Points of Pride

• Royal Academy of Engineering, UK’s National Academy of Engineering (2023). Prof. Giannakis was inducted as International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK's National Academy of Engineering. 

• IEEE-WICE: Women in Communications Engineering, Outstanding Mentorship Award (2023). Prof. Giannakis received the outstanding mentorship award by the IEEE Women in Communications Engineering (WICE). 

• Ranked 9 in the world and 4 in USA among Top Scientists in Electronics and Electrical Engineering (2023). Prof. Giannakis ranked 9th worldwide and 4th nationwide among scientists in Electronics and Electrical Engineering; and he was recognized with the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Leader Award.

• Distinguished Alumni Award, 50th Anniversary SIPI, ECE, University of Southern California (2022). Prof. Giannakis received the 50 years SIPI-USC distiguished alumni award “For outstanding contributions to signal processing, communications, applications, and mentorship.”

• University-wide Faculty Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Advising, U. of Minnesota (2022). Prof. Giannakis received the U. of Minnesota award for excellence in postdoctoral advising. 

• Academy of Athens, Greece (2021). Prof. Giannakis was elected to the Academy of Athens (Sciences Section) as Intl./Corresponding Member.

• Academia Europaea (2020). Prof. Giannakis was inducted to Academia Europaea (Informatics Section) as a Foreign Member.

• European Association for Signal Processing (EURASIP) "Athanasios Papoulis" Society Award (2020). Prof. Giannakis received EURASIP's "Athanasios Papoulis" Society Award "For outstanding teaching, research, educational tools, and mentorship of graduate students in Signal Processing, Wireless Communications, and Data Science."

• European Academy of Sciences (EuraASc) (2020). Prof. Giannakis was elected as a Fellow to the European Academy of Sciences "For fundamental contributions to statistical signal processing, especially for wireless communications, distributed algorithms for sensor networks, cross-layer network designs, and patents influencing commercial wireless standards."

• IEEE Signal Processing "Norbert Wiener" Society Award (2019). Prof. Giannakis was honored with the IEEE Signal Processing "Norbert Wiener" Society Award "For fundamental contributions to statistical signal processing, especially for networking and communications, and for outstanding mentoring of young researchers."

• US National Academy of Inventors (NAI) (2019). Prof. Giannakis was inducted as a Fellow to the NAI "For having demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.''

• IEEE Communications Society Education Award (2019). Prof. Giannakis received the IEEE Communications Society Education Award "For excellent teaching, educational tools in Wireless Communications, and mentorship of graduate students with outstanding careers in academia, government, and industry."

• FITEE Best Paper Award (2021). Former SPiNCOMer G. Wang along with J. Chen, J. Sun, and Prof. Giannakis co-authored a paper published in the January 2019 issue of Frontiers of Information Technology and Electronic Engineering (FITEE) that received a best paper award.

• Honorary doctorate, University of Patras (2018). Prof. Giannakis received a honorary doctorate from the Dept. of Computer Engr. & Informatics, and the Dept. of ECE, Polytechnic School, University of Patras, Greece.  

• Honorary doctorate, University of Peloponnese (2018). Prof. Giannakis received a honorary doctorate from the Dept. of Informatics & Telecommunications, University of Peloponnese, Tripoli, Greece.  

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Paper Award (2018) (awarded to co-author M. Mardani) for the paper published in the May 2015 issue of the IEEE Trans. on Signal Processing.

• KDD MLG Workshop Best Paper Award, In August 2018 Ph.D. student Dimitris Berberidis and DTC Research Associate Thanos Nikolakopoulos received a best paper award co-authored with G. B. Giannakis for their paper entitled "Adaptive Diffusions for Scalable Learning over Graphs," Proc. of KDD, 14th Intl. Workshop on Mining and Learning with Graphs, London, August 19–23, 2018.

• Best Student Paper Award, In September 2017 Ph.D. student Gang Wang received a best student paper award for the paper co-authored with G. B. Giannakis and J. Chen, entitled "Solving Large-scale Systems of Random Quadratic Equations via Stochastic Truncated Amplitude Flow," Proc. of EUSIPCO, Kos Island, Greece, Aug. 28 – Sept. 3, 2017.

