ECE News for Spring 2007
Congratulations 2007 Graduates!
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Edison Lecture Series reaches Thousands of Texas Schoolchildren
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Staff Recognized and Fed at Breakfast EventYears of perseverance were recognized at a Staff Breakfast recently. The reasons that long-time staff members work here vary.
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Graduate Student wins Best Paper Award
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Graduate Students Excel
Dr. Hao Ling's graduate student, Youngwook Kim, won the A.D. Hutchinson Fellowship which pays tutition plus a $19K stipend to support Kim's research in broadband antenna design, antenna optimization, and human target tracking.
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Profs write Influential Papers
Dr. Ananth Dodabalapur, along with co-authors, Dr. Wang and Dr. Torsi, wrote one of the 2006 Top 10 most viewed articles published in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. The paper, entitled "Nanoscale organic and polymeric field-effect transistors as chemical sensors" reviewed current research in organic and polymer semiconductor vapor-phase chemical sensing. |
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EE 464 Senior Lab Winners
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2007 Spring Banquet Honors Staff and Students
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2007 Graduating Senior Banquet Honors Faculty
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Jeff Andrews wins First High Gain Award
Dr. Andrews' research focuses on understanding the fundamental performance limits and characteristics of ad hoc wireless networks, particularly at the physical layer. Ad hoc networks are far more challenging to design and analyze than centralized (for example cellular) networks due to the distributed nature of the nodes, and the unpredictable interference experienced by the receivers in the network. As a result, despite increasing interest, ad hoc networks have not become widely deployed. If successful, Professor Andrews' research plan will help provide theoretically-grounded guidelines for this emerging application of wireless technology |
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Wireless Pioneer Gives Distinguished Lecture
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Professor Pan pushes IC Global Routing State-of-the-Art
The ISPD’07 Global Routing contest's purpose was to guide researchers toward the most urgent challenges in the EDA industry and also to map out state-of-the-art solutions. It attracted 17 teams from US and Asia, including entries from industry, but only 11 teams survived at the final contest. BoxRouter completed the most number of circuits overall. |
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Professor Flake's Research Improves Electronic Testing
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Spring Break 2007 at UT
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HKN Wins E-Week.... Again!
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ECE Dazzles the MassesExploreUT 2007 was bigger and better than ever. Volunteers from Electrical & Computer Engineering described the hazards and rewards of this major to potential undergraduates; gave away 15 boxes of t-shirts, pins, blinking light bulb novelties, posters, and toys; and explained the Doppler Effect, computer architecture, conductivity, wireless innovations, and how much exertion it takes to run a television.
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Dr. Grady Wins Again!
"Dr. Grady is incredibly patient and really mentors girls, too," said one ECE undergraduate. Selection was based on nominations by College of Engineering students. |
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ECE TA, John Porterfield, One of the Best on Campus
Since 1982, the Texas Exes have honored a faculty member and graduate instructor in each school and college who has had a positive influence on the educational experience of university students. A committee from each school reviews nominations from the student body and selects each school’s recipients. Porterfield received $500 as well as the recognition. |
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Undergrad Advisor wins University Award
Janice Williams, an academic advisor in the Undergraduate Student Affairs office, just won the Texas Exes’ James W. Vick Award for Academic Advising. Only four of these University-wide, student-nominated honors are given every year. The award is presented "to academic advisors who have had an effective, positive influence on the educational experience of university students." Dr. John Pearce, ECE's faculty undergraduate advisor, says "Janice works very closely with our students and is obviously extremely well respected by them for her diligent attention to their advising needs. The Vick Advising Award will be presented at a luncheon on March 7, 2007. |
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Grad student and Dr. Ghosh win Honorable Mention at ICDM
ECE graduate student, Gunjan Gupta, and Professor Joydeep Ghosh just missed the best research paper award at the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining. Their paper, "Bregman Bubble Clustering: A Robust, Scalable Framework for Locating Multiple, Dense Regions in Data", came in second out of 776 submissions. Their research addresses the problem of grouping data in meaningful ways. |
