ECE News for Spring 2008

Long-time facilities manager, Merydith Turner, received the Chairman's Excellence Award, which is the operational equivalent of the High Gain Award. The Excellence Award recognizes substantial contributions to the departmental mission and no one would argue the scope of Turner's contributions.

The ENS has been morphing for the last 7 years. During that period, Tuner has overseen

• the conversion of a closet to a reception area that eventually became the coffee shop
• innumerable moves, minor installations and maintenance
• sheet rocking the notorious ENS tiles
• moving the LRC labs to the ACA one summer only to move them back into the ENS the next
• upcoming and ongoing major renovations to the second, third, and (soon-to-begin) sixth floors

ECE's External Advisory Committee recognized Professor Gary Hallock with the annual High Gain Award. The High Gain Award was established to recognize exceptional contributions to the mission of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. "Gary is an inspiring teacher and a stalwart champion for the Department." says Chairman Tony Ambler. "In the past year alone, he developed an undergraduate course and revamped our graduate recruitment efforts. He always steps up."

Dr. Hallock is the faculty adviser for the University of Texas Solar Vehicles Team. The multi-disciplinary mostly undergraduate team will participate in a race this summer from Dallas to Calgary, Canada in the solar car that they built and designed themselves. His research is in plasma science. He is researching plasma thrusters which will be used by next-generation communications satellites and the diagnostics to be used in studies of plasma confinement and turbulence.

End of the Semester Activities:
EE 345M and 347L Competitions and IEEE Fajita Fest

EE 464 Senior Lab Winners

First Place Analog Audio Mixer Ali Hussain, Michael Vu, Robson Fricks, Fallon Delco TA: Sanghyun Chi	Second Place A Theremin with a Digital Music Note Blake Slusser, Srdjan Marijanovic, Luis Barragan, Yiu-Hong Szeto TA: Wonsoo Kim	Third Place Ride Share Jonathan Ben-Meshulam, Garrett Cooper, Patrick Lowry, Derrick Huhn TA: Cheol Hee Park
Fourth Place Interactive Gaming System Joseph Li, Eric Chu, Antonius Keddis, Kelli Kong, Alamzeb Khan TA: Youngsang Kim	Fifth Place A Solar Car Lithium Battery Management System Dicai Yang, John Olsavsky, Jerome Powell, Kashia Thuerwaechter, James Ferrara TA: Seong-Wan Kim	Sixth Place ROVER Peng Zeng, Hyun Kum, Aidan Bahta TA: Cheol Hee Park

Graduating seniors got a preview of Dean Ben Streetman's commencement speech at the annual spring banquet. Dean Streetman is retiring this summer after 12 years as Dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering. Dr. Streetman received his doctorate at UT-Austin in EE in 1966 and taught in the Electrical Engineering department here before his appointment as dean. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a new recipient of the ECE Fellow medal.

IEEE co-hosted the party and gave out their own teaching awards to Drs. Ray Chen, Jack Lee, Yale Patt, and Christine Julien; exemplary staff awards to Sharon Bressette and Diana Perez; and outstanding graduating seniors to Nady Obeid, Nick Paine, Robert Chen, Tileli Amineur, and John Xu.

There has been a flurry of recognition for Dr. Alan Bovik recently. He has been chosen for the 2008 ECE Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recent winners include Prith Banerjee (2007), Kent Fuchs (2005), Jerry Sanders (2001), and Jack Kilby (2000). Two of Dr. Bovik's journal papers are the most widely-cited in the entire image/video processing field over the past 6 years - by a factor of 2:1. He has also been asked to give 6 plenary talks this year, a honor reserved for seminal researchers.

Professor Bovik's research is in the field of digital video, image processing, and computational aspects of biological visual perception. He is holder of the Keys and Joan Curry/Cullen Trust Endowed Chair and director of the Laboratory for Image & Video Engineering (LIVE).

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that two of UT-ECE's assistant professors have been awarded 2008 Young Faculty Awards. The awards were established to identify the next generation of researchers working in microsystems technology.

Dr Emanuel Tutuc received the award to develop novel semiconductor nanowire field effect transistors, which operate thanks to a quantum phenomena named band-to-band tunneling. Such devices posses both a fast switching speed along with a low operating power, and can provide relief to a pervasive array of high-performance electronic applications where power dissipation is a key issue.

Dr. Seth Bank received the award to develop new semiconductor nanostructures for lasers operating in the mid-infrared portion of the optical spectrum. Such sources of mid-infrared light have many diverse potential applications ranging from pollution monitoring to non-invasive cancer detection to protecting the commercial air fleet from heat-seeking missiles.

