Recipients of 2019 ECE ILLINOIS Alumni Awards were honored September 12-14, 2019. The 50th annual ECE ILLINOIS Alumni Awards honor and celebrate the outstanding work of distinguished ECE ILLINOIS alumni.
Women have a long history of being underrepresented in the engineering field. There are many possible reasons, but one is a lack of role models. Illinois Ph.D student Sakshi Srivastava proposed to bring a statue to the University of Illinois campus to serve as a permanent figure for women of any generation to look up to. The statue, The Quintessential Engineer, now stands on Illinois' Engineering Quad as a sign of hope and inspiration for all.
The 2016 winners of the ECE ILLINOIS Distinguished Alumni Award, Young Alumni Achievement Award, and Marcia Peterman ECE Award talk about what it means to be an engineer and give the class of 2016 advice. This video includes John Thode (BSEE '79), Chairman of Thode Residential Properties; Nancy Warter-Perez (MSEE '89, PhD '93), Professor of ECE at California State University Los Angeles; Gregg Zehr (MSEE '76, MSEE '77), President of Amazon Lab126; Mark Bohr (MSEE '78), Intel Senior Fellow; Thyaga Nandagopal (MSEE '00, PhD '02), Program Director at the National Science Foundation; and . Advice to Graduates from Distinguished Alumni Advice (2016 Edition) Know an outstanding ECE alumnus? Nominate them at http://www.ece.illinois.edu/alumni/awards/.
Richard Lyon, Principal Research Scientist, Google Abstract: Human hearing provides a powerful inspiration for what we might be able to do with machine algorithms, to extract various kinds of meaning and information from sound signals. By modeling the auditory periphery (the cochlea), we can construct a robust representation of what the ear sends to the brain. By modeling the auditory brainstem and midbrain, we make hypothetical representations of the "images" that may project to sheets of auditory cortex as retinal images project to visual cortex. These feature-engineered stages provide a robust foundation for analysis and interpretation of speech, music, sound events, and complicated mixtures and environments. Simple abstractions of these auditory representations have also been shown to be useful improvements over conventional sound-processing front ends. We are also excited to find that visual representations of such front-end features show promise as sound-access aids for users who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Bio: Richard F. "Dick" Lyon is a Principal Research Scientist at Google, where he leads the Sound Understanding team in applying ideas from human hearing to problems in machine interpretation of sounds of all sorts. He is a Fellow of the IEEE "for contributions to VLSI signal processing, models of hearing, handwriting recognition, and electronic color photography", and a Fellow of the ACM "for contributions to machine perception and for the invention of the optical mouse." In 2005 he received the Progress Medal from the Royal Photographic Society "for the development of the Foveon X3 sensor." He has over 70 issued U.S. patents. In 2017 his book "Machine Hearing: Extracting Meaning from Sound" was published by Cambridge University Press.
Power electronics is an appealing target for physical integration with electric machines, motivated by desires to achieve mass, volume, and cost savings via elimination of special enclosures and connecting cables. Despite some notable successes dating back to the 1960s, there have been a number of formidable obstacles that have limited the successful adoption of this integration technology, including the inability of power electronics to tolerate the thermal and vibration extremes imposed by the machines. Despite these challenges, continuing advances in power electronics (PE) technology are progressively suppressing the barriers to successful integration. Key among these is the accelerating maturity of wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor switches (SiC and GaN) that offer exciting prospects for shrinking the size of power converters by significantly raising their operating frequencies. This presentation explores the future of integrated motor drives (IMDs) by first reviewing key applications and motivating factors that are spurring new research in this field. Looking ahead, the case will be made for a revival of interest in current-source inverters (CSIs) for future machine drives, highlighting the potential of new WBG power switches to update a technology that has been largely dormant for the past 30+ years. If successful, the replacement of today?s standard voltage-source inverters (VSIs) with current-source counterparts offers tantalizing opportunities to simultaneously address EMI, temperature, voltage overshoot, and fault-mode limitations of today?s dominant VSI machine drives. Progress made to date towards achieving these appealing advantages will be highlighted. The presentation will conclude with a review of both the opportunities and challenges presented by emerging technologies such as WBG-based CSI-IMDs for realizing the full potential of the integrated motor drive vision during coming years. Bio: Prof. Thomas M. Jahns received his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from MIT, Cambridge, MA (USA). Dr. Jahns joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin ? Madison (USA) in 1998 as a Grainger Professor of Power Electronics and Electric Machines in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a Co-Director of the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC), a university/industry consortium with over 85 international sponsors. Prior to coming to UW-Madison, Dr. Jahns worked at GE Corporate Research and Development in Niskayuna, NY (USA) for 15 years, where he pursued new power electronics and motor drive technology in a variety of research and management positions. His current research interests at UW-Madison include electric vehicle propulsion, renewable energy systems, microgrids, and energy storage. Dr. Jahns is a Fellow of IEEE. He received the 2005 IEEE Nikola Tesla Technical Field Award ?for pioneering contributions to the design and application of AC permanent magnet machines?. Dr. Jahns is a Past President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society and the recipient of the 2011 Outstanding Achievement Award presented by the IEEE Industry Applications Society. He was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2015.