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Dr. Andrews wins CAREER Award
Prof. Jeff Andrews was recently chosen as a recipient of a $400K National Science Foundation CAREER award. The NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) recognizes promising young faculty members using a highly competitive peer-review process. Dr. Andrews' research focuses on understanding the fundamental performance limits and characteristics of ad hoc wireless networks, particularly at the physical layer. Ad hoc networks are far more challenging to design and analyze than centralized (for example cellular) networks due to the distributed nature of the nodes, and the unpredictable interference experienced by the receivers in the network. As a result, despite increasing interest, ad hoc networks have not become widely deployed. If successful, Professor Andrews' research plan will help provide theoretically-grounded guidelines for this emerging application of wireless technology. More... |
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Dr. Baldick becomes IEEE Fellow
ECE professor, Ross Baldick, was recently elevated to IEEE Fellow. Each year, following a rigorous evaluation procedure, the IEEE Fellows Committee recommends a select group for one of IEEE's most prestitious honors. Dr. Baldick was recognized "for contributions to analysis of power system economics." Professor Baldick's research focuses on optimization and economic theory applied to electric power system operations and the public policy and technical issues associated with electric transmission under deregulation. Recent research analyzes the robustness of the electricity system subject to terrorist interdiction by testing different terrorist scenarios and assessing the amount of disruption each would cause. |
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ECE Grad Student Wins <br>Best Paper Award
Kaibin Huang, jointly supervised by Professors Jeff Andrews and Robert Heath, won Best Student Paper Award at the Global Telecommunications Conference. The paper, "Multi-Antenna Limited Feedback for Temporally-Correlated Channels: Feedback Compression," was also authored by Bishwarup Mondal, R. W. Heath, Jr., and J. G. Andrews. The GLOBECOM conference is one of the two biggest communications conferences every year (the other is ICC). |
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Ari Arapostathis named IEEE Fellow
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From Departmental Chair Anthony Ambler
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2007 Edison Lecture: Renewable EnergyThe third annual Edison Lecture featured ECE professor and renewable energy authority, Dr. Mack Grady, and some of the country's leading lights in wind and solar power. The free interactive show included audience participation, give-aways, and demonstrations which brought the excitement of technology alive. Speakers discussed the ongoing transition from finite, expensive, and polluting energy sources to clean and cheap energy. More..
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2007 Edison Lecture: FREE! interactive live show about solar power including audience participation, give-aways, and demonstrations which bring the excitement of technology alive! Power comes at a price. Currently most of the world uses finite, expensive, and polluting energy sources. UT professor and renewable energy authority, Dr. Mack Grady, will show students how far we’ve come in providing clean, cheap energy and the most promising directions for the future. Interactive exhibits include:
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Sharon Bressette
Minsik Cho
The International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) recently recognized Professor 
IEEE recognized general excellence at the 2007 Graduating Senior Banquet including 
IEEE also presented awards.
ECE's External Advisory Committee gave 
Dr. Robert Flake has tackled one of the fundamental problems of signal technology—distortion. He has developed a waveform, which he named “speedy delivery,” that keeps its shape over the entire transmission path. This ultra-fidelity signal technology holds great potential for advancing electronic test technology of high-speed computer and communication systems. For instance, cable companies currently have no way to test cables once they have been installed. Using Dr. Flake's waveform, cable companies would be able to go into the field with a laptop, oscilliscope, and waveform generator and diagnose performance problems. Companies would be able to locate communication delays between clustered computers and bus problems inside single computers with a low-cost system on a single mixed signal chip. 
For the fourth year in a row HKN dominated E-Week in the small group division, taking first place. American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) won the large group division by only 4 more points. The next closest organization was Tau Beta Pi (TBP) which trailed by 217 points. HKN won $500 for their efforts and will be "promoted" into the large group division next year. 
Electrical & Computer Engineering professor, 
