Wu Named AAAS Fellow

Published November 20, 2017

A noted University of Maryland expert in information security and digital forensics was just named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Min Wu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering with an appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS), joins 395 other scientists and scholars in receiving this prestigious recognition from the AAAS, the world’s largest scientific organization.

Wu was selected for “distinguished contributions to the field of signal processing, particularly for multimedia security and forensics,” according to the AAAS.

She will be formally honored by the AAAS on February 17, 2018 at the organization’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas.

“This latest recognition of Min’s research and scholarship is well deserved,” says Amitabh Varshney, professor of computer science and director of UMIACS. “Min’s stellar career at Maryland as a scientist, educator, innovator and mentor to other researchers is something that we are all proud of.”

Wu came to UMD in 2001 after receiving her doctorate in electrical engineering from Princeton University.

She launched the Media and Security Team at UMD, which carries out a number of research and educational activities related to multimedia signal processing and information security.

In 2015, her work was selected as an Invention of the Year winner in the information sciences category in an annual UMD-sponsored competition. Wu and two of her graduate students won the award for their research in extracting Electrical Network Frequency (ENF) signals from complex video recordings.

Their innovative technology could help verify the source of video streams, offering possibilities for a variety of security and forensic applications. This work was highlighted in a Terp magazine article.

Wu also received a 2012 Innovator of the Year award from the Maryland Daily Record for her work in digital timestamps for video recordings.

In addition to research and innovation, Wu is a noted educator, having served as an ADVANCE professor representing the A. James Clark School of Engineering in a program that supports the recruitment, retention and advancement of women and underrepresented minority faculty at UMD.

She is also a UMD Distinguished Scholar-Teacher.

Additionally, Wu is the recipient an NSF CAREER Award, an MIT TR100 Young Innovator Award, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a Computer World “40 Under 40” IT Innovator Award, the IEEE Mac Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award, and the IEEE Distinguished Lecturer recognition.

Wu has published two books and approximately 175 papers in major international journals and conferences, and holds nine U.S. patents.

Wu has taken on significant technical leadership, having served as Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Information Forensics and Security from 2012–2013. She is currently editor-in-chief of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, a high-impact publication in electrical and computer engineering.

In 2011, Wu was named an IEEE Fellow for her contributions to multimedia security and forensics.

She is the tenth person affiliated with UMIACS to be named an AAAS Fellow, joining Ashok Agrawala, Rama Chellappa, Rita Colwell, Jack Minker, Hanan Samet, Ben Shneiderman, Aravind Srinivasan, V.S. Subrahmanian and James Yorke in having received this distinction.