Faculty Profiles
Truong Nguyen
Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Image/Video Processing and Communications; 3D Video; Wavelets and Filter Banks.
Professor Nguyen's research applies the theory of wavelets and filter banks to image and video processing, with an emphasis on low-power low-cost systems useful in entertainment, surveillance, and defense. Wavelets refer to the tiny waves of video information into which video streams may be decomposed for further manipulation and processing. Among platforms that are target of Nguyen's algorithms are: cell phones, and pocket PCs. He has succeeded in using novel techniques to provide for smoother motion animations on wireless systems that normally lack sufficient bandwidth to sustain frame rates high enough to avoid herky-jerky movement. Using the original signal, extra frames are built via temporal interpolation. In one case, next-generation (2.5G) cell phones have been made to display 20 frames of video per second, twice what would be expected from wireless connection's native data rate. Nguyen's research also been applied to increase the frame rate of conventional NTSC television signals, transforming them for HDTV and to enhance signals from robotic underwater devices functioning as robotic mine sweepers.
Capsule Bio:
Truong Q. Nguyen received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1985, 1986 and 1989, respectively. He was with MIT Lincoln Laboratory from June 1989 to July 1994, as a member of technical staff. During the academic year 1993-94, he was a visiting lecturer at MIT and an adjunct professor at Northeastern University. From August 1994 to July 1998, he was with the ECE Dept., University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was with Boston University from August 1996 to June 2001. He is currently a Distinguished Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
His current research interests are 3D video processing, machine learning with applications in health monitoring / analysis and 3D modelling. He is the coauthor (with Prof. Gilbert Strang) of a popular textbook, Wavelets & Filter Banks, Wellesley-Cambridge Press, 1997, and the author of several matlab-based toolboxes on image compression, electrocardiogram compression and filter bank design. He also holds a patent on an efficient design method for wavelets and filter banks and several patents on wavelet applications including compression and signal analysis.He received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Transaction in Signal Processing Paper Award (Image and Multidimensional Processing area) for the paper he co-wrote with Prof. P. P. Vaidyanathan on linear-phase perfect-reconstruction filter banks (1992). He received the National Science Foundation Career Award in 1995 and is an IEEE Fellow (2005). He received the Distinguished Teaching Award at UC San Diego in 2019. He served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transaction on Signal Processing, Signal Processing Letters, IEEE Transaction on Circuits & Systems, and IEEE Transaction on Image Processing. See his research publication at Google Scholar.
Prof. Nguyen is passionate about teaching and mentorship, creating initiatives that prepare students for career success. During his term as ECE department chair, with the help of faculty and students, he spearheaded the Hands-on curriculum, Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP), and the Summer Internship Prep Program (SIPP). He also co-created the Project-in-a-Box (PIB) student organization that brings hands-on curriculum to K-12 students. He is the Co-PI of an NSF grant to develop an engineering program consisting of hands-on technical curriculum at Imperial Valley College. He also collaborated with the Inclusive Engineering Consortium (IEC) on developing a graduate pathways program.
Email:
tqn001@ucsd.edu
Office Phone:
858-822-5554
Institute Affiliations:
Center for Wireless Communications
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology