adaptive and evolvable neural cells capable to learn and represent arbitrary mappings with minimum of hardware resources - applications in high speed signal processing via the Cellular Neural Network - Universal Machine (vi) The development of a new method to efficiently determine a region in the cell parameter space (called an "edge of chaos") for which rich dynamics with computational potential emerges in recurrent cellular nonlinear/neural networks - successful application of this method for several types of systems; (vii) The design of procedure and softwares for human machine communication and self identification  via measurable psychological and physiologic reactions in the presence of complex stimuli generated by cellular neural networks; (ix) The exploitation of quantum effects in GaAs semiconductors to build very high speed and very compact evolvable cells capable of universal computation  with application to cellular neural networks.

• "Compact Universal Neural Cells: Applications and Implications in Efficient Information Processing", February 24, 2003, Invited by the Board of Information Technology of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. 
• "Nonlinear Methods and Architectures for Highly Compact Mixed Signal Implementation of Signal Compression.
  Opportunities and Challenges", December 18, 2002,  Technical University of Darmstadt.
  
• "Compact Neural Cells with Mixed Signal Implementaion", October 2002,  CAS 2002 Sinaia, Romania, invited talk. 
• "CNN-based methods for biometric identification", SZTAKI- Budapest (The Analogic Computing Laboratory, The Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Sept. 2002.
  
• " Soft computing with a "Russian doll" non linearity" - BISC (Berkeley Initiative for Soft Computing) seminar, University of California at Berkeley - Thursday October 28, 1999. 

• " New trends in compact and fast signal processing with Cellular Neural Networks (CNN): Universal Adaptive cells and precise design methods for emergent computation in recurrent CNNs ", invited lecture, MSPAS'99 (Spring International School for Multidimensional Signal Processing and Analysis), Bucharest, 17 may 1999.
• "Emergent computation in cellular neural networks with FitzHugh-Nagumo cells: a novel approach based on the local activity theory", and

""Universal piecewise-linear CNN cells", invited lectures, The Seminar on Cellular Neural Networks, IEEE Romania Section, The Circuits and Systems Chapter, Bucharest, April 3, 1999.
• "Piecewise-linear adaptive cells: a compact alternative to neural computing for cellular and configurable systems", invited lecture to ISIA (Graduiertenkolleg - Graduate School in Intelligent Systems), T.U. Darmstadt, Germany, Dec. 7, 1998.
• “Computation with chaos in intelligent systems”, invited lecture to ISIA (Graduiertenkolleg - Graduate School in Intelligent Systems), T.U. Darmstadt, Germany, Sept. 22, 1995.