ECE Professor Zhi Ding Honored With an IEEE Communications Society Education Award

  • by Cristina Deptula

Quick Summary

  • Dr. Ding was honored for over 30 years of teaching and mentorship

UC Davis electrical and computer engineering professor Zhi Ding was recently awarded an IEEE Communications Society Education Award.  

Middle aged Asian man in a gray suit with a blue tie standing outside under a tree
Dr. Zhi Ding

Ding has spent the last 30 years of his life teaching and mentoring graduate students about the science of telecommunications. He compares his role at UC Davis to that of a coach working with elite athletes in a world where technology increasingly enables international collaboration and competition.  

“We owe it to [UC Davis students] to provide the best technical mentorship and guidance we can offer so that they can be successful in the international field of engineering.”  

To Ding, UC Davis’ ECE department is a wonderful place for professors and students.  

“The ECE department has excellent colleagues who are at the forefront of many technical fields. Our new faculty are also poised to be future stars and leaders in their respective field.  We have outstanding alumni in major high-tech companies making significant contributions that are game-changing. And, our undergraduate and graduate students are first class.” 

Ding is currently working to advance ECE’s excellence by writing a book on signal/data processing for data science and computer science majors that students can understand without a heavy electrical engineering background. He’s working with one of his former Ph.D. students, Dr. Neil Jacklin, B.S. 2007 and Ph.D. 2013, who has been teaching EEC 151, on this project.   

“Data and signal processing tools such as FFT and wavelet transforms are extremely important engineering tools.  I believe more of our non-electrical engineering students could benefit substantially in their careers by learning such tools.  UC Davis is trailblazing this new path with the introduction of the EEC 151 course. There is not yet a textbook that is suitable for this new way of teaching, so we’re writing one!” 

Ding speculates on the future of the wireless world as data science continues to advance.  

Primary Category

Faculty