...2006 and prior... Back to Current News
Third Frontier Commission Awards : The Ohio Third Frontier Commission has awarded a $28 million state grant to establish the Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology (IDCAST). $20 million of the grant is for capital equipment and $8 million will be used to leverage research, development, and commercialization of sensor technology. The Institute is a consortium of universities and industries in Ohio led by University of Dayton; The Ohio State University ECE faculty principally involved are John Volakis, Joel Johnson, and Randy Moses. OSU will receive more than $3.5 million in capital funds from the State. These funds will be used to significantly expand our research space in sensor research as well as develop a software radar laboratory, an ultra-wideband sensing and communication network research facility, and a persistent video sensing and monitoring laboratory.
The Ohio Third Frontier Commission has also announced the award for the new Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization (PVIC). Professor Robert Collins of the University of Toledo and Dr. Robert J. Davis of OSU will be the center Co-Directors. The Ohio State University ECE faculty principally involved are Paul Berger and Steven Ringel. The $18.3 million budget for the center includes approximately $6.8 million for OSU over three years to fund research, development, and commercialization activities in advanced photovoltaic materials, devices, and systems in the College of Engineering and the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 3/06
OSU joins the NSF ConnectionOne Center: The ConnectionOne Center provides a unique opportunity to recruit and attract top graduate students trained on all aspects of Electromagnetics, Wireless Communications, and Radio Frequency (RF) Systems, and to take advantage of research results carried out at OSU ConnectionOne Website hosted by The ElectroScience Laboratory of The Electrical & Computer Engineering College at The Ohio State University. (More details) 12/06
Lee is new Chair of ECE: We are pleased to announce that Dr. Robert Lee has been named chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, effective January 1, 2007. Please see formal announcement.
Ph.D. student, Seok Joo Doo, was recently awarded the IEEE ARFTG Fellowhip at the group's most recent conference. The award is based on Seok's recent research accomplishments and a short research proposal he submitted for this year's international fellowship competition. The fellowhip will provide him with $5,000 to support his Ph.D. research and he will present his resulting work at the next ARFTG conference. 12/06
The three major Ohio electric utility companies (AEP, cinergy, and FirstEnergy) have pledged a total support of $400K over a five-year period to the ECE Department. These funds will be used to support the hiring of a new facutly member who will be responsible for continuing the teaching and research in the high voltage and power electronics areas. 10/06
New Applied Science Engineering (ASE) Interdisciplinary Graduate
Specialization/Minor Established: This specialization/minor educates graduate students in state-of-the-practice industrial-strength software technologies that will help them better carry out their primary graduate work when that work entails the development of significant technical software systems. The program consists of a total of 15 cr-hrs and often can be completed in one academic year. Flyers can be downloaded from the ASE web site. 10/06
Graduate program and degree name change: Based on a recommendation from the Council on Research and Graduate Studies, the request from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to change the name of its graduate program and graduate degree from electrical engineering to electrical and computer engineering, so that it is aligned with the recent department name change, was approved unanimously by the Council on Academic Affairs. 09/06
American Vacuum Society to honor Brillson for scientific achievement: Leonard Brillson, professor and internationally known expert in electronic materials at the OSU Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Physics, will receive the 2006 Gaede-Langmuir Award for Scientific and Technological Achievement from the AVS Science and Technology Society during next fall’s annual AVS meeting in San Francisco.
AVS is the world’s leading professional organization representing scientists and engineers at the center of the science and technology of semiconductor microelectronics. The award recognizes Brillson for more than 30 years of work leading to an understanding of the fundamental importance of atomic scale chemical bonding, metallurgical reactions, and diffusion at interfaces, and their effects on the electrical properties of solid state materials and devices.
Notably, Brillson's pioneering research working showed that semiconductors, the workhorse of modern electronics, chemically react at their atomic-scale interface with other materials to alter how electricity moves across. By controlling how these interfaces form, he showed how devices from transistors to solar cells can be improved. Brillson is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, a professor of Physics in the College of Mathematics and Physics Sciences, as well as a Center for Materials Research Scholar.
Berger named faculty advisor of the year: At the IEEE Columbus Chapter's Spring Banquet, Prof. Paul Berger was named "Faculty Advisor of the Year". He says he was blessed with two outstanding Co-Presidents, Vishal Mistry and Michael Haig, who both also won service awards for their work within the Ohio State IEEE Student Chapter.
