Electrical & Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor Hao Xu has been named the Ralph E. Hoeper Professor, a position he will hold from July 2025 to July 2028. This competitive award, named after an alumnus from the Class of 1951, will support Xu’s research into AI implementation and offer undergrads an opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology.

“This award is a testament to Dr. Hao Xu’s outstanding contributions and dedication in research and service,” said Associate Dean Brandon Weeks, who headed up the committee that chose Xu for this distinction. “I also want to recognize the exceptional achievements of the other three highly qualified candidates, each of whom has demonstrated remarkable excellence in their fields, making the selection very competitive and difficult.”

Xu’s research interests include intelligent control, machine learning, cyber-physical systems, networked control systems and unmanned aircraft systems. He is particularly interested in how AI can be applied to mission-oriented scenarios, or AI that is designed to achieve a specific goal, such as drones used in wildland firefighting to identify hotspots and assess fire progression as it happens.

That practical application of AI is where Xu sees a need and an opportunity for the University of Nevada, Reno and its engineering students.

“In the long term, I hope we can use this award to help the University of Nevada, Reno become more nationally recognized for mission-oriented or applicable AI,” he said.

Xu plans to use the funding that comes with the Hoeper Professor title to get more undergraduates into College of Engineering labs, where they can get hands-on experience with technology like first-person-view drone systems as well as 5G and 6G wireless networks.

“Sometimes, undergraduates want to do more lab work, but there’s not a lot of support for that,” Xu said. “This award is going to be a good opportunity open the door (to labs) for undergraduates.”

Ideally, these opportunities would give undergraduates insight into life as a graduate student along with the chance to work on state-of-the-art technology. Xu said he will try to get as many as five or six undergraduates into labs initially, and those interested in this opportunity should email him at haoxu@unr.edu.

Supporting the next generation of engineers

Student opportunity is something Xu has been mindful of in the past, particularly at the graduate student level. In the fall of 2024, he secured a $1 million grant from the Department of Defense to help set up a new center, CREDIT+: Advancing Data Analysis for Mission-Critical Applications in the era of Artificial Intelligence. In addition to CREDIT+’s goal of improving military decision-making, the center could provide grad students with a path to careers in the DOD.

Xu joined the University in 2016, coming from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. In 2022, he received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award, the NSF’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty.

Ralph E. Hoeper, from whom the professorship gets its name, studied electrical engineering at the University in the mid-20th century, graduating in 1951. He was a pioneer in telephone industry: he bought Foresthill Telephone Company in the 1940s and operated it for over 50 years. After his death in 2001, his wife, Rose A. Hoeper, has generously supported the College of Engineering. Ralph Hoeper was posthumously awarded the Scrugham Medal, which acknowledges successful alumni.