Mentors—

Alessandro Abate is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. S. Shankar Sastry. This is his first summer to serve as Mentor for a Chess SUPERB student, and he is working with Shams Karimkhan.

He was born in Milan, in April 1978, he grew up in Padova (Italy). In July 1997, he graduated from the Scientific “Liceo” E. Curiel (Padova), with the final grade of 60/60, cum laude. He studied at the University of Padova, earning the “Laurea” Degree in Electrical Engineering. He spent one year, as a visiting student, at the EECS Department of the University of California, at Berkeley (USA), and six months at the Rheinishe Westfaelishe Technische Hochschule, in Aachen (Germany). He graduated in October 2002, with final grade 110/110, summa cum laude.

He was accepted in the graduate school at UC Berkeley, and got an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in May 2004.
Currently, he is pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley, as a Graduate Student Researcher on Control and Dynamical Systems.

Aaron D. Ames is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. S. Shankar Sastry. In 2004, he served as a Chess SUPERB Mentor, and this summer he is working with Bobby Gregg.

His main area of research is hybrid systems--specifically, developing a mathematical theory of hybrid systems which allows for a better understanding of phenomena unique to hybrid systems, e.g., Zeno. Other areas of interest include dynamical systems and nonlinear control theory.

Aaron is the recipient of the 2005 Leon E. Chua Award from UC Berkeley EECS Department, for outstanding achievement in an area of nonlinear science. In 2001, he received a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a BA in Mathematics from the University of St. Thomas.

Parvez Ahammad is a third year PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. S. Shankar Sastry. This is his first summer to serve as Mentor for a Chess SUPERB student, and he is working with Lana Carnel.

His current research interests are in the areas of Computer Vision and Image Processing. In the Spring 2005, he was GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) for the Image Processing and Reconstruction Tomography class.

He received his M.S. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley in Spring 2005, and his M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Central Florida, in 2002. In 1998, he received his B.E., First Class with Distinction, in Electronics and Communication from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India.

Alessandro Pinto is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli. This is his first summer to serve as Mentor for a Chess SUPERB student, and he is working with Rey Romero.

Yang Zhao is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. Edward A. Lee. In 2003, she served as Mentor for two Chess SUPERB students, and this summer she is working with Murphy Gant.

Haiyang Zheng is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, working with Prof. Edward A. Lee. This is his first summer to serve as Mentor for a Chess SUPERB student, and he is working with Simon Ng.

His research interests involve the theory, modeling, and simulation of discrete-event and hybrid systems, and he has been intimately involved in the development and usage of the HyVisual modeling language, which is a subset of the Ptolemy II framework. His other interests include synchronous languages and real-time systems.

Prof. S. Shankar Sastry is the Directory of the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), in the University of California, and is NEC Distinguished Professor, and former Chairman, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at Berkeley (2001-04). In 2000-01, he was Director of the Information Technology Office (now divided into IXO and IPTO) at DARPA. He is one of the directors of the Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems (Chess) at UC Berkeley.

His areas of research are networked, embedded and autonomous software, computer vision, control of adaptive, nonlinear and hybrid systems. He has coauthored over 350 technical papers and 9 books.

Dr. Sastry was elected into the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 "for pioneering contributions to the design of hybrid and embedded systems." He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS) in 2004. He also received the President of India Gold Medal in 1977, the IBM Faculty Development award for 1983-1985, the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985 and the Eckman Award of the of the American Automatic Control Council in 1990, an M. A. (honoris causa) from Harvard in 1994, Fellow of the IEEE in 1994, the distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology in 1999, and the David Marr prize for the best paper at the International Conference in Computer Vision in 1999.

Prof. Edward A. Lee is a Professor, Chair of the Electrical Engineering (EE) Division and Associate Chair of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department at UC Berkeley. His research interests center on design, modeling, and simulation of embedded, real-time computational systems. He is a director of Chess, the Berkeley Center for Hybrid and Embedded Software Systems, and is the director of the Berkeley Ptolemy project. In 2003, Prof. Lee was the faculty advisor for the Chess SUPERB students.

He is co-author of five books and numerous papers. His bachelors degree (B.S.) is from Yale University (1979), his masters (S.M.) from MIT (1981), and his Ph.D. from U. C. Berkeley (1986). From 1979 to 1982 he was a member of technical staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, in the Advanced Data Communications Laboratory. He is a co-founder of BDTI, Inc., where he is currently a Senior Technical Advisor, and has consulted for a number of other companies.

Prof. Lee is a Fellow of the IEEE, was an NSF Presidential Young Investigator, and won the 1997 Frederick Emmons Terman Award for Engineering Education.

Dr. Jonathan Sprinkle is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley since 2003. His research interests and experience are in systems control and engineering, through modeling and metamodeling. In 2004, he was the faculty advisor for the Chess SUPERB students, and mentor to one SUPERB student.

Dr. Sprinkle is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (PhD, MS) and Tennessee Technological University (BSEE). In 2005, Dr. Sprinkle was selected as one of 108 Regional Finalists for 11-19 highly competitive positions of White House Fellow. In 2002-2003, he was named a Master Teaching Fellow by the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. In 2002 he participated in the 52nd Meeting of the Nobel Laureates. As an undergraduate, in 1998-99, he served as the President of the Student Government Association. In 1997-98 he was honored as Campus Leader of the Year and Legislator of the Year by the SGA of Tennessee Tech University.