Congratulations to Prof. Yuan Zheng and his Ph.D. student, Eric J. Balster, for receiving the Fred I. Diamond Award for the Best Technical Paper by the Air Force Rome Laboratory. The award is conferred annually for the paper that best represents work performed in house which contributes to technology for eventual improvement of U. S. Air Force operational capability. Paper: E. Balster, Y.F. Zheng and R. Ewing, "Feature-based wavelet shrinkage algorithm for image denoising," IEEE Trans. on Image Processing, Vol. 14, No. 12, December 2005, pp. 2024-2039.
Best Poster Award for ESL students: Congratulations to F. Gundes and K. Zhao (advisor Prof. JinFa Lee) for being awarded one of the three best poster awards at the 12th Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation (CEFC 2006) for their paper "Higher Oder ABCs for FEM Applications."
Could humans learn from honey bees? Findings cited in a recent paper co-authored by Prof. Kevin Passino was recently discussed in the May 2, 2006 edition of the New York Times. The article is an editorial view of the possibility of humans learning the art of group decision making from honey bee swarms.
See: Seeley T.D., Visscher P.K., Passino K.M., "Group Decision Making in Honey Bee Swarms," American Scientist, Vol. 94, Issue 3, pp. 220-229, May/June, 2006.
ECE Honored for Minority Program: We are happy to announce that ECE won the best Minory Engineering Program award this year. Many faculty and staff contributed to the success of our program by mentoring, recruiting and helping with retention of minority students and promoting diversity at all levels. Special thanks go to Prof. Joe Cruz for leading the minority program activities in the department.
Five ECE Faculty Honored: Prof. Joel Johnson has been selected for the 2006 COE Harrison Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education while Profs. Paul Berger, Len Brillson, Jin-Fa Lee and Wu Lu are the recipients of the 2006 Lumley Research award.
Congratulations to all of them!
Remembering Prof. Ken Breeding: In honor of Prof. Breeding's memory, “The Professor Kenneth J. Breeding Memorial Scholarship Fund” has been established and will be used for undergraduate scholarships for students enrolled in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. The department will be responsible for nominating potential awardees and selecting a recipient periodically.
Donations can be made to The Professor Kenneth J. Breeding Memorial Scholarship Fund by making checks payable to The Ohio State University and sending them to the attention of Professor Fusun Ozguner, Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department, 2015 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210.
A new way to help computers recognize patterns: Researchers at Ohio State University have found a way to boost the development of pattern recognition software by taking a different approach from that used by most experts in the field. This work may impact research in areas as diverse as genetics, economics, climate modeling, and neuroscience.
Aleix Martinez, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State, explained what all these areas of research have in common: pattern recognition.
Read the full article on Prof. Martinez' research, written by Pam Frost Gorder.
Plastic diode could lead to flexible, low power computer circuits, memory: Prof. Paul Berger and his students have invented a new organic polymer tunnel diode -- an electronic component that could one day lead to plastic computer memory and plastic logic circuits on computer chips. Berger and his students describe their patent-pending invention in a recent issue of the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters.
Read the full article on Prof. Berger's research, written by Pam Frost Gorder.
Nanoscale Patterning Laboratory Comes to Ohio State: A new multi-million dollar Nanoscale Patterning Laboratory
is now open for general business here at Ohio State University,
thanks to OBOR Hayes Investment
Funding and significant support by the OSU Office of Research,
College of Engineering and
College of Math and Physical Sciences.
The forward thinking that brought this shared-user tool to OSU, and
all its ancillary equipment,
will propel the State of Ohio nanotechnology research community.
Whether nanometer
scale direct write patterning, high resolution photomasks, or master
molds for nanoimprint
lithography is needed, this new facility will meet those needs. It has already
demonstrated sub-35 nanometer
wide metal lines with better yet to come!
At the heart of this Lab is the new Leica EBPG-5000+ electron beam
lithography (EBL) tool with
less than a 10 nanometer spot size. It is staffed with highly
qualified personnel ready and willing
to meet all nanopatterning needs with both academic and industrial
experience.
