About ECE

Departmental History

The Department of Engineering was first established on January 17, 1895. In 1903, the School of Electrical Engineering opened, along with Civil Engineering and Mining Engineering, as the first three departments in the College of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. The curriculum focused on electrical power systems: power plant operation, transmission, and management of utility systems. In recognition of the growing importance and influence of digital computers in the engineering profession, the name of the department was changed to "The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering" in 1983. Since then, 11,242 BSEE degrees have been awarded up to the end of the 2008 calendar year.

The ECE Department has always provided a challenging curriculum. The College's first dean of engineering, Thomas U. Taylor, boasted "there are practically no options, no electives, no lines of resistance, and no substitutions - nothing but the straight and narrow path of the grindstone of the beehive." From this philosophy, technological developments were incorporated into the instruction procedures that allowed the department to successfully advance studies on hydraulics and turbine-driven generating stations, metal fatigue, electrochemistry, psychometrics, and refrigeration.

By 1936, more than 18,000 miles of high-tension lines crisscrossed Texas. In the 1940's, the department incorporated classes on electronics, communication by radio and television, and microwave propagation. In the beginning, the department received research money primarily from government sources, resulting in the establishment of the Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory (EERL). Researchers at the EERL focused on microwave transmission of radio signals, applications of radar, and microelectronics. Their groundbreaking research efforts produced radio telescopes, a development that the Associated Press termed as one of the three most significant American accomplishments of that century.

By the 1960's, the EE curriculum included courses on analytical methods, biomedical electronics, fields and waves, management and production, physical electronics, information science, power systems and energy conversion, and computer systems. During this time, the department broadened its constituency to include working professionals in the field and focused aggressively on attracting minority and female students to the major. Two older labs were merged to create the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL). Research at the ARL contributed to the development of geodetic positioning systems, the underwater acoustics used in modern oceanography, and improved methods of data management, data analysis, and signal processing. The ARL was also the genesis of Tracor and National Instruments, which were both founded by ARL researchers.

In the 1970's, funds from the Cockrell family, government sources, and industry allowed the department to hire some of the most prestigious names in academia. The first silicon transistor was created at Texas Instruments by Gordon Teal and the late ECE Professor Emeritus Willis Adcock. Jack Kilby, who invented the integrated circuit, also reported to Dr. Adcock. The faculty now includes seven National Academy of Engineering members, three ACM Fellows, and 25 IEEE Fellows amongst its internationally recognized researchers and educators.

The ECE Department, like the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin, is a major research organization. There are 28 research groups and 15 research centers studying a diverse range of topics, such as artificial intelligence, electromechanics, image and video engineering, computer architecture, and nano- and micro- electronics. Our faculty has placed substantial intellectual investment into original engineering research, as is evident from our annual research expenditures (approx. $14M), graduate course offerings and publication record. Furthermore, substantial effort has been expended toward undergraduate teaching, as "teaching quality" is a major concern. Both the undergraduate and graduate programs consistently rank among the top 10 in the nation. For example, the 2009 U.S. News and World Report ranked UT ECE's Graduate Electrical Engineering Program # 10 and the Graduate Computer Engineering Program # 9 in the country.

From the beginning, The University of Texas at Austin's Electrical and Computer Engineering department has been a catalyst for the Texas economy. Its faculty, students, and alumni have made significant contributions to human knowledge and its practical applications. ECE has adapted to change, while maintaining a rigorous curriculum and actively preparing for the future in the field of engineering.