Dr. Meemong Lee and Dr. Richard Weidner, alumni of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at OSU, will present two seminars on the afternoon of Wednesday, April 8. Dr. Lee and Dr. Weidner are both Principal Engineers with Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, California, where they have served for more than twenty years.

For detailed information about the seminars, please click the following links to the flyers.

Sensor-web Operations Explorer (SOX) for Integrated Air Quality Campaign presented by Dr. Meemong Lee.

From Bugs Bunny to World of Warcraft - with a short stop in Stillwater to map the surface of Jupiter presented by Dr. Richard Weidner.

The seminars are scheduled at ATRC 102, April 8th, starting from 1:30 and 3:00 PM respectively. They are open to the public and everyone is encouraged to attend.

On Thursday, April 9, Dr. Lee and Dr. Weidner will each receive the Lohmann Medal at a dinner in their honor. The Lohmann Medal honors distinguished alumni of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology who have made contributions to the profession meriting the highest recognition.

A Brief Resume of Dr. Meemong Lee

Meemong Lee was born in Junjoo, South Korea, at a servant quarter of Kyungkee Palace which was temporarily rented out to the public during the Korean War. Her father studied western philosophy and her mother studied English literature in college. Influenced by President Park’s emphasis on Electronics Engineering while she was in high school, Meemong became only the second female student in the bachelors degree program in the Electronics Engineering department at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. Her time at Sogang was marked by student demonstrations and marshal law, and her only real passion was for playing the guitar and piano until she saw a newspaper article on computer technology in America. This had a major impact on the direction of her studies.

Despite her parents’ wishes that she be married first, Meemong chose to pursue a Computer Science masters degree at Oklahoma State University, a place her parents felt safe in sending their daughter. Perhaps an indication of the maledominated discipline she chose to pursue, her 1976 letter of admission from OSU began “Dear Sir, …”. She continued her OSU education by pursuing the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering under the guidance of Dr. Rao Yarlagadda, an expert in digital signal processing. It was during this time she met Richard Weidner, another Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student. Thanks to Dr. Yarlagadda, Meemong became one of only a few PhDs knowledgeable in speech signal processing – an accomplishment that took her to Intel Corporation in 1981.

At Intel she worked with Ted Hoff who invented the first 4-bit microprocessor and developed the automated speech transaction system. In 1983, she joined Richard Weidner at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, excited to have an opportunity to work for NASA.

At JPL she went to work with pioneers in the field of digital image processing and advanced image analysis systems, where she specialized in multidisciplinary modeling and simulation technology and advanced imaging techniques. Her work at JPL includes the Voyager II, Magellan, Galileo, Deep Space I, Mars Odyssey, and JUNO missions. In 1986 she received the NASA Manned Flight Awareness Certificate of Appreciation for her contributions to the Challenger investigation. In 1989 she was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for supporting the Voyager II and Neptune Encounter. And, in 2002 she was honored with the AIAA Space Science Award for Deep Space I Comet Borrelly.

Meemong Lee resides in Pasadena, California, with her husband and collaborator Richard Weidner, where she continues her 26 year career at JPL.

A Brief Resume of Dr. Richard Weidner

Richard Weidner realized his engineering talent in high school with a desire to create things of all kinds. In a high school course for future farmers he began welding a robot, but the teacher, thinking it was a waste time never allowed him to realize this dream. Now, instead of building metal robots he builds design applications for robotic exploration of outer space.

Richard Weidner was born in Woodward, Oklahoma, a descendant of immigrant farmers. He began his college education by earning his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1977. With Dr. Robert Mulholland’s encouragement he began graduate study at OSU. Under Dr. Mulholland’s guidance he earned the M.S. degree in 1979, followed by the Ph.D. degree in 1981, both in Electrical Engineering. It was during his graduate studies he first met Meemong Lee, another Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering, when she occupied a next-door office in Engineering South. Richard spent hours perfecting his skill at darts in order to show off to Meemong with her office dart board.

While in school Richard and many other graduate students were fascinated by the Carl Sagan PBS television show “Cosmos”. Knowing of Richard’s interest in space, Dr. Mulholland recommended him for a position at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has developed into an extraordinary 28 year career at JPL.

Richard’s initial assignment at JPL was autonomous processing of space borne imagery for spacecraft navigation, which allowed him to immediately apply concepts of digital signal processing learned from Dr. Rao Yarlagadda at OSU in the 1970s. Later he became an expert in real-time monitoring, visualization, and planning of planetary missions, including the development of software systems for mission simulation and visualization. In 1986 he received the NASA Manned Flight Awareness Certificate of Appreciation for his contributions to the Challenger investigation. In 1997 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for Mars Pathfinder mission support. And, in 2005 he was honored with the Cassini Certificate of Recognition for his work in real-time mission simulation and visualization. During his career at JPL he has worked on many missions including Voyager, Stardust, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Odyssey, Cassini, Juno, and others. His recent work includes modeling, simulation and visualization of a spacecraft proposed to arrive at Jupiter in 2016, and an extension of this work in support of studies dealing with global warming.

Richard Weidner is married to Meemong Lee, and resides in Pasadena, California, where his career continues at JPL.

About the Melvin R. Lohmann Medal

The Melvin R. Lohmann Medal was established to honor alumni of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology for contributions to the profession or to the education of engineers, architects or technologists, that merit the highest recognition.

The Lohmann medal was established in 1991 to honor Dr. Melvin R. “Pete” Lohmann, who served the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology for 36 years. While Dean from 1955 to 1977, Pete led the College to national prominence. He provided leadership at the national level in the movement to establish the professional school concept in engineering education. Pete served as National President of the Engineers Council for Professional Development and the American Society for Engineering Education.