Dear Illinois ECE students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends,
I hope this message finds you well and in good spirits. It’s been a most unusual year. Our sudden transition to remote-learning last Spring and a Summer occupied by contingency planning led to a Fall semester of hybrid activities here at Illinois ECE. In a word, it has been crazy. But other “C” words come to mind as well, including courage, creativity, competence, compassion, comfort, and caring on the part of the entire Illinois ECE community in the face of a global pandemic.
As highlighted below, our faculty, staff, students, and alumni are integrally involved in developing solutions to help move our community, state, and nation past the current crisis. We are a department with a long legacy of technological innovation, and it gives me great pride to witness how our community is rising to the challenge yet again. You are each a contributor to that history, and we hope you share that pride as well.
Campus life has a certain rhythm that has been disturbed by the pandemic. For the time being, we cannot welcome everyone in our Illinois ECE community to participate in the traditions we have taken for granted. One thing has remained undisturbed, however, and that is our profound gratitude for all of our students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to the time we can all be together again.
A few highlights from 2020 include:
- Illinois ECE sent more than 1,800 electrical and computer engineering lab kits around the world to support remote learning.
- Illinois ECE's graduate program now offers new features for advanced learning including an evolving curriculum and five-year funding guarantee.
- Our students and faculty developed key technology for Safer Illinois App playing a major role in the campus' COVID-19 testing and targeting practices.
- Illinois ECE researchers develop portable, point-of-care COVID-19 test.
- New M.Eng Online program is launched at Illinois ECE
I invite you to explore more of our news highlights from the past year, and learn about the impact of gifts to the department. From all of us at Illinois ECE, we hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season.
Sincerely,
Bruce Hajek
Illinois ECE Department Head
Leonard C. and Mary Lou Hoeft Endowed Chair in Engineering