Faculty Directory

Baras, John S.

Baras, John S.

Distinguished University Professor
Lockheed Martin Chair in Systems Engineering
Founding Director, Institute for Systems Research, 1985-1991
Director, Maryland Hybrid Networks Center, 1992-present
Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Institute for Systems Research
Mechanical Engineering
Fischell Department of Bioengineering
Maryland Robotics Center
2247 A.V. Williams Bldg.

John S. Baras received the Diploma in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (with Highest Honors) from the National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, in 1970, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA, in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Since 1973, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland at College Park, MD, USA, where he is currently a Distinguished University Professor. He is also a Faculty Member of the Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Scientific Computation Program, and Affiliate Professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Aerospace Engineering, and the Department of Decision, Operations and Information Technologies, Robert H. Smith School of Business. Since 2013, he has been a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden, and the Institute for Advanced Study of the Techical University of Munich (TUM), Germany. From 1985 to 1991, he was the Founding Director of the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) (one of the first six National Science Foundation Engineering Research Centers). In 1990 he was appointed to the endowed Lockheed Martin Chair in Systems Engineering. Since 1992, he has been the Director of the Maryland Center for Hybrid Networks (HYNET), which he co-founded.

He is a IEEE Life Fellow, SIAM Fellow, AAAS Fellow, NAI Fellow, IFAC Fellow, AMS Fellow, AIAA Fellow, Member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). Major honors and awards include the 1980 George Axelby Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the 2006 Leonard Abraham Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2014 Tage Erlander Guest Professorship from the Swedish Research Council, and a three year (2014-2017) Senior Hans Fischer Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich, Germany. In 2016 he was inducted in the University of Maryland A. J. Clark School of Engineering Innovation Hall of Fame. He was awarded the 2017 Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Simon Ramo Medal, the 2017 American Automatic Control Council (AACC) Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, and the 2018 American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerospace Communications Award. In June 2018 he was awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by his alma mater the National Technical University of Athens, Greece.

He has coauthored more than 1,000 technical papers in refereed journals and conferences, one book (Path Problems in Networks, 2010), co-edited three others, with 15,587 Google Scholar citations and an h-index of 55. He has given many plenary and keynote addresses in major international conferences worldwide. He has educated 91 doctoral students, 120 MS students and has mentored 70 postdoctoral fellows. He has been the initial architect and continuing innovator of the pioneering MS on Systems Engineering Program of the ISR. His research interests include systems and control, optimization, communication networks, applied mathematics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, signal processing and understanding, robotics, computing systems, network security and trust, systems biology, healthcare management systems, model-based systems engineering. He has been awarded nineteen patents and has been honored worldwide with many awards as innovator and leader of economic development.

Fellows

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1984

Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, 2006

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2014

American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2015

National Academy of Inventors, 2015

International Federation for Automatic Control, 2016

American Mathematical Society, 2019

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2020

Honors and Awards

1971, Ch. Chrysovergis Award, awarded by the Senate of the National Technical University of Athens, to the outstanding graduating student from the Department of Electrical Engineering

1978, Naval Research Laboratory Research Publication Award, Naval Research Laboratory, for “Ship RCS Scintillation Simulation”, Naval Research Laboratory Technical Report 8189, May,2,1978

1980, George S. Axelby Prize, IEEE, Control Systems Society, for the paper “Discrete-Time Point Processes in Urban Traffic Queue Estimation”, IEEE transactions On Automatic Control, AC-24, No. 1, pp. 12-27, February 1979, chosen among papers published in the IEEE transactions On Automatic Control, Vol. AC-23 (1978), and Vol. AC-24 (1979), December 11, 1980

1983, Alan Berman Research Publication Award, from the Naval Research Laboratory , for "Analysis and Evaluation of an Advanced EW System I: Deterministic Formulation", Naval Research Laboratory Technical Report 8629, August 11, 1983

1984, IEEE Fellow, IEEE, “for contributions to distributed parameter systems theory, quantum and nonlinear estimation, and control of queuing systems”

1991, Outstanding Invention of the Year Award, from the University of Maryland, for the invention of a “Low Complexity CELP Speech Coder”

1993, Alan Berman Research Publication Award, from the Naval Research Laboratory, for “Hierarchical Wavelet Representations of Ship Radar Returns”, Naval Research Laboratory Technical Report NRL/FR/5750-93-9593, December 31, 1993.

