Mahta Moghaddam

Last updated

Mahta Moghaddam
Born
Iran
NationalityIranian-American
Alma mater
Known forDevelopment of microwave sensing technologies
Awards
  • 2019 National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
  • 2017 Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition
  • 2016 NASA Honor Award
  • 2016 NASA Group Achievement Award
Scientific career
FieldsElectrical and computer engineering
Institutions
Thesis Forward and inverse scattering problems in the time domain  (1991)
Doctoral advisor Weng Cho Chew

Mahta Moghaddam is an Iranian-American electrical and computer engineer and William M. Hogue Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering. Moghaddam is also the president of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and is known for developing sensor systems and algorithms for high-resolution characterization of the environment to quantify the effects of climate change. She also has developed innovative tools using microwave technology to visualize biological structures and target them in real-time with high-power focused microwave ablation.

Contents

Early life and education

Moghaddam grew up in Iran with her sister, Bita Moghaddam, and her parents. [1] Moghaddam then moved to the United States in 1982 to start her undergraduate education at the University of Kansas. [2] [3] She graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1986 with the Highest Distinction. [2] Continuing on in engineering and academia, Moghaddam pursued an M.S. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she worked under the mentorship of Weng Cho Chew. [2] Her thesis work explored the response of an eccentric dipole in cylindrical layered media. [3]

After completing her master's degree in 1989, Moghaddam continued on under the mentorship of Weng Cho Chew at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed a PhD in Electrical Engineering. [2] For her dissertation, Moghaddam designed a method to solve the 2 and ½ dimensional electromagnetic forward scattering problems in the time domain and used this method to develop a realistic model of the subsurface interface radar. [4] Her thesis was titled “Forward and Inverse Scattering Problems in the Time Domain”. [4]

Career and research

Work at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

After completing her PhD in 1991, Moghaddam began a position as a Senior Engineer in the Radar Science and Engineering Section of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. [2] As the Systems Engineer for the Cassini Radar, she helped develop new radar based measurement technologies for subcanopy and subsurface characterization. [5] These technologies allowed her to characterize soil and canopy moisture as well as permafrost using airborne synthetic aperture radar (AIRSAR). [6] She found that using a classification algorithm to identify the predominant scattering mechanism, focusing on the branch layer, and subsequently deriving moisture content from a parametric model, allowed her to retrieve model parameters from AIRSAR data. [6] This estimation algorithm allowed her to observe canopy moisture of the BOREAS forest over a six-month period. [6] In 2000, Moghaddam published a paper looking at the subcanopy soil moisture content from AIRSAR data using similar approaches where she first found the predominant scattering mechanism and then validated the results based on ground measurements of soil and trunk moisture. [7] She found that her estimated values were within 14% of the measured values, but taking into account measurement error on the ground and via radar, her results show that the estimations closely track the measurements. [7] Moghaddam also helped use and verify the Cassini Radio Detection and Ranging system, meant to obtain images of planetary terrain. [8]

Moghaddam's accomplishments at the University of Michigan

In 2003, Moghaddam joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor as an associate professor. [2] Her lab focused on developing radar systems for subsurface characterization, mixed-mode high resolution medical imaging, and smart sensor webs for remote sensing data collection. [9] She was appointed to tenured Associate Professor in 2006 and became a full professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan in 2009. [2]

During her time at Michigan, Moghaddam remained on the NASA Earth Venture Airborne Radar Mission to build the instruments and algorithms to map the subsurface and root-zone. [10] She also continued her efforts in creating tools to map soil moisture, and generally characterize Earth's land-cover which is critical for understanding and tracking climate change. [10] Tracking soil moisture is important in modeling the global climate, according to Moghaddam, as it is essentially a report of the current state of energy exchange between the land and the atmosphere, and thus this measure of energy exchange can be used to inform how water, energy, and carbon are cycled throughout the globe. [11]

Since Moghaddam also focused her research program on improved medical imaging technologies, in 2008 Moghaddam published her investigation of a new tool to better reconstruct 3D images using time-domain data. [12]  Her results represented a promising tool for detecting breast cancer. [12] She further optimized this technology in 2010 to recover objects with minute contrasts as low as 10% to address the fact that breast cancers usually only have a 10% contrast with respect to glandular tissue. [13]

Leadership and research at the University of Southern California

In 2012, Moghaddam was recruited to the University of Southern California to begin her role as a Professor of Electrical Engineering. [2] She is now also the Director of New Research Initiatives at the Viterbi School of Engineering, the Head of Microwave Systems, Sensors, and Imaging Lab (MiXIL), and the Director of the USC Viterbi Center for Arid Climate Water Research (AWARE). [3]

In 2017, Moghaddam was a critical member of the team that helped to map permafrost coverage in Alaska and Northern Canada to explore its rapid deterioration due to climate change. [14] Moghaddam helped design a synthetic aperture radar instrument that sent pulses of polarized radio waves towards earth, hit permafrost, and bounced back in different polarizations. [14] This data was then analyzed to determine how thick the thawed, or active layer, of soil is. [14] As the permafrost thaws, it releases excessive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere overwhelming the carbon cycle and contribution to rapid accelerations in global warming and thus tracking these changes is of utmost importance. [14]

