At the end of each academic year, the department gives two awards recognizing the work of two or more outstanding individuals.
The Bede Liu Best Dissertation Award is given to a recent graduate of the program who has earned the Ph.D. in the preceding year. (Prior to 2016 it was known as the Best Dissertation Award).
The Early Career Graduate Award is given to a student who has completed the second year of the program with an outstanding achievements in coursework, research and the general exam.
The recipients are listed below by award-year.
Bede Liu Best Dissertation Award
2025
Xiangyu Qi
advised by Prateek Mittal
2024
Lila Rodgers
advised by Nathalie de Leon
2023
Zheng Liu
advised by Kaushik Sengupta
2022
Hongyang Jia
advised by Naveen Verma
2021
Xuyang Lu
advised by Kaushik Sengupta
2020
Prashanth Venkataram
advised by Alejandro Rodriguez
2019
Mattias Fitzpatrick
advised by Andrew Houck
2018
Jingbo Liu
advised by Sergio Verdú
Tiffany Moy
advised by Naveen Verma
2017
Pramod Subramanyan
advised by Sharad Malik
2016
Christopher Brinton
advised by Mung Chiang
2015
Sonika Johri
advised by Ravindra Bhatt
2014
Victoria Kostina
advised by Sergio Verdú
Yang Liu
advised by Mansour Shayegan
Pramod Subramanyan *17 Early Career Graduate Award
2025
Minhao Jin
Lodovico Rossi
2024
Ruiyi Shen
2023
Atsutse Kludze
Tianhao Wang
2022
Shikhar Tuli
Sophia Yoo
2021
Aditi Jha
2020
Pranav Thekke Madathil
2019
Hooman Saeidi
2018
Zihuai Zheng
2017
Fengyu Zhang
2016
Prashanth Venkataram
2015
Ross Kerner
Changchang Liu
2014
Neereja Sundaresan
Distinguished PhD Graduate Alumnus Award
2025
Urbashi Mitra *94
advised by H. Vincent Poor
2024
Avi Wigderson *83
advised by Richard Jay Lipton
2023
Leah Jamieson *77
advised by Kenneth Steiglitz
2022
Divya Arora *07
advised by Niraj Jha
2021
John Smee *00
advised by Stuart Schwartz
2020
Vladimir Bulovic *98
advised by Stephen Forrest
2019
Al Hero *84
advised by Stuart Schwartz
2018
Yan Huo *94
advised by Ravin Bhatt
2017
Yanbing Li *98
advised by Wayne Wolf
2016
Anthony Ephremides *71
advised by John Thomas
2015
Yu Chen *99
advised by Sigurd Wagner
2014
Min Wu *01
advised by Bede Liu
2013
Karthik Vasanth *95
advised by Sigurd Wagner
2012
Laurence G. Walker '70
2011
H. Vincent Poor *70
advised by John Thomas