October 15, 2001

Liu Named Alcoa Foundation Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dr. Liu

Dr. Wentai Liu, professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University, has been named Alcoa Foundation Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, effective with the current academic year.  Liu is the first recipient of the named professorship.

Liu has been on the faculty of NC State since 1983.  He has been a consultant for microelectronic companies, including Mitsubishi Semiconductor America, and holds three U. S. patents.  Liu is a pioneer in CMOS wave pipelining and timing optimization research.

His research interests include visual prosthesis, high-speed VLSI design/CAD, microelectronics sensor design, high-speed communication networks and computer vision/image processing.  He has pioneered research in wave pipelining, high speed IC and retinal prosthesis.

Liu received an IEEE Outstanding Paper Award in 1986 and the Alcoa Foundation's Distinguished Engineering Research Award in 1999.

He received his bachelor’s from National Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan in 1971, his master’s from National Taiwan University in 1973 and his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1983, all in electrical engineering.

-- rudd --