For more information contact
the EBL Engineer, Ms. Aimee Bross.
OSU Licenses Dr. Hesham El Gamal's wireless communications technoogy to WebSky, Inc.: A new method of space-time coding, co-developed by the iCORE Wireless Communicatoins Laboratory at the University of Alberta and Dr. Hesham El Gamal at The Ohio State University, operates at efficiencies nearly equal to the known theoretical limits. Potential applications for this technology include: high data rate cellular wireless communications, ad-hoc wireless networks with multi-antenna terminals, portable networks with multi-antenna systems, and mobile multi-user networks.
See the complete story on OSU's Office of Technology Licensing web site.
Martinez Research Finds New Way to Help Computers Recognize Patterns: Prof. Aleix Martinez and doctoral student, Manil Zhu, working with sponsorship of the National Institutes of Health, have developed a test which rates how well a particular pattern recognition algorithm will work for a given application. They discovered what happens to scientific data when researchers use a less-than-ideal algorithm: They don't necessarily get the wrong answer, but they do get unnecessary information along with the answer, which adds to the problem. Using Martinez' algorithm, researchers can run a fast and easy test to find out in advnce which algorithms are best in a particular circumstance. This work may impact research in areas as diverse as genetics, economics, climate modeling, and neuroscience.
Read the full article on Prof. Martinez's algorithm research, written by Pam Frost Gorder.
Read the article on Prof. Martinez's Podcast-Pattern Recognition research.
Boyer selected as Jefferson Science Fellow: Prof. Kim Boyer was recently selected as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. He will spend a year at the State Department in Washington, and then return to OSU where he will be on call as a science and technology consultant to the State Department for another five years.
Selections were made by a panel consisting of representatives from the National Academies of Science, along with representatives from the State Department (present and past), and others from a range of academic disciplines.
More information on the program can be found at The National Academies web site.
Anderson awarded 2006 TopCat Woman of the Year: Betty Lise Anderson, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was named TopCAT Outstanding Woman of the Year by TechColumbus for her outstanding achievements in technology. Professor Anderson conducts research in the general areas of photonics and optical engineering, and published Fundamentals of Semiconductor Devices, 1 st edition (McGraw-Hill) in 2005.
TopCAT stands for top contributors to the advancement of technology. Award winners were drawn from more than 300 nominations. The Janaury 12 event was organized by TechColumbus, which was formed in October from the merger of the Columbus Technology Council and the Business Technology Center. It’s also linked to SciTech, the developer of Ohio State University’s research park. TechColumbus’ mission is to accelerate the development of technology businesses in the region and assist existing companies to use technology to become more competitive.
Contact: Gina Langen, College of Engineering, 688-4423, Langen.2@osu.edu
Four ECE professors promoted by Office of Academic Affairs: ECE is pleased to announce that Drs. Joel T. Johnson and Jin-Fa Lee have been promoted to the title of Professor, and Drs. Benjamin A. Coifman and Philip Schniter have been promoted to the title of Associate Professor. Congratulations to them all on their hard work and dedication to excellence!
OSU developing sensors to detect guns without X-rays: Future airline passengers may one day forget what it was like to pass through a
standard metal detector. A new sensor being developed at Ohio State can detect
hidden firearms by using what looks like a simple camera. Read full story on Lantern on-line by Brian Carro, Lantern On-line.
IPS students receive recognition for student papers: Congratulations to Arun Kannu for winning a Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications. He was one of only three winners selected from more than 40 award nominations. The prize included a plaque, a $400 check, and a Van Trees' famous 4-book set on detection and estimation.
Congratulations also go out to Adam Margetts for being one of only 10 finalists in the student paper award contest at ICASSP.
Research group completes deployment of hardware for NASA aircraft: Prof. Joel Johnson's research group has completed a deployment of some hardware they built for NASA's WB-57 aircraft. The system they built is a digital backend for improving the radio frequency interference rejection capabilities of microwave radiometers. A good data set was retrieved and is in the process of being analyzed. More information can be found at NASA's web site about the aircraft.
Engineering Courses Available to Hurricane Impacted Students: The College of Engineering will accept students from disaster affected areas into engineering courses for the autumn 2005 and winter 2006 terms. The students should be currently enrolled in an engineering program at a four-year college located in the hurricane impacted area.