Over $3000 worth free prizes claimed throughout the day!

Professor Sanjay Banerjee was named a 2007 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society. AAAS fellows are chosen annually by their peers to recognize their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

Dr. Banerjee is the director of the Microelectronics Research Center. He was cited for "distinguished contributions to silicon-germanium heterostructures and three-demensional integrated circuits." He is also a Fellow of the American Physical Society and won the Industrial R&D 100 Award (with R. Singh) in 2004 and the Electrochemical Society Thomas D. Callinan Award in 2003.

ECE Grad Student wins Research Award at GAIN 2008

An ECE Undergrad Advisor wins the Vick Award Again!

For the second time in as many years, an ECE academic advisor has won the Texas Exes’ James W. Vick Award for Academic Advising. Courtney Lockhart is one of only five recipients for this University-wide, student-nominated annual honor. The award is presented "to academic advisors who have had an effective, positive influence on the educational experience of university students."

ECE Ph.D. Candidate Wins Inaugural Engineering Graduate Student Leadership Award

Qiu Wu, an ECE Ph.D. candidate, received the 2008 Cockrell School of Engineering Graduate Student Leadership Award. Qiu was selected for "superior performance in the areas of organizational leadership, college service,innovation, and humanitarianism".

Wu was elected President (2003--04) of the Graduate Engineering Council of UT Austin; and he served on the Technical Program Committee of 2006 IEEE Region 5 annual conference. His recent awards include: the 2006 New Entrant Stipend Award from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the 2007 Scholarship from the Medical Image Perception Society.

ECE Grad Student wins Humantech Paper Contest

Chan-Byoung Chae, supervised by Prof. Robert W. Heath, Jr., was awarded the Gold prize in the 2007 Humantech paper contest sponsored by Samsung. The contest receives about 900 submissions every year in fields including signal processing, analog circuit design, communications and networks, computer science, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, material science and process, physical devices, and physical science. Only six graduate students are awarded the Gold prize annually, and thirty four graduate students share the Silver, Bronze and honor prizes. There was only one Gold prize winner in the communications and networks area in the last five years.

Bill Gates Visits UT

Microsoft's chairman gave a lecture entitled "Bill Gates Unplugged: on Software, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Giving Back" to computer science and ECE majors on Wednesday, Feb 20th at 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM in the Texas Union Ballroom.

Daily Texan coverage

Dr. Chiou receives NSF CAREER Award

Professor Derek Chiou has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his proposal entitled "Transforming Computer System Design".  The goal of the project is to dramatically improve the process of architecting, implementing and verifying both the hardware, system software and software that make up full computer systems. Traditionally, developing a computer system requires at least three sets of simulators: one that is accurate and flexible for the initial design, one that is accurate and complete as the implementation (RTL) and one that is fast for software development. 

The CAREER project is to develop a methodology that will take Dr. Chiou's current research work in a simulator that is simultaneously fast, accurate and flexible and automatically transform it into a complete implementation, thus eliminating two simulators including the most difficult one.  An even more important effect of a single simulator is that each development group will be able to directly affect the others, potentially resulting in more integrated designs.

ECE Prof Wins Texas Exes Teaching Award - Again!

Dr. Constantine Caramanis won the Texas Exes Teaching Award for the Cockrell School of Engineering. This marks the sixth time in the last seven years that a member of the ECE faculty has won this prestigious student-nominated award. Each year the Texas Exes honor one faculty member and one graduate instructor in each school and college.

Professor Caramanis joined the ECE faculty in Fall 2006 and won this award after only 3 semesters teaching. His research centers on telecommunications, the Internet, and air traffic management. He has developed algorithms for dynamic and autonomous reconfiguration of various aspects of air space to account for the impact of weather uncertainty.

ECE alumnus, Clint Slatton, wins US PECASE Award

UT-ECE alumnus (M.S. 1999, Ph.D. 2001) Dr. Clint Slatton, now a professor at the University of Florida, was named a 2006 winner of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). The PECASE award is the highest honor bestowed by the US Government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers. The title of his proposal was "Prediction of Diffractive and Non-Diffractive Propagation in Forested Terrain by Combining Probabilistic and Physical Modeling". His PhD advisors at UT Austin were Prof. Brian Evans (ECE) and Prof. Melba Crawford (Mech. Eng.).

ECE Blithe Spirit Takes her Leave

Mona Venegas, notorious for her shenanigans, said goodbye to her friends at a staff luncheon on the last day of January 2008. She has been at ECE for twenty-three years checking out equipment and leaving an indelible mark on a generation of students. The Department won't be the same without her smile, her energy, or her upbeat take on the world. Congratulations on putting up with us so long, Mona, and we wish you the best as you start this new phase of your life.