• Professorships (2016-2018) Zhejiang University, 2016 (Distinguished); BIT, 2017 (Advising); Fudan University, 2018 (Fellow); P. R. China.

• McKnight Presidential Chair, University of Minnesota (2016) Prof. Giannakis was awarded the McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair that "acknowledges the critical contributions of important University faculty who have distinguished themselves and their departments in the missions of research, education and public engagement."

• SPiNCOMers elevated to IEEE Fellow grade (2015–2016) — This year two more SPiNCOMers (Prof. X. Ma, GeorgiaTech and Prof. Z. Wang, Iowa State University) were elevated to IEEE Fellow grade, bringing the total number of SPiNCOM's IEEE Fellows to ten (10): G. Leus, X. Ma, B. Sadler, A. Scaglione, E. Serpedin, M. Tsatsanis, Z. Wang, L. Yang, G.T. Zhou, S. Zhou

• Best Student Paper Award, In December 2015 Ph.D. student Brian Baingana received a best student paper award for the paper "Switched Dynamic Structural Equation Models for Tracking Social Network Topologies," in the Globalsip Conference, Orlando, FL, Dec. 14-16, 2015

• IEEE Technical Field Award — Fourier Award (2015). Prof. Giannakis was selected to be the inaugural recipient of this prestigious international award "For contributions to the theory and practice of statistical signal processing and its applications to wireless communications." The selection criteria are impact on the field of signal processing technology, including innovation, leadership, and seminal contributions as evidenced by publications or patents or transition to practice.

• Member, Board of Regents (2013-2016). Prof. Giannakis was elected as member of the Board of Regents, University of Patras, Greece.

• Best Student Paper Award, In June 2012 Ph.D. students Morteza Mardani and Gonzalo Mateos received the best student paper award for the paper "Distributed Nuclear Norm Minimization for Matrix Completion," in the 13th Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications, Cesme, Turkey, June 17-20, 2012.

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Best Paper Award, 2011; for the paper (co-authored by P. Xia and G. B. Giannakis) that was published in the May 2006 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

• Best M.Sc. Thesis Award, In October 2009 (now Ph.D.) student Juan-Andres Bazerque received the university-wide best M.Sc. Thesis award for his M.Sc. Thesis on "Distributed Sensing and Resource Allocation for Cognitive Radio Networks." Juan-Andres will represent the Univ. of Minnesota for the best M.Sc. Thesis among Midwest Universities.

• EURASIP's Best Paper Award, 2009; for the paper entitled "Generalized Multi-Carrier CDMA: Unification and Equalization," (co-authored by G. B. Giannakis, P. Anghel, and Z. Wang) that was published in the February 2005 of the Journal on Applied Signal Processing.

• Fellow of the European Association of Signal Processing (EURASIP), 2008; prof. G. B. Giannakis received the association's most prestigious honor to recognize outstanding achievements of its members and volunteers.

• Highly Cited Researcher, In 2007 prof. G. B. Giannakis was included in the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge List of Highly Cited Researchers in Engineering and Computer Science. Since then he scores high in citations with a current h index=151 (top in the IEEE Signal Processing Society and among the 10 highest across Computer Science and Engineering fields worldwide).

• Best Student Paper Award, In August 2007 Ph.D. student Juan-Andres Bazerque received the best student paper award for the paper "Distributed Scheduling and Resource Allocation for Cognitive OFDMA Radios," in the Intl. Conference on Cognitive Radio Oriented Wireless Networks and Communications, Orlando, FL, August 1-3, 2007.

• Best Disseration, In January 2007 Dr. Alfonso Cano received the best Ph.D. Thesis award in "Communication Technologies" from Carlos III, University of Madrid. (Alfonso carried a major part of his thesis while visiting SPiNCOM and was co-supervised by Prof. G. B. Giannakis and Prof. Javier Ramos, Univ. of Rey-Jan Carlos, Madrid, Spain.)