The Ohio State University has agreed to waive tuition for fall quarter, provided the student has or will fully pay fall tuition to their home school, and provided the student has a connection to the state of Ohio. Such a connection may include having lived, worked or attended school in Ohio or have family members residing in Ohio. Students will be expected to return to their home schools unless that is not possible. Students interested in attending Ohio State College of Engineering should contact Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Student Services Robert Gustafson, Gustafson.4@osu.edu, 614-292-0573, or Academic Advisor Judith McDonald, McDonald.6@osu.edu, 614-292-3894.
Contact: Gina Langen, OSU College of Engineering, (614) 688-4423, langen.2@osu.edu.
ECE Student Awarded at OSU Research Forum: ECE undergrad student Simon Curran was awarded second place in the 2005 OSU Denman Undergraduate Research Forum. Curran presented his work entitled "Real-Time Computer-Control of a High-Performance, Series-Compliant, Articulated Hopping Leg." His advisors are ECE professor David Orin and ME professor James Schmiedeler.
The Denman Undergraduate Research Forum provides a means for undergraduate students to share their research with members and friends of the OSU community; recognizes the significant contributions to research by OSU undergraduates; and facilitates exchange between students, faculty, and the public. Students enrolled in any undergraduate degree program at OSU are invited to participate, provided they are engaged in supervised research projects. Click here for a listing of all Denman winners.
IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium honors two OSU student papers: Two Ohio State papers were selected to be among the 15 finalist papers to compete at the 2005 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium held in Washington D.C. this year. Congratulations to Marinos Vouvakis (advisor: Prof. J.F. Lee) for receiving one of those awards with his paper "A Finite Element Domain Decomposition Technique for the Analysis of Large Electromagnetic Problems."
Congratulations also go out to Mehmet Emre Yavuz (advisor: Prof. F. Teixeira) for his paper "Time-Domain Simulation of Time-Reversed EM Pulse Propagation in Continuous Random Media for UWB Sensing Applicaitons," being the second OSU paper chosen to compete in the competition.
Five New Books Published by ECE Faculty: Profs. Betty Lise Anderson and Richard L. Anderson's text "Fundamentals of Semiconductor Devices" provides a realistic and practical treatment of modern semiconductor devices. A solid understanding of the physical processes responsible for the electronic properties of semiconductor materials and devices is emphasized. With this emphasis, the reader will appreciate the underlying physics behind the equations derived and their range of applicability. (McGraw-Hill, publisher)
Prof. Kim Boyer collaborated with Profs. Luciano Silva and Olga Bellon of the Federal University of Parana, Brazil to publish "Robust Range Image Registration: Using Genetic Algorithms and the Surfact Interpenetration Measure." This book addresses the range image registration problem for automatic 3D model reconstruction. The focus is on obtaining highly precise, statistically robust alignments among different views of the same object to avoid modeling distortions. With the emergence of applications in archaeology and the preservation of cultural heritage, the subject of this book has assumed added significance. Prof. Boyer's book is published by World Scientific and is Volume 60 of the Series in Machine Perception Artificial Intelligence.
Prof. Mohammed Ismail is listed with Adem Aktas as authors of "CMOS PLLs and VCOs for 4G Wireless" and is publised by Kluwer Academic Publishers. This book is the first to be devoted to the subject of CMOS PLL and VCO design for future broadband 4th generation wireless devices. It will be of interest to graduate students in electrical and computer engineering, design managers and RFIC designers in wireless semiconductor companies.
Profs. Randy Moses and Petre Stoica's recently published text, "Introduction to Spectral Analysis," presents an introduction to spectral analysis that is designed for either course use or self-study. Topics covered include nonparametric spectrum analysis (both periodogram-based approaches and filter- bank approaches), parametric spectral analysis using rational spectral models (AR, MA, and ARMA models), parametric methods for line spectra, and spatial (array) signal processing. Analytical and Matlab-based computer exercises are included to develop both analytical skills and hands-on experience. (Prentice-Hall publishers)
"Biomimicry for Optimization, Control, and Automation" is authored solely by Prof. Kevin Passino. According to the publisher, Springer, "there are many highly effective optimization, feedback control, and automation systems embedded in living organisms and nature. Evolution persistently seeks optimal robust designs for biological feedback control systems and decision making processes. (The reader) will gain knowledge of how mimicry of such biological processes can be used to solve optimization, control, and automation problems encountered in the construction of high technology systems. The focus of this text lies on verifying correct operation of technologies via a process of mathematical modelling and analysis complimented by computer simulations."