ECE Advisor Wins another Excellence Award

ECE undergraduate academic advisor, Janice Williams, hit a double in 2007 by winning two university-wide awards. A few months after winning the Texas Exes’ James W. Vick Award for Academic Advising, Williams won another student-nominated honor: the Eyes of Texas Excellence Award which recognizes “outstanding contributions to student life at The University of Texas." Only 10 UT faculty, administrative, or staff members receive one of these a semester.

Williams’ anonymous nominator thanked her "for your outstanding dedication to students at UT.... [Your] compassionate, non-judgmental manner and sunny disposition encourages others.... and we hope you continue to be a beacon of light for ECE students."

Professor Bovik wins Third of Four Major Signal Processing Awards

Dr. Bovik is the first person to receive three of the IEEE group’s four major awards for his service, achievements, and teaching. He holds the Keys and Joan Curry/Cullen Trust Endowed Chair.

Spring 2008 Newsletter

Welcome back! We hope you had a fun and restful holiday and return full of energy for what promises to be an exciting semester. The UT-ECE faculty, staff, and students continue to inspire us with their accomplishments. Congratulations go to:

• J.K. Aggarwal, winner of the 2007 Okawa Prize
• Sanjay Banerjee, 2007 Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
• Al Bovik, winner of the IEEE Signal Processing Society's Education Award and new Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical and Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
• Ramakrishna Kotla, winner of two Best Paper Awards in a five month period
• Alexis Kwasinski, winner of best technical paper award at the 29th International Telecommunications Energy Conference (INTELEC)
• Janice Williams, winner of The Eyes of Texas Excellence Award for Fall 2007

Lamar Smith comes to Campus

U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21) just announced that $1.2 M has been earmarked for broadband wireless integrated circuit research at UT-ECE. The money is part of the National Technology Competitiveness Act which was passed to close the gap in research funding between the US and other countries.

The research at UT will focus on combining the expertise of wireless communications researchers with that of radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) designers. Drs. Ted Rappaport, Sriram Vishwanath, Ranjit Gharpurey, Jacob Abraham, and Robert Heath will collaborate on research crucial to the design and development of cutting-edge massively broadband wireless devices of the future.

ENS gets another Facelift

The bad news is we have to move the labs out of the Shed, aka ACA, this summer. The good news is they will be moved into a newly refurbished area at the back of the third floor. The University has pledged enough money to totally reconfigure the third and sixth floor of the ENS. The sixth floor will be vacated by the Department of Biomedical Engineering this semester.

ECE Welcomes New Chairholder

Dr. Julian Cheng has accepted our offer of a position as professor and the holder of a Chair in Microelectronics. Dr. Cheng has over twenty-five years of experience in optoelectronics and fiber optic communications technology, at AT&T Bell Laboratories, as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of New Mexico, as Vice President of Research and Development at E2O Communications, and as Vice President of engineering at OptiComp Corp.

Professor Cheng's accomplishments include publishing over 230 journal and conference papers, authoring a book on VCSEL technology, receiving over 20 U.S. patents and earning a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T. and a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard.

Upcoming Events

	2/8	Spring Engineering Expo	For UT Austin students interested in gaining valuable work experience, including full-time, intern, and co-op opportunities.
	2/17-23	National Engineers Week	The yearly celebration of all engineerish things and people
	3/1	ExploreUT	See a solar car designed and built by undergraduates. Find out how fast your fast ball really is. Robots! An exploded computer! The human battery! and more.
	3/26	AMD Day	Find out about AMD from the guys who work there plus a resume workshop, free lunch, lecture by AMD's CTO, and a raffle for big prizes!
	4/10	ECE Spring Banquet	The annual celebration for our graduating seniors and external advisory committee
	5/7-9	Austin Conference on Integrated Systems and Circuits	ACISC covers the latest in electronic technology at chip, board and system levels, covering design, CAD methodology, and test.

ECE Students Receive Nine Best Paper Awards in 2007

Eleven ECE graduate students and one undergraduate student have won nine Best Paper awards between them this past year. "This is an amazing accomplishment," says departmental chairman Tony Ambler. "These awards come from major conferences. The competition is unbelievable. Some of these conferences only accept 20% of the papers submitted and to rise to the top of such a select group is a testament to the quality of our students' hard work."

The papers cover a range of topics from circuit design to communications to data mining. Lightening struck twice for graduate student Ramakrishna Kotla who received two best paper awards during a 5-month period and for Dr. Robert Heath who co-authored two of the papers. More...