Faculty Directory

Biography

Sennur Ulukus is a Distinguished University Professor and the Anthony Ephremides Professor in Information Sciences and Systems in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park, where she also holds a joint appointment with the Institute for Systems Research (ISR). Prior to joining UMD, she was a Senior Technical Staff Member at AT&T Labs-Research. She received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB), Rutgers University, and the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University. Her research interests are in information theory, wireless communications, machine learning, signal processing and networks; with recent focus on age of information, private information retrieval, blockchain consensus, quantum information, machine learning for wireless, federated learning, and large language models

Dr. Ulukus is a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher of the University of Maryland. She received the 2003 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications, the 2019 IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award, the 2020 IEEE Communications Society Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) Outstanding Achievement Award, the 2020 IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing (TCGCC) Distinguished Technical Achievement Recognition Award, the 2024 IEEE Communications Society Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Technical Achievement Award, a 2005 NSF CAREER Award, the 2011 ISR Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Award, and the 2012 ECE George Corcoran Outstanding Teaching Award. She was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society for 2018-2019.

She is a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2020-present). She was an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2019-2023), an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2016-2020), an Editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications-Series on Green Communications and Networking (2015-2016), an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2007-2010), and an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications (2003-2007). She was a Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory (2021, 2022, 2023), the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (2008, 2015, 2021, 2022), the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (2021), Journal of Communications and Networks (2012), and the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2011). She is the TPC chair of 2021 IEEE Globecom, and is a TPC co-chair of 2024 IEEE Globecom, 2024 IEEE DySPAN, 2023 IEEE MILCOM, 2019 IEEE ITW, 2017 IEEE ISIT, 2016 IEEE Globecom, 2014 IEEE PIMRC, and 2011 IEEE CTW.

Education

• B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University
• M.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University
• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers University

Honors and awards

• IEEE Communications Society Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Technical Achievement Award (2024)
• IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), Best Paper Award (2023) 
• Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland (2023)
• IEEE Communications Society Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) Outstanding Achievement Award (2020)
• IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Technical Committee on Green Communications and Computing (TCGCC)  Distinguished Technical Achievement Recognition Award (2020)
• IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award (2019)
• Anthony Ephremides Endowed Professorship in Information Sciences and Systems (2018)
• IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer (2018-2019)
• Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher (2017)
• Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, University of Maryland (2016)
• IEEE Fellow "for contributions to characterizing performance limits of wireless networks" (2016)
• ECE George Corcoran Outstanding Teaching Award (2012)
• ISR Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Award (2011)
• NSF CAREER Award (2005)
• IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications (2003)

Professional memberships

• IEEE

Information theory, wireless communications, machine learning, signal processing, networks.

Recent focus:

• Quantum information theory
• Semantic communications
• Age of information
• Blockchains
• Private information retrieval
• Large language models in communications and networks
• Machine learning for wireless
• Federated multi-task and personalized learning
• Federated submodel learning
• Private read-update-write
• Group testing
• Distributed coded computing
• Physical layer security
• Energy harvesting communications
• Wireless energy and information transfer