This presentation was part of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. 90th Celebration. Prof. Russell D. Dupuis (BSEE ?70, MS ?71, PhD ?73), Steve W. Chaddick Endowed Chair in Electro-0ptics at Georgia Tech, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. Title: Illuminating the World: MOCVD of III-V Quantum-Well LEDs and Lasers
This presentation was part of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. 90th Celebration. Prof. Dennis Deppe (BSEE ?82, MS ?85, PhD ?89), FPCE Endowed Chair & Professor of Optics & Photonics at UCF Title: From Nick?s Oxide to VCSELs for Optical Links & 3D Sensors
This presentation was part of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. 90th Celebration. Dr. Don Scifres (MS ?70, PhD ?72), Managing Director, SDL Ventures, LLC and Chairman, SDL Capital, LP Title: From Nick?s Lab to Wall Street
This presentation was part of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. 90th Celebration. Title: From Nick?s LED to Illumination, Display, Automotive and Emerging Applications. Dr. George Craford, CTO, Lumileds LLC (presented by Fred Kish)
This presentation was part of the Nick Holonyak, Jr. 90th Celebration. Dr. Fred Kish (BSEE ?88, MS ?89, PhD ?92), Senior Vice President, Optical Integrated Circuit Group at Infinera Title: Connecting the World: From Nick?s Lab to Terabit/s Photonics ICs
Celebrating Nick Holonyak at 90. Honoring him with words from: Tamer Basar, Interim Dean, Swanlund Endowed Chair and CAS Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering | Rashid Bashir, Incoming Dean Designate, Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering and former Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory Director | Wen-mei Hwu, AMD Jerry Sanders Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Acting Department Head, Electrical and Computer Engineering | Brian Cunningham, Director, MNTL and Donald Biggar Willett Professor in Engineering
The prospect of judiciously utilizing both optical gain and loss has been recently suggested as a means to control the flow of light. This proposition makes use of some newly developed concepts based on non-Hermiticity and parity-time (PT) symmetry-ideas first conceived within quantum field theories. By harnessing such notions, recent works indicate that novel synthetic structures and devices with counter-intuitive properties can be realized, potentially enabling new possibilities in the field of optics and integrated photonics. Non-Hermitian degeneracies, also known as exceptional points (EPs), have also emerged as a new paradigm for engineering the response of optical systems. In this talk, we provide an overview of recent developments in this newly emerging field. The use of other type symmetries in photonics will be also discussed. Bio: Demetrios Christodoulides is the Cobb Family Endowed Chair and Pegasus Professor of Optics at CREOL-the College of Optics and Photonics of the University of Central Florida. He received his Ph.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1986 and he subsequently joined Bellcore as a post-doctoral fellow. Between 1988 and 2002 he was with the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Lehigh University. His research interests include linear and nonlinear optical beam interactions, synthetic optical materials, optical solitons, and quantum electronics. He has authored and co-authored more than 350 papers. He is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the American Physical Society. He is the recipient of the 2011 Wood Prize and 2018 Max Born Award of OSA.
Lasers capable of generating picosecond and femtosecond pulses of light are now firmly established and widely deployed. Going beyond simple pulse generation, the programmable shaping of ultrafast laser fields into arbitrary waveforms has resulted in substantial impact, both enabling new ultrafast science and contributing to applications in high-speed signal transmission. This seminar introduces recent research in the Purdue University Ultrafast Optics and Fiber Communications Laboratory drawing on ultrafast pulse shaping approaches for photonic signal processing. Time permitting, the following topics will be discussed: (1) ultrabroadband photonics-enabled radio-frequency (RF) signal processing; (2) broadband optical frequency comb fields generated via nonlinear mixing in chip-scale microresonators; (3).applications in quantum photonics, including demonstration of frequency-bin entanglement of photon pairs. Bio: Andrew Weiner, the Scifres Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, is best known for pioneering work on programmable femtosecond pulse shaping and ultrafast signal processing. Weiner is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors, was selected as a Department of Defense National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow, and has received numerous awards, including the OSA Wood Prize and the IEEE Photonics Society Quantum Electronics Award. He is author of the textbook Ultrafast Optics and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Optics Express.
