Avideh Zakhor

Avideh Zakhor, PhD, is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley (Berkeley), and CEO/founder of Indoor Reality, a company whose hardware and data processing pipeline allow for rapid 3D mapping and positioning of interior spaces one step at a time. Indoor Reality is her third startup. Previously, Google in 2007 and Mentor Graphics in 1998 successfully acquired two previous startups: Urban Scan, Inc. and Signamask, OPC Technology, respectively. She has 35+ years experience in electrical engineering and holds the Qualcomm chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at Berkeley where she joined the faculty in 1988.

Zakhor is the recipient of numerous awards underscoring both her academic and professional career: the General Motors Scholarship, from 1982-3; Henry Ford Engineering Award, in 1983; the Presidential Young Investigator (PYI) award, in 1990; the Analog Devices Junior Faculty Development Award, from 1990-1995; the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, in 1992; the IEEE Signal Processing Society Transactions Young Paper Award (with S. Hein), in 1997; the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Video Technology Transactions Best Paper Award (with D. Taubman), 1997; the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Video Technology Transactions Best Paper Award (with R. Neff), 1999; the International Conference on Image Processing Best Paper Award (with R. Neff), 1999; and the Packet Video Workshop best paper award (with T. Ngyuen), in 2002.

In 1983, Zakhor received her BSc from the California Institute of Technology. In 1987, with her Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship award, she received her PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.