Medical applications of thermal view monitoring

In 2017, Moghaddam was the co-founder and president of the start-up Thermal View Monitoring. [15] The group designed an image guidance system that uses radio frequency waves to provide physicians with real-time, 3-dimensional temperature maps to identify cancers for destruction with ablation therapy. [16] For their entrepreneurship, they won the top prize at the USC Viterbi Maseeh Entrepreneurship Prize Competition and their goal is to launch this product by 2021. [16] Following up on this work, Moghaddam published a paper in 2018 proposing a similar method that continuously transmits and receives microwave signals to produce a heat map of the region, organ, body part, that will be operated on. [17] This technology will enhance targeting and treating of brain diseases and disorders from tumors to epilepsy since it allows real-time monitoring during ablation preventing the need for further rounds of treatment. [17]

Wireless sensory network systems

In 2020, Moghaddam and her graduate student, Negar Golestani, developed a novel wireless sensor network system to track and record human physical activity using magnetic induction instead of radio frequency. [18] They integrated the magnetic induction system with machine learning techniques to be able to accurately detect a wide range of human motions, even under water. [18] This innovative technology could be applied to not only typical wearable technologies for personal use but also for use in healthcare, natural disasters, and even underwater communication. [19]

Leadership and titles

In 2018, Moghaddam was elected president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society. [20] The IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society is one of the largest IEEE societies. [20] She served one year as a president elect from January 2019 until December 2019, and then started her term as president in January 2020. [20] In 2019, Moghaddam was also inducted into the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). [21] The USC Interim President, Wanda Austin, reported that her imagination in adapting microwave energy for the common good as allowed her to excel so dramatically in her career. [21] One of her upcoming goals is to make USC a leader in the addressing issues of water scarcity by applying and adapting her radar mapping technologies further. [21] Other leaderships roles and titles she has held/holds include:

Editorial services

Awards and honors

Select publications

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ Webteam, University of Pittsburgh University Marketing Communications. "University Times » Neuroscience department lures Yale prof" . Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 "Mahta Moghaddam". USC Water Research Center. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Mahta Moghaddam". Microwave Systems, Sensors, and Imaging Lab (MiXIL). Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  4. 1 2 Moghaddam, Mahta (1991). Forward and inverse scattering problems in the time domain (Thesis). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  5. ↑ "Mahta Moghaddam". IEEE . Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 Moghaddam, M.; Saatchi, S.S. (March 1999). "Monitoring tree moisture using an estimation algorithm applied to SAR data from BOREAS". IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 37 (2): 901–916. Bibcode:1999ITGRS..37..901M. doi:10.1109/36.752209. ISSN   1558-0644.
  7. 1 2 Moghaddam, Mahta; Saatchi, Sasan; Cuenca, Richard H. (2000). "Estimating subcanopy soil moisture with radar". Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 105 (D11): 14899–14911. Bibcode:2000JGR...10514899M. doi: 10.1029/2000JD900058 . ISSN   2156-2202.
  8. ↑ Lorenz, R. D.; Elachi, C.; West, R. D.; Johnson, W. T. K.; Janssen, M. A.; Moghaddam, M.; Hamilton, G. A.; Liepack, O.; Bunker, A.; Roth, L. E.; Wall, S. D. (2001). "Cassini Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR): Earth and Venus observations". Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics. 106 (A12): 30271–30279. Bibcode:2001JGR...10630271L. doi: 10.1029/2001JA900035 . ISSN   2156-2202.
  9. ↑ "Mahta Moghaddam - IEEE Fellow". www.eecs.umich.edu. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Prof. Mahta Moghaddam honored with U-M Faculty Recognition Award". Electrical and Computer Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  11. ↑ "Research symposiums showcase faculty's interdisciplinary approach to serving the public good". USC News. 19 September 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  12. 1 2 Ali, Maha A.; Moghaddam, Mahta (July 2008). "3D nonlinear time-domain inversion technique for medical imaging". 2008 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium. pp. 1–4. doi:10.1109/APS.2008.4619685. ISBN   978-1-4244-2041-4. S2CID   5711640.
  13. ↑ Ali, Maha A.; Moghaddam, Mahta (July 2010). "3D Nonlinear Super-Resolution Microwave Inversion Technique Using Time-Domain Data". IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation. 58 (7): 2327–2336. Bibcode:2010ITAP...58.2327A. doi:10.1109/TAP.2010.2048848. ISSN   1558-2221. S2CID   43206170.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "As Alaska Thaws, Everything Changes". Gizmodo. 13 September 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  15. ↑ "The Next Amazon?". USC Viterbi | School of Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  16. 1 2 "USC Viterbi entrepreneurs aim to help surgeons see cancer better". USC News. 1 May 2017. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  17. 1 2 "USC Viterbi researchers help doctors burn away brain tumors with radio-frequency waves". USC News. 16 April 2018. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  18. 1 2 3 Golestani, Negar; Moghaddam, Mahta (25 March 2020). "Human activity recognition using magnetic induction-based motion signals and deep recurrent neural networks". Nature Communications. 11 (1): 1551. Bibcode:2020NatCo..11.1551G. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15086-2 . ISSN   2041-1723. PMC   7096402 . PMID   32214095.
  19. ↑ "My Belt Listens to My Watch, Glasses and Necklace: What's Next in Wearable Technology". USC Viterbi | School of Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Mahta Moghaddam Elected President of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society". USC Viterbi | School of Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  21. 1 2 3 "Four New NAE Members at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering". USC Viterbi | School of Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  22. ↑ Oganesyan, Natalie (21 February 2019). "Two engineering professors honored with NAE membership". Daily Trojan. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  23. ↑ "Faculty Profile". USC Viterbi | Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 "Journal Publications". Microwave Systems, Sensors, and Imaging Lab (MiXIL). Retrieved 5 April 2020.
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