Biography

Prof. Baron's undergraduate studies were in the Electrical Engineering Department at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, where he belonged to the Technion's Program for Outstanding Students. Following his graduation, he designed hardware modems at Witcom, an Israeli startup specializing in broadband wireless communication. At the same time he was pursuing his MSc, also at the Technion. In 1999 he joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he completed his Ph.D. in 2003. During the Spring 2003 semester, he was a Visiting Assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

After completing his Ph.D., Prof. Baron was a Postdoctoral Research Associateiate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University from 2003 to 2006, where he performed research with the Digital Signal Processing research group, which was among the pioneering groups in compressed sensing. From 2007 to 2008 he was a Quantitative Research Analyst with Menta Capital in San Francisco, where he developed quantitative investment strategies. After spending 2008 to 2010 as a Visiting Scientist in the Electrical Engineering Department at the Technion, Prof. Baron joined NC State in 2010 as an Assistant Professor.

Generally speaking, Prof. Baron's research lies on the intersection of fast algorithms, signal processing, and information theory. He is particularly interested in developing systems that extract as much information as possible from data in a computationally timely manner.

Education

  • Ph.D. 2003
    Electrical Engineering
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Master's 1999
    Electrical Engineering
    Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
  • Bachelor's 1997
    Electrical Engineering
    Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa

Awards & Honors

  • 2010 - IEEE Senior Member
  • 2002 - Honorable mention, Robert Bohrer Memorial Student Workshop, Department of Statistics, University of Illinois
  • 2002 - M. E. Van Valkenburg Graduate Research Award, University of Illinoois
  • 1994-1997 - Participant in Program for Outstanding Students, Technion
  • 1994-1997 - President's Roll every semester, Technion

Recent News

ECE Students Win Best Poster Award from CAEML

Posted on January 13, 2023 | Filed Under: News

Priyank Kashyup and Yuejiang Wen each won the Best Poster Award at CAEML’s Fall 2022 Semiannual Meeting.

AI Researchers Tackle Longstanding ‘Data Heterogeneity’ Problem for Federated Learning

Posted on July 15, 2022 | Filed Under: AI/ML and News

NC State ECE researchers have developed a new approach to federated learning that allows them to develop accurate artificial intelligence (AI) models more quickly and accurately.

Algorithmic Research Could Reduce Testing Quantities Needed by 85%

Posted on April 10, 2020 | Filed Under: Research

A team led by Dror Baron at NC State ECE is working on a sophisticated algorithm estimated to reduce the number of tests required for group coronavirus testing by up to seven times.

Media Mentions

Speeding Up Hyperspectral Imaging

February 25, 2016

A team of researchers from NC State and the University of Delaware have devised a new, faster image-reconstruction algorithm for hyperspectral-image data sets. Dror Baron, engineering, featured.

A Fictional Compression Metric Moves to the Real World

July 28, 2014

Researchers are poised to use the Weissman scores to show efficacy of compression algorithms. Dror Baron, electrical and computer engineering, featured.

 

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