The Doctoral Prize named after Charles H. Wilts has been instituted by his Caltech colleagues and was endowed by his friends, students, and colleagues as a lasting tribute to the scientist, the teacher, and the man he was. The mark of his science was excellence. His teaching was rigorous and his demands were high, but attainable when his own path of exactitude followed. Most of all, it is the man that the prize wants to honor. He loved nature enthusiastically, had a disarming personal simplicity with an engaging smile and laugh, and possessed an unbending integrity and rectitude he placed above any concerns for fame, power, or profit. He deeply respected his fellow men.

The Charles Wilts Prize is awarded every year to one EE graduate student for outstanding independent research in electrical engineering leading to a PhD.

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2009 Aydin Babakhani Advisor: Dr. Ali Hajimiri Thesis: Near-Field Direct Antenna Modulation (NFDAM) for on-chip mm-wave transceivers

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2008 Borching Su Advisor:Dr. P.P. Vaidyanathan Thesis: Blind Channel Estimation Using Redundant Precoding: New Algorithms, Analysis, and Theory

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2007 Ao Kevin Tang Advisor: Steven Low Thesis: Heterogeneous Congestion Control Protocols

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2006 Masoud Sharif Advisor: Dr. Babak Hassibi Thesis: Broadband Wireless Broadcast Channels: Throughput, Performance, and PAPR Reduction

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Photo Pending

2005 Deniz Armani Advisor: Dr. Kerry Vahala Thesis: Ultra-High-Q Planar Microcavities and Applications

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2004 Andre Tkacenko Advisor: Dr. P.P. Vaidyanathan Thesis: Optimization Algorithms for Realizable Signal-Adapted Filter Banks

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2004 Marc Riedel Advisor: Dr. Jehoshua (Shuki) Bruck Thesis: Cyclic Combinational Circuits

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2003 Shayan Mookherjea Advisor: Dr. Amnon Yariv Thesis: Coupled-resonator Optical Waveguides and Multiplexed Solitons

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2003 Massimo Franceschetti Advisor: Dr. Jehoshua (Shuki) Bruck Thesis: Wireless Networks, from Collective Behavior to the Physics of Propagation

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2002 Donhee Ham Advisor: Dr. Ali Hajimiri Thesis: Statistical Electronics: Noise Processes in Integrated Communication Systems

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2001 Srinivas Mandayam Aji Advisor: Dr. Robert McEliece Thesis: Graphical Models and Iterative Decoding

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2000 Ali Adibi Advisor: Dr. Demetri Psaltis Thesis: Persistent Holographic Storage in Photorefractive Crystals

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1999 Mohamed-Slim Alouini Advisor: Dr. Andrea Goldsmith Thesis: Adaptive and Diversity Techniques for Wireless Digital Communications Over Fading Channels

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1998 Malik Magdon-Ismail Advisor: Dr. Yaser Abu-Mostafa Thesis: Supervised Learning in Probabilistic Environments

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1997 See-May Phoong Advisor: Dr. P.P. Vaidyanathan Thesis: Time-Varying and Finite Field Filter Banks

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1996 Fernando Paganini Herrera Advisor: Dr. John Doyle Thesis: Sets and Constraints in the Analysis of Uncertain Systems

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1995 Sidney Li Hsin-Yu Advisor: Dr. Demetri Psaltis Thesis: Photorefractive 3-D Disks for Optical Data Storage and Artificial Neural Networks

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1994 Enrico Santi Advisor: Dr. Slobodan Cuk Thesis: Magnetics and Control in Power Electronics: I. Modeling of Coupled Inductors. II. One-Cycle Control of Switching Converters.

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1993 Tsuhan Chen Advisor: Dr. P. P. Vaidyanathan Thesis: Multidimensional Multirate Filters and Filter Banks: Theory, Design, and Implementation

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1992 Ian Andrew Galton Advisor: Dr. Edward C. Posner Thesis: An Analysis of Quantization Noise in Delta-Sigma Modulation and Its Application to Parallel Delta-Sigma Modulation