News & Events

Electrical Engineering eNews: Fall 2015

In the Fall 2015 Issue:

Chair’s Message
Department News
New Faculty
Research Highlights
Honors & Awards
Alumni News
Upcoming Events

Chair's Message

Dear EE Community:

Fall has arrived and I hope you are enjoying the colorful change of seasons. After a rejuvenating summer, our faculty, staff and students are once again hard at work building a great future for UW EE. This fall quarter we welcomed more than 158 new undergraduate students, 73 daytime master’s program students and 49 evening master’s students. Our academic programs continue to be very competitive and we are proud to be the producers of the sixth highest number of EE bachelor's degree graduates in the nation!

The fall quarter is off to an excellent start. In addition to celebrating the 90^th birthday and the culmination of a successful endowed scholarship campaign for the first female faculty hired in UW EE, Professor Emerita Irene Peden, our department is home to a new NSF Center. As part of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) program to advance nanoscale science, UW EE was one of 16 sites selected for a new center to lead efforts in nanoscale science for the entire Pacific Northwest.

Department News

UW EE Leads New NSF Center to Advance Nanoscale Science
UW EE is home to a new NSF center, as part of NSF’s National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI) program to advance nanoscale science, engineering and technology research in the Pacific Northwest. One of 16 sites selected, UW EE's Karl Bohringer and Kai-Mei Fu, together with an interdisciplinary team across campus, worked to secure the new center and an associated $4.5 million grant.

UW Nanofabrication Lab Receives $37
Million to Expand
Directed by EE Professor Karl Bohringer, the Washington Nanofabrication Facility will receive nearly $37 million from the UW Regents to expand the facility. The funding will expand the current 7,000 square feet of cleanroom space to 15,000 square feet.

	Trailblazer for Women Engineers, Professor Emerita Irene Peden Turns 90 More than 25 colleagues, students and friends gathered to celebrate Professor Emerita Irene Peden's 90th birthday and the establishment of an endowed fellowship for female engineers.
	UW EE & SJTU Commit to Smart Cities Collaboration EE Chair Radha Poovendran, together with UW Interim President Ana Mari Cauce, signed a “Smart Cities” agreement on September 23 with Shanghai Jiao Tong University President Zhang Jie.

New Faculty

	EE Welcomes Eli Shlizerman Data analysis expert and Washington Research Foundation Professor Eli Shlizerman, who joined the UW Department of Applied Mathematics three years ago, assumed a joint tenure-track appointment in UW EE this fall.
	Lillian Ratliff to Join in 2016 Researching the smart grid and smart urban spaces, Lillian Ratliff will join UW EE in the fall of 2016 after one year of postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Ph.D.

Research Highlights

	SNUPI Start-up Sells WallyHome Sensor Technology to Sears A start-up cofounded by UW EE & CSE Professors Shwetak Patel and Matt Reynolds and EE alum Gabe Cohn has sold its first product, a water leak detection system, to Sears.
	MagnifiSense Developed in UbiComp Lab A team of EE and CSE students from the UbiComp Lab, including EE's Edward Wang and Tien-Jui Lee, developed a new technology, called MagnifiSense, that senses what devices a user interacts with, such as refrigerators and vehicles.
	Hannaneh Hajishirzi Leads Breakthrough AI Research A major breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence, UW EE's Hannaneh Hajishirzi was the lead faculty member working on an AI system that is able to solve SAT geometry questions as well as an average human test taker.
	UW EE Researchers Partner with Disney to Create Battery-free Camera Sensors Sensor Systems Lab researchers have partnered with UW EE alum Alanson Sample at Disney Research to produce camera sensors that can determine their location.

Honors & Awards

Arka Majumdar One of Three Honored
with 2015 Intel Early Career Award

Assistant Professor Arka Majumdar has been honored with a 2015 Intel Early Career Award, which supports his research on optical sensing using silicon photonics. Congratulations, Arka!

Alumni News

	UW EE Alum Jeffrey Walling Honored with Outstanding Teaching Award UW EE alum Jeffrey Walling (Ph.D. '08) was honored with the University of Utah’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award for 2015.
	UW EE Alum Henry Louie Honored with Fulbright Award Alum Henry Louie (Ph.D. '08) will be teaching and conducting research on energy poverty in Zambia after being selected for a Fulbright Award.

Upcoming Events

Save the Date: Annual Lytle Lecture Series November 2-3 Features Professor David Tse, Stanford University
UW EE welcomes Professor David Tse, from Stanford University, who will discuss information theory on November 2-3, 2015. Free and open to the public!

Eric Klavins’ Research Featured In One-Act Play October 15-18, 2015
Professor Eric Klavins is part of one of the playwright-scientist teams who collaborated on this year's "Thought Experiments on the Question of Being Human" festival.

News & Events