1994, Outstanding Invention of the Year Award , from the University of Maryland, for the invention of “A System Design for a Hybrid Network Data Communications Terminal Using Asymmetric TCP/IP to Support Internet Applications”

1995, Award for Outstanding Performance , for Analysis, Engineering and Implementation of a Novel, Actively Controlled Toolpost for High Precision Machining, from the Smart Materials and Structures DARPA Partnership Team, led by Martin Marietta Corporation.

1995, Outstanding Contributions to Seniors Award, from the Vice President for Student Affairs and the Senior Council, University of Maryland.

1996, Outstanding Paper Award, presented at Design SuperCon 1996 Conference, Santa Clara, CA., for “ATM in Hybrid Networks"

1996, Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) Research Award of Excellence for Outstanding Contributions in Advancing Maryland Industry  for research, development and commercialization done with Hughes Network Systems.

1997, Outstanding Service and Contributions to the Development of Strategic Directions for Increasing the Competitiveness of Maryland’s Growth Industry Sectors, presented by the Maryland Economic Development Commission in collaboration with the Department of Business and Economic Development of the State of Maryland.

1998, Mancur Olson Research Achievement Award, from the University of Maryland College Park, award honors faculty whose research achievements have been extraordinary over a long time period.

1999, Finalist in the Invention of the Year Competition for 1998, University of Maryland College Park, for the invention “A Method for Distributed Shared Key Generation Using Fractional Keys”

1999, Interviewed by J. Harter WJLA Channel 7, WJLA Channel 7, on my research on wireless Internet, and appeared in the Channel 7, Five-o’clock News program, on February 5, 1999.

2002, Best Paper Award in IT/C4ISR (Information Technology, Information Technology/Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) , at the 23rd Army Science Conference , for “On-Line Detection of Distributed Attacks from Space-Time Network Flow Patterns”

2004, Best Paper Award, presented at the ACM Workshop on Wireless Security, WiSe ’04, for the paper “Trust Evaluation in Ad-Hoc Networks”.

2006, Elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engieering Sciences (IVA), IVA is the world’s oldest engineering academy. Its mission is to promote the engineering and economic sciences and the development of industry for the benefit of society.

2007, Leonard G. Abraham Prize in Communication Systems, IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc), presented at the International Conference on Communications (ICC2007), for the paper “On Trust Models and Trust Evaluation Metrics for Ad Hoc Networks”, Journal of Selected Areas in Communications, Security in Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks, Vol. 24, Number 2, pp. 318-328, February 2006.

2008, Globecom '08 Best Paper Award for Wireless Networks , presented at the IEEE Global Communications Conference 2008 held at New Orleans, Louisiana, for the paper “Performance Metric Sensitivity Computation for Optimization and Trade-off Analysis in Wireless Networks”

2008, Best Paper Award for C4/ISR , at the 26th Army Science Conference, for “Power Allocation Tradeoffs in Multicarrier Authentication Systems”.

2008, Outstanding Invention of the Year Award , from the University of Maryland, for the invention of “Method and Implementation for Key Generation and Replacement using Markov Models”.

2009, Maryland Innovator of the Year Award, from the Maryland Daily Record, for the invention “Method and Implementation for Key Generation and Replacement using Markov Models”

2012, Award for "Principal Investigator with Greatest Impact", one of the two most significant awards bestowed for Research at the Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS) 25th Anniversary Gala Celebration

2012, The Largest Selling Product, the other one of the two most significant awards bestowed for Research at the prestigious three year (2014-2017) Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS) 25th Anniversary Gala Celebration. Award was given for HughesNet®, the product which resulted from Dr. Baras’ collaboration with Hughes Network Systems. HughesNet® is the largest-selling product ever developed with the help of the MIPS program. Dr. Baras created the algorithms by which the Internet is delivered over satellite worldwide.

