Ada S. Y. Poon

Biography

Ada was born and raised in Hong Kong. She received her B.Eng degree from the EEE department at the University of Hong Kong and her Ph.D. degree from the EECS department at the University of California at Berkeley in 2004. Her dissertation attempted to connect information theory with electromagnetic theory so as to better understand the fundamental limit of wireless channels. Upon graduation, she spent one year at Intel as a senior research scientist building reconfigurable baseband processors for flexible radios. Afterwards, she joined her advisor’s startup company, SiBeam Inc., architecting Gigabit wireless transceivers leveraging 60 GHz CMOS and MIMO antenna systems. After two years in industries, she returned to academic and joined the faculty of the ECE department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Since then, she has changed her research direction from wireless communications to integrated biomedical systems. In 2008, she moved back to California and joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.

Research Interest

Our research focuses on providing theoretical foundations and engineering platforms for realizing electronics that seamlessly integrate with the body. Such systems will allow precise recording or modulation of physiological activity, for advancing basic scientific discovery and for restoring or augmenting biological functions for clinical applications. To build these integrated biomedical systems, our research program emphasizes a vertical integration of diverse fields ranging from physics, wireless technologies, and low-power integrated circuits. In close collaboration with biologists and clinical specialists, we validate our systems in animal models and prepare the testing of the systems in humans.