The affordability of computing today, progress in nanomaterials and sensing devices, the increasing availability of data, and the emergence of low power wireless networks have made this an opportune time for the emergence of cyberphysical sensor networks for agriculture, water, and the environment. I will discuss three projects at different stages of development: (i) a two year pilot experiment with Gallo wineries and IBM that used satellite imagery data to calculate and then deliver water to vineyards in a pixelized manner via drip irrigation--resulting in improvements in yield and water efficiency; (ii), the development of Thoreau (Thoreau.uchicago.edu)-the first university based fully sub-terranean sensing network for soil that we have built at the University of Chicago, and (iii) a pilot project or temporal and geospatial mapping of water quality in the Godavari River in Southern India and other large water bodies throughout India. Through the descriptions of these projects I will try to argue that a key bottleneck for ubiquitous use of these technologies lies in the development of cheap, reliable, and scalable sensing packages. I will also describe a few of the key sensing challenges for water and agriculture, and some of our work on developing sensors based upon nanofabricated silicon photonics structures and the functionalization of capture surfaces. Presented on September 13, 2018, by Supratik Guha, Director of the Nanoscience and Technology Division and the Center for Nanoscale Materials at the Argonne National Laboratory, and a Professor at the Institute for Molecular Engineering The University of Chicago, as a guest of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
How do we draw sound and defensible conclusions from big data? This question lies at the heart of data science. In this talk I will first describe some of the challenges and opportunities inherent in this rapidly emerging field, and then discuss the current state of the art in one area of particular interest: big network data. Progress in this area includes the development of new large-sample theory that helps us to view and interpret networks as statistical data objects, along with the transformation of this theory into new statistical methods to model and draw inferences from network data in the real world. The insights that result from connecting theory to practice also feed back into pure mathematics and theoretical computer science, prompting new questions at the interface of combinatorics, analysis, probability, and algorithms. Presented on September 6, 2018, by Patrick J. Wolfe, Dean of Science at Purdue University, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
Cell phones, drones, laptops, and driverless cars can all use artificial intelligence (AI). For these devices to be fast and secure, the AI needs to be on-site. But most AI is stored in the cloud because it takes lots of energy to run. Come learn how this can change thanks to specialized microchips that use much less energy. BRINGING AI TO A MICROCHIP NEAR YOU Professor Naresh Shanbhag, ECE ILLINOIS Saturday Engineering for Everyone: May 31, 2018 Learn more about Saturday Engineering for Everyone at go.illinois.edu/SEE.
Come take a virtual tour of international labs working on the new technology that will shape our future. You?ll learn about exciting ideas like battery-free communication, wireless activity sensing, acoustic sound pockets, and cellular networks on drones. Presented by Professor Romit Roy Choudhury, W.J. "Jerry" Sanders III - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Scholar in Electrical and Computer Engineering, ECE ILLINOIS Learn more about Saturday Engineering for Everyone at go.ece.illinois.edu/SEE.
