Faculty Bios

Professor Curt Schurgers
Curt Schurgers received his Ph.D. from UCLA in integrated circuits andsystems, and his MS in EE from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (KUL). Before coming to UCSD in 2002, he was a lecturer at UCLA in VLSI System Design and a postdoctural associate at MIT. He also held research assistantships at UCLA Networked & Embedded Systems Lab and the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) in Belgium. From 2004 until 2010, he was an Assistant Professor at the ECE Department at UCSD, leading the Wireless Information Systems Lab. Since December 2010, he has been appointed as a Project Development Engineer at Calit2, leading a large NSF program on underwater networked systems.

Professor Diba Mirza
Diba Mirza is an Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD. She received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Engineering from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCSD. Her research is in the field of embedded systems and sensor networks. She has worked as a researcher on multidisciplinary projects in the ECE and CSE Departments and in collaboration with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UCSD.

Teacher Fellow - Shirley Miranda
Shirley earned her B.S. in Computer Engineering at UCSD then worked as a software development engineer. Her continued volunteer work with high school students through the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair (GSDSEF) inspired her to go into teaching. At the University of San Diego, she earned her M.Ed. focusing on technology in education. She has taught Statistics 1-2, AP Statistics, Robotics and AP Computer Science at Morse High School in San Diego. This is her tenth summer as a Teacher Fellow at UCSD COSMOS. She serves as the Director of the GSDSEF, is a member of the COSMOS Advisory Board and served on the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair’s Advisory Council. She has been recognized with the 2014 National Council of Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) Educator Award for her contributions to the computer science educational community. Additionally, she is the 2016 San Diego County Teacher of the Year. Shirley spends her free time writing and visiting the San Diego Zoo with her husband and two year-old daughter. She has published four books Falling, Winter Solstice,Wintering, and Springing of her Bits and Pieces series. She is currently writing her fifth book.