Texas ECE PhD student Jiaqi Gu won the First Place at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Research Competition Grand Finals (Graduate Category). His research competition title is "Light in Artificial Intelligence: Efficient Neurocomputing with Optical Neural Networks."  The award will be presented at the annual ACM Awards Banquet.

Texas ECE has inducted alumni Eric Feng and Charles 'Charlie' M. Lundquist III into the 2021 class of the Texas ECE Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering established the Academy of Distinguished Alumni to recognize distinguished alumni who are dedicated engineering professionals, leaders of industries, and avid supporters of higher education.

The student branch of The University of Texas at Austin Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) group has been recognized as the Outstanding Student Branch of branches with 50 people or more in Region 5.

The UT Austin IEEE branch is the largest student organization in Texas ECE and is composed of 188 student members. Their aim is to "bring ECE students of all years together to learn from each other and build a community within the department."