We see the next evolution of semiconductor technology amalgamates with emerging applications of IoT, machine learning, precision medicine, and wearables. I will first discuss some of the material trends in leading-edge semiconductor technologies. I will describe a new research program that investigates applications of combining rigid semiconductor components with soft materials. Besides wearable technologies, there are new applications in RF communications, robotics, and medical technologies. I will describe some of my recent research work on wearable smart medical patches, soft energy harvesting composites, and ultra-thin materials for flexible electronics. Presented on April 26, 2018, by Professor Aaron Voon Yew Thean, ECE ILLINOIS alumnus, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium
Artificial intelligence is so important and revolutionary, it has been called ?the new electricity.? But how do you give a ?brain? to a machine? Learn how AI is developed using big data and big compute (computing power) and hear about what thinking computers might be like in the future. Presented by Assistant Professor Alex Schwing, ECE ILLINOIS, April 2018
Recent developments in nanotechnology, nanoscience, optical physics, and materials science have provided opportunities to construct structures with unprecedented attributes. We have been exploring a series of phenomena related to the wave-matter interaction in platforms with extreme scenarios, such as near-zero-index photonics in materials with effective permittivity, photonic doping, optical lumped nanocircuitry (?optical metatronics?), performing mathematical operations and analog computing with waves in specialized materials, geometry-independent resonant structures, one atom-thick optical structures based on graphene photonics, nonreciprocal vortices at subwavelength scales, large anisotropy and nonlinearity, lowindex? photonics, and more. Presented on April 12, 2018, by Professor Nader Engheta at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
Large-scale electric grids are an indispensable critical infrastructure. The impact of the loss of a portion of the electric grid ranges from minor inconveniences to potentially catastrophic when the blackout covers a large region for a long duration. Keeping the lights on involves designing and operating the electric grid with a goal of simultaneously increasing both reliability and resiliency. This talk considers how to enhance resiliency, with a focus on the impact of what the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) calls High Impact, Low Frequency (HILF) events. Examples include large-scale cyber or physically attacks, pandemics, electromagnetic pulses (EMPs), and geomagnetic disturbances (GMDs). Presented on April 5, 2018, by Professor Thomas J. Overbye at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium
The talk will begin with a discussion on the CMOS image sensor ? its invention, underlying principles, and commercialization. The Quanta Image Sensor (QIS) is a possible 3rd generation solid-state image sensor technology based on photon-counting. Primarily focused on scientific and defense applications, it may also be useful for consumer applications. The specialized QIS pixel device and its deep sub-electron read noise will be discussed. The specialized pixel uses ultra-low capacitance rather than avalanche multiplication to achieve single photoelectron detection capability. The high frame rate, low power readout will also be described. The QIS opens new possibilities for computational imaging. Presented on March 29, 2018, by Professor Eric R. Fossum, Dartmouth, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
Learn about hashing-based data structures, including invertible Bloom lookup tables and cuckoo filters. Engineering ideas (how to best make use of bits), algorithmic ideas (the importance of peeling algorithms), and mathematical ideas (why double hashing works as well as perfect hashing) will be covered. Presented on March 15, 2018, by Professor Michael Mitzenmacher, Harvard University, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the 2018 Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
MEMS/NEMS sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, microphones, pressure sensors, and biochemical sensors have transformed industries. Yet, with limited exceptions, MEMS/NEMS actuators have not yet been similarly transformative. MEMS power relays have now demonstrated kilovolt blocking voltages and several-ampere conduction currents, while offering mechanical bistability and rapid triggering. NEMS relays are close to operating at sufficiently low voltages to challenge low-power transistors in terms of switching energy. Explore the high-power and lowpower capabilities of MEMS/NEMS switches, or relays, using residential circuit breakers and low-power digital logic as benchmarks. Presented on March 1, 2018, by Professor Jeffrey H. Lang, MIT, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the 2018 Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium
Scaling transistors and following Moore?s Law have served our industry well for more than 50 years in providing integrated circuits that are denser, cheaper, higher performance, and lower power. Despite occasional reports of its demise, Moore?s Law is alive and well. We?ve continually invented new materials and new device structures to deliver the expected benefits of scaling, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This presentation describes Intel?s latest 10 nm logic technology and some of the device options being explored in research for future scaling. Presented on January 25, 2018, by alumnus Mark Bohr (MSEE '78), Intel Senior Fellow and Director of Process Architecture and Integration, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the 2018 Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
"Networking coding: a personal account of combining theory and practice" Network Coding (NC) affords relaxation of constraints and creates opportunities for improved resource usage. Introducing Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) into TCP requires an inventive reinterpretation of control signals, but recent theoretical results on equivalence theory at MIT show that there is no throughput benefit in combining NC with physical media codes. Come explore the results from the first chip implementation of NC to see how coding is possible at both layers without requiring coordination between them. You?ll also discuss open challenges and research directions driven by the coming convergence of data storage and networking. Presented on November 2, 2017, by Professor Muriel Medard, MIT, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the 2017 Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
"Early on-orbit results for the NASA cyclone global navigation satellite system" The CYGNSS constellation of eight satellites was successfully launched in December 2016 into a low inclination (tropical) Earth orbit. Each satellite carries a four-channel bistatic radar receiver that measures GPS signals scattered by the ocean, from which ocean surface roughness, near surface wind speed, and air-sea latent heat flux are estimated. Engineering commissioning of the constellation was completed in March 2017, and the mission is currently in the early phase of science operations. Come learn the status of the mission and highlights of early on-orbit performance and scientific results, especially those related to the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Presented on October 26, 2017, by Professor Chris Ruf, University of Michigan, at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as part of the 2017 Distinguished Colloquium series. Learn more at https://ece.illinois.edu/calendar/colloquium.
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The average starting salary for students graduating with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (2016-17).
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