Faculty Directory

Biography

Sennur Ulukus is 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 private information retrieval, age of information, machine learning for wireless, distributed coded computing, group testing, physical layer security, energy harvesting communications, and wireless energy and information transfer.

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, 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 an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2019-present) and a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking (2020-present). She was 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 Communications (2008, 2015 and 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 was a TPC co-chair of 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 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:

• Semantic communications
• Age of information
• Multi-task and personalized federated learning
• Private read-update-write for federated submodel learning
• Private information retrieval
• Machine learning for wireless
• Blockchains
• Group testing
• Distributed coded computing
• Physical layer security
• Energy harvesting communications
• Wireless energy and information transfer