Ph.D. student takes 3rd place in IEEE Symposium paper award: Congratulations to Ph.D. student Marinos Vouvakis for winning 3rd place in the best paper award for his paper "A finite element domain decomposition technique for the analysis of large electromagnetic problems" presented at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symnposium held in Washington D.C. Prof. Jin-Fa Lee is his advisor.
This very competitive award is given to the top three papers from a set of 88 student papers that entered the competition.
Six ECE students receive scholarships for undergraduate research projects: 6 ECE juniors won undergraduate research scholarships for 2005-6 to
perform Honors Thesis (Distinction) research projects. Individual
award amounts varied, but the total for the six ECE students was
$17,500 for next year. There were 49 students in the competition for
the College of Engineering this year, with 45 students winning
scholarships. All ECE students who competed won scholarships. ECE students who won the scholarships are: Nathan Denning,
Ahmed Fasih,
Jonathan Kopachek,
Kevin Ponziani,
Stephen Sawyer, and Thomas Sokol.
This scholarship money ($17,500) is funded through the University or
the College of Engineering and is in addition to the approximately
$170,000 in merit scholarships that ECE annual disburses to our undergraduates. In the past, we have had as many as 16 EE/ECE
students win these scholarships, so our numbers are down from our
historical performance. Numbers from some other deparments are: Mech
(13), CEEGS (7), ChemE (6), ISE (5).
Teller and Jackson: DAGSI fellowship recipients: Congratulations to Justin Teller (Prof. Fusun Ozguner's advisee) and Julie Jackson (Prof. Randy Moses' advisee) for being awarded the Air Force Research Labs/Dayton Area Graduate Studies Institute (AFRL/DAGSI) fellowship. The "AFRL/DAGSI Student-Faculty Fellowship program" awarded 22 fellowships this year. Teller's proposal, "A Morphable Nanoprocessor-Based Computing Architecture," was one of the two winners in the information topic, and Jackson's proposal, "Sparse Aperture Scene Reconstruction and Visualization," was one out of four winners under the sensors topic. For more information on DAGSI, please see their web site.
Undergraduate NSF Winners Make History: Mr. Jake Adams and Mr. David Bradway received the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.
This fellowship provides support for up to three years of study at any graduate school in the nation. It is the first
time in the history of this department that two undergraduate students have received this award in a single
year. Mr. Adams plans to stay at Ohio State for graduate school. He also received the top University
Fellowship from Ohio State (Dean's Distinguished University Fellowship) which provides an additional
three years of support for his graduate studies. Congratulations to Jake and David! 5/05
NASA Fellowships Awarded: Congratulations Andrew Carlin, Jeff Kula, and Brian Usner for each being awarded the very competitive NASA Fellowship for 2005-2006. A 5-page proposal to NASA on their research work was required to be considered for the Fellowship award. Their research topics are Carlin: Semiconductor Lattice Engineering for Space Photovoltaics and Advanced Devices; Kula: Antennas in Complex Media; and Usner: Novel Higher Order Volume Integral Formulation for Designing Metamaterial Antennas and Periodic Structures. Congratulations to Andrew, Jeff and Brian! 5 /05
Engineers for Community Service Receive Award: The student organization known as ECOS (Engineers for Community Service) has been selected as a recipient of the Spirit of Ohio State Award at The Ohio State University. This award is designed to be conferred to those students/student organizations who embody the "Sprit of Ohio State" and who exude the values of Student Affairs: relationships, mutual respect, integrity, innovation and service. ECOS, in existence for approximately one year, began as a means for Engineering students to contribute their skills and knowledge in service to others. Already, the organization has approximately 200 students on their current mailing list and have accomplished a number of items, such as an organizational website, Mission statement and by-laws, travel to Honduras over Spring break to perform various service projects, local projects, guest speakers, planning for future projects, etc. To learn more about ECOS, please visit their web site.
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