ECE professor and alumna receive IEEE-USA Award

Isabella Mormando
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Leda Lunardi, ECE Professor, and Alice Parker, ECE alumna, have received the IEEE-USA Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding and the Advancement of the Engineering Profession.

Each year, IEEE-USA Awards are given to recognize professionalism, technical achievement, and literary contributions to public awareness and understanding of the engineering profession in the United States.

IEEE-USA has authorized the presentation of Awards and Recognition for the purpose of recognizing excellence, outstanding service and contributions in furtherance of its objectives. The awards are administered by IEEE-USA’s Awards and Recognition Committee and have been approved by the IEEE Awards Board and the IEEE Board of Directors.

Lunardi and Parker received the literacy award for inspiring the next generation of women in engineering through the book “Women in Microelectronics.”

The literacy award is given to recognize outstanding journalistic or other efforts that contribute to the enhancement and expansion of public understanding and the advancement of the engineering profession in the United States.

Lunardi’s main research interests involve electronic, photonics and optoelectronics devices. Her present projects involve the fabrication and characterization of nanostructures for display applications, transparent amorphous electronics, and studies of thin film transistor design as building blocks of integrated circuits. Lunardi received her Bachelor’s and Master’s in physics from the University of São Paulo, Brazil in 1976 and 1979, respectively. She later received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1985.

Parker, an alumna of NC State, obtained both a bachelor’s in electrical engineering in 1970 and a Ph.D. in 1975. She has been a professor since then, serving first in electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University for 5 years, then in electrical engineering at the University of Southern California. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, a teaching award winner in the Viterbi School of Engineering, and a service-award winner given by the South Central Scholars for her volunteer work guiding underrepresented students. Parker was inducted in the ECE Department’s Alumni Hall of Fame in 2017.

Congratulations to Lunardi and Parker for their IEEE-USA literary award!

This post was originally published in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.