CGrADS Site Visit Participant - Ricardo Vargas

Educational Background

• Rice University, Doctor of Philosophy degree in Electrical Engineering (May 2002, expected)
• University of Texas at El Paso, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (August 1997)
  • Overall GPA: 3.84/4.0
• University of Texas at El Paso, Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (July 1995)
  • Honors Certificate
  • Overall GPA: 3.36/4.0
  • Major GPA: 3.40/4.0

Research Experience:

Current research applies optimization theory to problems in digital filter design. Areas of expertise include FIR and IIR digital filter design, wavelet approximation, signal and image processing, and optimization theory.

Relevant Courses

Digital Signal and Image Processing, Wavelet Theory, Radar Signal Processing, Real and Functional Analysis, Statistical Detection and Estimation, Numerical Linear Algebra, Information and Coding Theory, Optimization Theory, Linear and Nonlinear Programming.

Work Experience

• Shell Exploration and Production Company (SEPCO), New Orleans, Louisiana.
• Post Graduate Intern, Seismic Data Processing group (June 2001, Aug. 2001)
• Perform research on principal component analysis and its application to wavelet extraction from seismic data and data denoising.

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Publications:

1. R. A. Vargas, "On the Properties of the Karhunen-Loeve Transform and its Application to Wavelet Extraction in Seismic Processing," internal report, Shell Exploration and Production Co., New Orleans, Louisiana (August 2001).
2. R. A. Vargas and C. S. Burrus, "On the Design of Lp IIR Filters with Arbitrary Frequency Bands," International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Salt Lake City, Utah (May 2001).
3. R. A. Vargas, "On the Steiglitz-McBride algorithm and the Design of Optimal Lp IIR Digital Filters," SACNAS National Conference, Atlanta, Georgia (October 2000).
4. R. A. Vargas, "On the Design of Lp FIR Digital Filters," SIAM Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico (July 2000).
5. R. A. Vargas and C. S. Burrus, "Adaptive Iterative Reweighted Least Squares Design of Lp FIR Filters," Proc. ICASSP, vol. 3, Signal Processing Theory and Methods, pp. 1129-32, 1999.
6. R. A. Vargas, Comparison of Interpolation Methods for ISAR Imaging, Master's Thesis, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, August 1997.
7. R. A. Vargas and B. C. Flores, "Comparison of Interpolation Methods for ISAR Imaging," Proc. SPIE, vol. 3161, Radar Processing, Technology, and Applications II, pp. 48-59, 1997.
8. M. Unzueta, B. C. Flores and R. A. Vargas, "Two-dimensional Polar Format Algorithm for High-quality Radar Image Formation," Proc. SPIE, vol. 2845, Radar Processing, Technology, and Applications, pp. 151-162, 1996.

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Awards and Honors:

• Graduate Representative, Rice Honor Council (Apr. 2001 - present)
• Rice University Diversity in Science and Engineering Fellowship (Aug. 1999 - present)
• Provost Fellowship, Rice University (September 1997 - August 1999)
• Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, University of Texas at El Paso (April 1996)
• Engineer-In-Training Certified (1995)
• Honors Certificate, University of Texas at El Paso (July 1995)
• All-American Scholar, U.S. Achievement Academy (1994)
• Dean's List, University of Texas at El Paso (1993, 1994)
• Academic Scholarship, ITESM - CEM (Jan. 1990 - Dec. 1990)

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Professional Activities:

• Eta Kappa Nu Electrical Engineering Honor Society
• Golden Key National Honor Society
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• IEEE Signal Processing Society
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)
• Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS)

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