ICANN – founded by Jon Postel, to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems
Image compression & recognition – the work of William Pratt, Harry Andrews and subsequently Andrew G. Tescher led to today's JPEG compression system for still images
The AeroDesign Team (ADT) is a student-led design team within the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering. Founded in 1991, ADT's purpose is to help students gain industry-like experience by competing in early design competitions that simulate typical design cycles in the Aerospace field. The team started out competing in the SAE AeroDesign contest but then switched its participation to the AIAADesign/Build/Fly (DBF) contest in 1997. The DBF contest has rules that change yearly, requiring students to come up with a completely new design each year. ADT won the DBF contest in 1998, 2009, 2014, and 2017. This is the second most first-place finish ever out of the 100+ universities from around the world that participate yearly.
Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering
Among the many organizations on campus, the Associated Students of Biomedical Engineering (ASBME) is an undergraduate student organization for biomedical engineering students at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. ASBME is a student-run undergraduate and graduate biomedical engineering organization at USC that serves the engineering student body through academic, social, and corporate events. Students gain clarity in their chosen field of study and the opportunities that being a BME major brings. Students are also able to get a foot in the corporate door at the annual ASBME corporate dinner, attended by USC alumni as well as other corporate representatives.
Activities consist of regular meetings with guest speakers and panels, the BIOMED Research Symposium, the annual Corporate Dinner and Networking Nights designed to foster relationships between graduating students and industry, and many other social, community, and corporate events.
ASBME serves as USC's chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and sends some of its students to the annual BMES Conference each year.
Pi Tau Sigma (Tau Beta Chapter)
Pi Tau Sigma is an international mechanical engineering honor society that strives to "create better engineers through a commitment to academic excellence and dedication to service." The USC Tau Beta Chapter is composed of the top mechanical engineers at the University of Southern California. USC's Pi Tau Sigma engages in social, industry and community service-related events in the USC neighborhood and beyond. Paul Ronney serves as an advisor for the USC chapter of Pi Tau Sigma.
USC Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
USCRPL was founded in 2005 with the goal of putting a student-designed and -built rocket into space.[4]
In 2019, USCRPL became the world’s first student organization to successfully launch and recover an entirely student-designed and student-fabricated rocket (Traveler IV) past the Karman line with a confidence of 90%.[5]
Viterbi Graduate Students Association (VGSA)
The Viterbi Graduate Students Association (VGSA) is the student government for the graduate students of the Viterbi School. It consists of representatives from all departments and several student organizations, as well as the Viterbi Graduate Student Liaison (VGSL).[6]
Joseph Gutheinz, American attorney, college instructor, commissioner, writer, and former Army intelligence officer, Army aviator, and Federal law enforcement officer who is known as the founder of the "Moon Rock Project" which aims to track down missing Apollo Moon rock samples.
Payam Heydari, an Iranian-American Professor who is noted for his contribution to the field of radio-frequency and millimeter-wave integrated circuits.
James Hong, American actor, voice actor, producer, and director.
Ming Hsieh, Chinese-born American entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Grant Imahara, American electrical engineer, roboticist, television host, and actor who was best known for his work on the television series MythBusters.
Kuntal Joisher, mountaineer known for being the first to climb Mt. Everest from the south side on a completely plant-based diet.
M. Anthony Lewis, robotics researcher who currently serves as the Vice President of Hewlett-Packard and the head of Hewlett-Packard's Compute Lab for disruptive edge technologies.
Nathan J. Lindsay, retired Major General in the United States Air Force and former astronaut.
Firouz Naderi, an Iranian American scientist who spent 36 years in various technical and executive positions at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he contributed to some of America's most iconic robotic space missions.
Paul R. Williams, an American architect who designed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball along with many other public and private buildings.
Historical accomplishments
In 1970, Neil Armstrong, who was the first person to set foot on the Moon, during the 1969 NASA Apollo mission, graduated USC with a master of science degree in aerospace engineering.
Equipped with the ability to adapt to arbitrary shapes without any external control, pioneering roboticist George Bekey co-created the world’s first five-fingered robot in 1977—the first able to give a true handshake.
In 1983, the internet's pivotal Domain Name System (DNS) was invented by ISI researcher Paul Mockapetris. The DNS works as a phone book directory for the internet, automatically translating text addresses, which humans can understand and remember, to numerical addresses that computers can understand.
Fundraising
Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering in honor of Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had donated $52 million to the school. The Viterbi School received other major gifts including gifts from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mark Stevens who created the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation in 2004;[7] real estate developer Daniel J. Epstein who named the Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering with an $11 million gift in 2002;[8] Energy Corporation of America CEO John Mork who named the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science with a $15 million gift in 2005;[9] Ken Klein, CEO and president of Wind River Systems, who established the Klein Institute for Undergraduate Engineering Life with an $11 million gift, also in 2005;[10]Ming Hsieh, founder of Cogent Inc., who named the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering in 2006 with a $35 million gift;[11] and Los Angeles real estate developer Sonny Astani, who named the Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a $17 million gift in 2007.[12]
