UT ECE professor Andrea Alù and colleagues at the UT Applied Research Labs have successfully created a cloaking device capable of hiding a 3D object in free space from microwaves. To create the device, the team used a plasmonic metamaterial shell to cover the object being cloaked. The cloak, based on a plasmonic metamaterial, can hide a cigar-sized cylinder from microwaves – it currently only operates for one microwave polarization.

UT ECE professors Constantine Caramanis and Michael Orshansky have received a grant from the National Science Foundation to conduct interdisciplinary research into new techniques for robust automated design of analog integrated circuits.

Andrea Alù and Team Receive Army Research Office Grant

UT ECE professors Miryung Kim and Dewayne Perry have been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for research titled Analytical Support for Investigating Software Modifications in Collaborative Development Environment. Prof. Kim will serve as principal investigator Prof. Perry will serve as co-principal investigator.

UT ECE Senior Academic Advisor Janice Williams has received the UT chapter of the Academic Counselor's Association (ACA) award in the category of Taking Initiative and Creating Positive Change in recognition of her creation and leadership in running The Move Forward Program.

Advanced Research in Software Engineering (ARiSE),  was recently awarded a 4 year, $1.2 million contract to assist the State of Texas, Office of the Attorney General Child Support Division (CSD) meet increasing customer service demands, manage growing and changing caseloads, improve automation of processes, and attract and retain a changing workforce by renewing and transforming its existing child support system, Texas Child Support Enforcement System (TXCSES), using newer technologies.

Prof. Deji Akinwande of UT ECE has received a three year research award from Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) for his research proposal titled High-Data Rate Low-Cost Dielectric Waveguide Interconnects.

Prof. Deji Akinwande of UT ECE has been awarded an Army Research Office Young Investigator award for his research on “Supported and Free-Standing2D Semimetals.” ARO's Young Investigator Program (YIP) seeks to identify and support academic scientists who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees within the last five years and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research.

Dr. Akinwande joins a large and growing group of several young faculty members in UT ECE who have received the award, other DoD young investigator awards and NSF CAREER awards.

UT ECE graduate student Yang Zhao has won the 2011 Best Student Paper award at the 2011 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium , ranking in 1st place at the Student Paper Competition in Spokane this week, with the paper Broadband Circular Polarizers Using Plasmonic Metasurfaces. Zhao is supervised by Dr. Andrea Alù.

This is the largest conference worldwide on Antennas and Propagation, with hundreds of students participating in the competition. Zhao received her award July 7th in Spokane, Washington.

There has been tremendous interest in cloaking technology using metamaterials, and Andrea Alù's group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has been very active in the field, putting forward two exciting possibilities to obtain drastic scattering reduction from moderately-sized objects.