2013, 2013 Jimmy Lin Award for Entrepreneurship, awarded by the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Maryland, for the business model "Secure Mobile Devices", (with Vladimir Ivanov)

2013, IEEE Life Fellow

2013, Awarded the prestigious 2014 Tage Erlander Guest Professorship, by the Swedish Research Council

2014 to 2017, The prestigious three year (2014-2017) "Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship", by the Institute for Advanced Study of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany

2014 , American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow, “for distinguished contributions to the fields of systems and control, communication networks, network security, and leadership in establishing outstanding cross disciplinary research and education programs.”

2014, SIAM Fellow, for contributions to systems theory, stochastic control and communication networks.

2015, National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow, http://www.academyofinventors.org/press-releases.asp

2016, 2017 International Federation for Automatic Control (IFAC) Fellow, for contributions to the theory and applications of stochastic systems and control and communication networks and for leadership in cross-disciplinary research and education

2016, 2017 IEEE Simon Ramo Medal, For exceptional contributions to the conception and commercialization of internet-over-satellite systems, and for leadership in model-based engineering, systems science, and engineering research.

2016, Inducted in the A. James Clark School of Engineeting Innovation Hall of Fame, for his outstanding contributions to Internet over satellite technology and hybrid networks, which has enabled broadband Internet services over interoperable satellite and terrestrial networks. | remarks |

2018, AIAA Aerospace Communications Award

2018, University of Maryland Distinguished University Professor

2019, Fellow of the American Mathematical Society for contributions to the mathematical foundations and applications of systems theory, stochastic systems, stochastic control, network security and trust, mentoring and academic leadership

2020, Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for fundamental and high impact contributions to Internet over satellite technology, cybersecurity, automatic control, model-based systems engineering, and for academic leadership.

 

Dr. Baras' research interests include scaleable multicast security; integrated management of hybrid communication networks; modeling and performance evaluation of large broadband hybrid networks; fast internet over heterogeneous (wireless-wireline) networks; manufacturing process selection for electromechanical products; intelligent control; wavelets; robust speaker identification; low complexity, high fidelity, low rate speech coding; image processing and understanding; learning clustering algorithms and classification; distributed control (or decision) systems; stochastic dynamic model building; stochastic control and scheduling; real-time sequential detection and estimation; computer-aided control systems design; queuing systems; quantum communications; nonlinear systems; and radar systems modeling and performance evaluation and distributed parameter systems.


Graduate students win ISR and ECE awards

Awards given for outstanding performance, teaching, and dissertation work.

ECE and ISR alumni feature prominently at American Control Conference

Xiaobo Tan, Sean Andersson and Fumin Zhang played key roles at the conference.

Profile of alum Nikolaos Sidiropoulos featured in IEEE SPS newsletter

He was lauded as an "SPS Pioneer in IEEE History."

Baras, Sadler part of large ARL DataDrivER project

They have been awarded a one-year, $850K contract for "Integrated Data-Driven and Model-Based Systems Engineering."

Accolades abound for graduating ECE Ph.D. student Nilesh Suriyarachchi

His work on how connected autonomous vehicles will help solve common traffic problems has led to UMD honors, prestigious internships and a best paper award.

ECE Names 2022-2023 Distinguished Dissertation Fellows

Fellowship recognizes excellence in research

Work on RIS-aided mmWave beamforming named a ‘best paper’

PhD student Nariman Torkzaban first author on research to improve wireless communication published in a special issue of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies

Remembering Roger Brockett, 1938-2023

Brockett was an ISR founding and permanent faculty member, and a giant of control and robotics.

Five Clark School authors part of new 'Age of Information' book

The text provides detailed information on the AoI network performance metric ushering in new opportunities for rethinking communication system design.

Other professional society fellows

  • Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science Fellow, 2006
  • Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Fellow, 2014

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

  • Fellow, 1984

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)

  • Fellow, 2020

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

  • Fellow, 2015

National Academy of Inventors

  • Member, 2015

American Mathematical Society

  • Fellow, 2019