2024 ECE Alumni Awards Recognize Leaders, Innovators, Educators, and Rising Stars

August 9, 2024

Five ECE alumni are receiving departmental and College of Engineering awards for their contributions to society: Dixon Doll, Mehdi Hatamian, David Tarver, Leo Kempel, and Mariko Burgin.

Electrical and Computer Engineering is delighted to announce this year’s recipients of ECE and College of Engineering alumni awards. This year we are recognizing rising stars, outstanding educators, and alumni with established careers – all of whom have made, and are making, a positive difference in the world around them.

Dixon R. Doll

CoE Alumni Medal Award

Dixon Doll has influenced and guided entrepreneurs, investors and executives in the computer, communications, and internet industries for more than 35 years. In the mid-1980s, Doll co-founded the VC industry’s first fund focused on telecom at Accel Partners. He also founded DCM Ventures, formerly Doll Capital Management, where he built a leading global VC firm with offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo. DCM is widely regarded as the first Silicon Valley venture firm to successfully invest in China, Japan and the U.S. His diverse experience includes strategy consulting, teaching, authoring two books, many Bloomberg Television appearances, economic policy leadership, non-profit fundraising & investment management and innovative philanthropy.

Doll currently serves as the Chairman of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and is on the Boards of the Papal Foundation (Rome), the San Francisco Opera Association, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Catholic Investment Services, and he serves on the Board of Overseers for the Hoover Institute.

He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, where he was a National Science Foundation scholar.

Mehdi Hatamian

ECE Alumni Impact Award

Mehdi Hatamian is currently the CEO of 2Pi-Sigma Corporation, a biomedical company he founded to work on next-generation cancer screening devices and technologies. Prior to founding this company, he has worked with NASA, Bell Labs, Silicon Design Experts Inc., and most recently Broadcom, where he was Sr. VP of Engineering.

Hatamian’s areas of expertise are high-speed VLSI signal processing, full-custom and low-power integrated circuit design, image processing and compression, adaptive filtering, Ethernet transceiver design, high-density and high-speed CMOS design, high temperature superconductors, and biomedical electronics.

He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the development of integrated circuits for video, communications, and digital signal processing, and he is a Life Fellow of IEEE. He holds 175 patents, with more than 90% of them used in products worldwide.

Hatamian received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. He is a recipient of the CoE Alumni Merit Award for ECE.

Mehdi Hatamian will present a lecture to the public on Thursday, November 7, 2024 at 3:30pm in the Johnson Rooms, 3rd floor of the Lurie Engineering Center.

David Tarver

CoE Alumni Merit Award for ECE

David Tarver is an entrepreneur and community activist who currently serves as a lecturer in the U-M CoE Center for Entrepreneurship. He is also founder and board president of the Urban Entrepreneurship Initiative.

In 1983, after several years at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Tarver launched Telecom Analysis Systems, Inc., a high-tech telecommunications instrumentation business. He sold that company twelve years later for $30 million and then, working as Group President for the buyer, built a telecommunications business with a market value in excess of $2 billion.

Tarver exited corporate leadership in 1999 to focus on community service. In 2001, he founded the Red Bank Education and Development Initiative to improve the academic performance and opportunities for children in Red Bank, NJ. His service on civic and nonprofit boards includes the Board of Education in Red Bank, NJ; the U-M CoE National Advisory Committee; the National Commission on NAEP 12th Grade Assessment and Reporting; the U-M Alumni Association board of directors; and the Flint (Michigan) Receivership Transition Advisory Board. David also endowed the Fred and Louise Tarver Scholarship Fund at the University of Michigan for incoming engineering students.

In 2012, Tarver published the book Proving Ground: A Memoir, which details his entrepreneurial journey. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan.

David Tarver will present a lecture to the public on Homecoming Weekend, September 13, 2024 at 2:30pm in the Johnson Rooms, 3rd floor of the Lurie Engineering Center.

Leo Kempel

ECE Alumni Distinguished Educator Award

Leo C. Kempel, the Dennis P. Nyquist Endowed Professor of Electromagnetics, is the ninth dean of the Michigan State University College of Engineering, where he has led eight academic departments and two academic programs since 2014. Under his leadership, the college’s research, teaching, and innovation continue to generate high-impact opportunities and advancement and fuel workforce and economic development across the globe.

Kempel’s research interests include conformal antennas, engineered materials for microwave applications, and computational electromagnetics. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society, and the Engineering Society of Detroit. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, the Commission B of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), and the Department of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.

A faculty member in the college’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Kempel previously served as the inaugural director of the MSU High Performance Computing Center, associate dean for special initiatives, and associate dean for research.

Kempel received both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Leo Kempel will present a lecture to the public on Wednesday, September 18, 2024 at 3:00pm in the Johnson Rooms, 3rd floor of the Lurie Engineering Center.

Mariko Burgin

ECE Alumni Rising Star Award

Mariko S. Burgin is a Senior Technical Manager in the Space Resources Program at Blue Origin and is currently serving as the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) President. She founded the IEEE GRSS IDEA (Inspire, Develop, Empower, Advance) Committee and the IEEE GRSS Women Mentoring Women Program.

Prior to joining Blue Origin in 2024, Mariko worked at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as a scientist in radar science and engineering, then capture lead, advanced technology concept studies facilitator, and systems engineer in project systems engineering and formulation, and finally as the Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program Break The Chain (of Contact) Domain Lead. During her time at NASA JPL, Mariko received three JPL Team Awards, two NASA Group Achievement Awards, and two JPL Voyager Awards. She also received an IEEE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Promoting Women in Engineering.

Dr. Burgin received an M.S. degree in electrical engineering and information technology from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and an M.S. and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.