Jennifer Hou

CHAMPAIGN – Dr. Jennifer Hou passed away on Dec. 2, 2007, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 43.

Hou was born on Sept. 26, 1964, in Taipei, Taiwan, the daughter of I-Chen and So-Chiu Hou.

Hou received her B.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, Taiwan, ROC in 1987, M.S.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and in Industrial and Operations Engineering (I&OE) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1989 and in 1991, and Ph.D. degree in EECS also from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1993.

She was an assistant professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., from 1993-1996, and an assistant/associate professor in Electrical Engineering at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, from 1996-2001.

She joined the University of Illinois Computer Science faculty in 2001. She was a principal researcher in networked systems and served as the director of the Illinois Network Design and Experimentation (INDEX) research group.

Her research interests in networked systems ranged from issues of Quality of Service in wireless networks to enabling software infrastructure for assisted living. She pursued topics in both the theoretical protocol design and deployment aspects of wireless sensor networks.

Hou was elected as an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow and an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Scientist in 2007. She was a recipient of an ACM Recognition of Service Award in 2004 and 2007, a Cisco University Research Award from Cisco, Inc., 2002, a Lumley Research Award from Ohio State University in 2001, a NSF CAREER award from the Network and Communications Research Infrastructure, National Science Foundation in 1996-2000, and a Women in Science Initiative Award from The University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1993-1995.

She is survived by her son, Andrew; her parents, I-Chen and So-Chiu Hou; and her sister, Grace Hou.

A memorial service will be held on Friday, Jan. 18, 2008, at 3:30 p.m. in Room 1404, Siebel Center for Computer Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 201 North Goodwin Avenue, Urbana.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Hou Family Memorial Fund, and mailed to P.O. Box 6872, Champaign, IL 61826. Contributions may also be made to the Jennifer Hou Memorial Fund, with checks made payable to the University of Illinois and mailed to University of Illinois, Department of Computer Science, 201 N. Goodwin Ave., Room 2210, Urbana, IL 61801.