The USC Viterbi School of Engineering (formerly the USC School of Engineering) is the engineering school of the University of Southern California. It was renamed following a $52 million donation by Andrew J. Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm.
The school is headed by Dean Yannis C. Yortsos. Its research centers have played a major role in development of multiple technologies, including early development of the Internet when USC researcher Jonathan Postel was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling network, also known as ARPANET. The school's faculty has included Irving Reed, Leonard Adleman, Solomon W. Golomb, Barry Boehm, Clifford Newman, Richard E. Bellman, Lloyd Welch, Alexander Sawchuk, Maja Matarić, Iraj Ershaghi, and George V. Chilingar.
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Major research centers
Alfred Mann Institute — business incubator for medical device development in preparation for commercialization
Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems — National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center
Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) — interdisciplinary national research center funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Center for Systems and Software Engineering (CSSE) — research the relationship between systems, software, and users.
Information Sciences Institute (housed at separate facilities in Marina del Rey, California and Arlington, Virginia) — played a major role in the development of the Internet, and continues to be a major research center in computer science
Institute for Creative Technologies — conducts research in virtual reality and immersive digital environment
Integrated Media Systems Center — National Science Foundation's Exclusive Engineering Research Center for multimedia and Internet research
Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) Partner Institution — Current Research
USC + Amazon Center on Secure & Trusted Machine Learning
USC ECE-ISE Meta Center for Research and Education in AI and Learning — center to advance AI research and increase accessibility in AI education
USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center — conducts research in quantum computing
Specific contributions
AFL Theory — created by Prof. Seymour Ginsburg
ART image file format — developed by Prof. Irving Reed
Baum–Welch algorithm — developed by Prof. Lloyd Welch in collaboration with Leonard E. Baum
CMOS image sensor — invented by Prof. Eric Fossum
COCOMO — developed by Prof. Barry Boehm
Contour crafting — under development by Behrokh Khoshnevis of ISI
DNA computing — invented by Prof. Leonard Adleman
Domain Name System (DNS) — developed by Paul Mockapetris and the late Jon Postel at ISI
Dynamic programming — developed by Prof. Richard Bellman
Golomb coding — entropy encoding invented by Prof. Solomon W. Golomb that is optimal for alphabets following geometric distributions
ICANN — founded by Jon Postel, to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems
Image compression & recognition — the work of William Pratt, Harry Andrews and subsequently Andrew G. Tescher led to today's JPEG compression system for still images
Kerberos — security protocol developed by B.Clifford Neuman.
Lenna — widely used standard test image in image processing experiments
Student organizations
AeroDesign Team of USC
The AeroDesign Team (ADT) is a student-led design team within the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Founded in 1991, ADT's purpose is to help students gain industry-like experience by competing in early design competitions that simulate typical design cycles in the Aerospace field. The team started out competing in the SAE AeroDesign contest but then switched its participation to the AIAA Design/Build/Fly (DBF) contest in 1997. The DBF contest has rules that change yearly, requiring students to come up with a completely new design each year. ADT won the DBF contest in 1998, 2009, 2014, and 2017. This is the second most first-place finish ever out of the 100+ universities from around the world that participate yearly.
Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering
Among the many organizations on campus, the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering (ASBME) is an undergraduate student organization for biomedical engineering students at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. ASBME is a student-run undergraduate and graduate biomedical engineering organization at USC that serves the engineering student body through academic, social, and corporate events. Students gain clarity in their chosen field of study and the opportunities that being a BME major brings. Students are also able to get a foot in the corporate door at the annual ASBME corporate dinner, attended by USC alumni as well as other corporate representatives.
Activities consist of regular meetings with guest speakers and panels, the BIOMED Research Symposium, the annual Corporate Dinner and Networking Nights designed to foster relationships between graduating students and industry, and many other social, community, and corporate events.
ASBME serves as USC's chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and sends some of its students to the annual BMES Conference each year.
Pi Tau Sigma (Tau Beta chapter)
Pi Tau Sigma is an international mechanical engineering honor society that strives to "create better engineers through a commitment to academic excellence and dedication to service." The USC Tau Beta chapter is composed of the top mechanical engineers at the University of Southern California. USC's Pi Tau Sigma engages in social, industry and community service-related events in the USC neighborhood and beyond. Paul Ronney serves as an advisor for the USC chapter of Pi Tau Sigma.
USC Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
USC has a student chapter of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. AAAI organizes speaker events and information sessions in the field of Artificial Intelligence to increase students' interest in AI.
USC Rocket Propulsion Lab (USCRPL)
USCRPL was founded in 2005 with the goal of putting a student-designed and -built rocket into space.
In 2019, USCRPL became the world’s first student organization to successfully launch and recover an entirely student-designed and student-fabricated rocket (Traveler IV) past the Karman line with a confidence of 90%.
The group holds records for the most powerful solid motor in student rocketry and the most powerful composite-case motor in amateur rocketry with their Shockwave mission, as well as records for the highest altitude achieved in student and amateur rocketry and the fastest velocity achieved in student and amateur rocketry with their Aftershock II mission.
Viterbi Graduate Students Association (VGSA)
The Viterbi Graduate Students Association (VGSA) is the student government for the graduate students of the Viterbi School. It consists of representatives from all departments and several student organizations, as well as the Viterbi Graduate Student Liaison (VGSL).
Notable alumni
Gary Dean Anderson, graphic designer and architect, best known for designing the recycling symbol.
Neil Armstrong, American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who was the first person to walk on the Moon.
Wanda Austin, former president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation and former interim president of USC.
Karol J. Bobko, American aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force officer, and a former USAF and NASA astronaut.
Charles Bolden, former administrator of NASA, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General, and a former astronaut who flew on four Space Shuttle missions.
Colin Brady, American animator and film director with notable film credits, including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and A Bug’s Life.
Yvonne Brill, inventor of the electrothermal hydrazine thruster.
James L. Buie, inventor of transistor–transistor logic.
Gerald Carr, American mechanical and aeronautical engineer, United States Marine Corps officer, naval aviator, and NASA astronaut.
Frederick B. Cohen, American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on computer viruses.
Nancy J. Currie-Gregg, engineer, United States Army officer and NASA astronaut.
William H. Dana, American aeronautical engineer, U.S. Air Force pilot, NASA test pilot, and astronaut.
Historic accomplishments
In 1970, Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to set foot on the Moon, during the 1969 NASA Apollo 11 mission, graduated USC with a master of science degree in aerospace engineering.
Equipped with the ability to adapt to arbitrary shapes without any external control, pioneering roboticist George A. Bekey co-created the world’s first five-fingered robot in 1977 — the first able to give a true handshake.
In 1983, the Internet's pivotal Domain Name System (DNS) was invented by ISI researcher Paul Mockapetris. The DNS works as a phone book directory for the Internet, automatically translating text addresses, which humans can understand and remember, to numerical addresses that computers can understand.
Fundraising
Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering in honor of Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had donated $52 million to the school. The Viterbi School received other major gifts, including gifts from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Stevens who created the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation in 2004; real estate developer Daniel J. Epstein who named the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering with an $11 million gift in 2002; Energy Corporation of America CEO John Mork who named the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with a $15 million gift in 2005; Ken Klein, CEO and president of Wind River Systems, who established the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life with an $11 million gift, also in 2005; Ming Hsieh, founder of Cogent Systems, who named the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in 2006 with a $35 million gift; and Los Angeles real estate developer Sonny Astani, who named the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a $17 million gift in 2007.