• Research Monograph on Space-Time Coding just published (Dec. 15, 2006), Prof. G. B. Giannakis along with former SPiNCOMers (and now profs.) Z. Liu, X. Ma and S. Zhou co-authored a state-of-the-art monograph describing their research from 1999 to 2005 on space-time coding.

• Distinguished Lecturer, Prof. G. B. Giannakis was elected to be one of the IEEE Signal Processing Society's Distinguished Lecturers for 2007. Next year he will be giving lectures all over the map on wireless communications, sensor networks, ultra-wideband and cognitive radios.

• Winner of Student Paper Contest, Ph.D. student Alejandro Ribeiro for the paper entitled "SOI-KF: Distributed Kalman Filtering with Low-Cost Communications using the Sign of Innovations," in the Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Toulouse, France, May 15-19, 2006.

• First Place Winner of Student Paper Contest, Ph.D. student Renqiu Wang for the paper "Distributed Trellis Coded Modulation for Multi-Source Cooperative Networks," in the IEEE Radio Wireless Symposium, San Diego, CA, January 2006.

• Second Place Winner of Student Paper Contest, Ph.D. student Renqiu Wang for the paper "Multi-Source Cooperative Networks with Distributed Convolutional Coding," in the Asilomar Conf. on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Pacific Grove, CA, November 2005.

• Winner of Student Paper Contest, M.Sc. student Alejandro Ribeiro for the paper entitled "Non-Parametric Distributed Quantization-Estimation Using Wireless Sensor Networks," in the Intl. Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, Philadelphia, PA, USA, March 19-23, 2005; also Ph.D. student Xiliang Luo was among the top 10 finalists.

• Best Dissertation Award in the Physical Sciences and Engineering, Graduate School, University of Minnesota, 2005, won by former Ph.D. student Liuqing Yang for her Ph.D. Thesis on "Ultra-Wideband Wireless Communications: From Concept to Reality" (Dr. Yang was an ADC Fellowship winner and is now an asst. prof. with the ECE Dept. at the Univ. of Florida, Gainesville.)

• Technical Achievement Award to Prof. G. B. Giannakis from the European Association for Signal, Speech and Image Processing (EURASIP), 2005. This is the highest award given to an individual by EURASIP in recognition of fundamental contributions to the advancement of science.

• G. W. Taylor Award to Prof. G. B. Giannakis for Distinguished Research, Information Technology, University of Minnesota, 2004; "For outstanding contributions to telecommunications, including wireless systems and networks".

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Technical Achievement Award, 2000 to Prof. G. B. Giannakis "For fundamental contributions to non-Gaussian and non-stationary signal analysis, system identification, and equalization of single- and multi-user communication systems."

• IEEE Communications Society's Gugliermo Marconi Prize Paper Award, 2004; for the paper (co-authored by Y. Xin, Z. Wang and G. B. Giannakis) that was published in the March 2003 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's SP Magazine Best Paper Award, 2003; for the paper (co-authored by Z. Wang and G. B. Giannakis) that was published in the May 2000 issue of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Best Paper Award, 2001; for the paper (co-authored by N. Sidiropoulos, R. Bro and G. B. Giannakis) that was published in the August 2000 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Best Paper Award, 2000; for the paper (co-authored by A. Scaglione, G. B. Giannakis and S. Barbarossa) that was published in the July 1999 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

• Asilomar Conference Appreciation Plaque to G. B. Giannakis for Technical Service, 2000.

• Board of Governors, IEEE SP Society, elected G. B. Giannakis as a member (2001-2004).

• Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the IEEE, elected G. B. Giannakis as a member (2000-2003).

• IEEE Fellow Election Committee, elected G. B. Giannakis as a member (1999-2002).

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Paper Award, 1998, (under 30 years old category; awarded to co-author M. K. Tsatsanis) for the paper published in the August 1995 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

• IEEE Fellow, 1996-97, G. B. Giannakis "For contributions to System Identification and Statistical Signal Processing."

• IEEE Signal Processing Society's Young Author Paper Award, 1992, for the paper (co-authored by G. B. Giannakis and J. M. Mendel) published in the March 1989 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing