About

Spotlight on Women in ECE

ECE celebrates and honors the many contributions made by our excellent women faculty, alumni, and students. Their work has impacted science, technology, the arts, activism, and anything else you can imagine. Included in this list is ECE’s first woman to serve as Chair, the first Black woman at Michigan to earn a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, and the woman who helped bring us the first ever photo of a black hole.

Faculty

Elaheh Ahmadi

Elaheh Ahmadi is an assistant professor in EECS. She conducts research in Epitaxial growth and characterization of III-N and Oxide semiconductor materials for electronic and optoelectronics devices, sensing and MEMs applications as well as electron transport modeling. News >

Laura Balzano

Laura Balzano is an assistant professor in EECS. She conducts research in statistical signal processing, machine learning, and optimization theory and methods for dealing with large complex data. News >

Lynn Conway

Lynn Conway is a Professor Emerita of EECS. Her specialties included tele-autonomous systems, collaboration technology and media integration, artificial intelligence, computer systems & hardware, and VLSI program. She is also a renowned advocate for the trans community. News >

Cynthia Finelli

Cynthia Finelli is a professor of ECE and Education Engineering. She conducts research in active learning, evidence-based teaching, student learning, classroom spaces, and institutional change. News >

Janice Jenkins

Janice Jenkins is a Professor Emerita of EECS and Biomedical Engineering. In 1980, she became the first woman hired as a faculty member in the department. Learn more >

Somin Lee

Somin Lee is an assistant professor of EECS and Biomedical Engineering. Her research focuses on the use of nanoscale-dependent properties to enable unique spatial and temporal capabilities needed for quantification in bioscience and medicine. Her areas of expertise include plasmonics, nanophotonics, and bionanotechnologies. News >

Johanna Mathieu

Johanna Mathieu is an assistant professor of EECS. She specializes in modeling, estimation, and control of electric loads and storage; operational and control strategies that reduce the environmental impact, cost, and inefficiency of the power system. News >

Necmiye Ozay

Necmiye Ozay is an associate professor of EECS. She conducts research on computational aspects of control system design; hybrid and cyber-physical systems; system identification and validation; dynamics-based data analysis. News >

Stella Pang

Stella Pang is a Professor Emerita of EECS.

Becky Peterson

Becky Peterson is an associate professor of EECs and Applied Physics. She conducts research on oxide semiconductor materials and devices; 3D-IC heterointegration of oxide-based thin film electronics with silicon CMOS; solution-processed inorganic electronic materials; crystalline gallium oxide for power devices. News >

Louise Willingale

Louise Willingale is an Assistant Professor of EECS. She researches laser-driven electron and ion acceleration, relativistic laser propagation through underdense and near-critical density plasmas, laser-driven magnetic reconnection, and proton radiography to study electric and magnetic fields generated during the laser-plasma interactions. News >

Alumni

Ruba Borno

MS PHD EE 2003 2008
Ruba Borno is the Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Managed Services, helping plot the tech giant’s future. Learn more >

Katie Bouman

BSE EE 2011
Katie Bouman was a key member in the Event Horizon Telescope project that brought us the first-ever image of a black hole. Learn more >

Mariesa Crow

BSE EE 1985
Mariesa Crow is the Fred Finley Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Vice Provost for Research at Missouri S&T. Learn more >

Charlotte Decker

BSE MSE CE ’85 ’86; MBA ’91
Charlotte Decker is an information technology executive with over 21 years of experience across three major industries: specialty retail, automotive OEM, and tier-one automotive parts supply. Learn more >

Karen Fireman 

BSE CE ’80; MBA ’85BSE CE ’80; MBA ’85
Karen Fireman is a former Economic Analysis and Industrial Base Team Lead, Naval Sea Systems Command. Learn more >

Rhonda Franklin

MS PhD 1990 1995
Rhonda Franklin is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota. Learn more >

Nancy Gioia

BSE EE ’82
Nancy Gioia recently retired from FORD Motor Company as Director of Global Connectivity after a 33-year career with the organization. Learn more >

Hannah Goldberg

BSE MSE EE 2003 2004
Hannah Goldber was one of the first employees at Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining company. Learn more >

Katherine Herrick

BSE MSE Ph.D EE ‘93 ‘95 ‘00
Katherine Herrick is a Senior Fellow and a Chief Engineer at Raytheon Company. Learn more >

Tara Javidi

MS EE:S; MS Applied Mathematics; PhD EECS
Tara Javidi is a Professor of ECE and founder and Co-Director of the Center for Machine-Integrated Computing and Security at the University of California, San Diego. Learn more >

Angelique Johnson

MSE PhD EE 2007 2011
Angelique Johnson is the founder and CEO of MEMStim, which makes one of the most expensive parts of cochlear implants cheap with microfabrication. Learn more >

Meera Sampath

PhD EE:S 1995
Meera Sampath is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the State University of New York. She helped kickstart Xerox’s Indian Innovation Hub and was an early leader of their work in that country. Learn more >

Adrienne Stiff-Roberts

MSE EE 2001; PhD Applied Physics 2004
Adrienne Stiff-Roberts is Jeffrey N. Vinik Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University, where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies for the University Program in Materials Science and Engineering. Learn more >

Doctoral Students

Laura Andre

Laura Andre conducts research in the area of Optics and Photonics. She has won several awards for her work and leadership. Learn more >

Ester Bentley

Ester Bentley designs smaller, better 3D mechanical resonators for use in high-performance gyroscopes to help unmanned systems navigate when GPS signal is jammed or lost. Learn more >

Lauren Cooper

Lauren Cooper conducts research in the area of Optics and Photonics, and she serves as an ECE student ambassador. Learn more >

Caroline Crockett

Caroline Crockett conducts research in the area of Signal and Image Processing and Machine Learning. Learn more >

Sijia Geng

Sijia Geng conducts research in the area of Power and Energy. She received a Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement. Learn more >

Bahareh Hadidian

Bahareh Hadidian’s research interests include millimeter-wave and THz circuits design for RF mm-wave and optical communication and sensing. Learn more >

Nasimeh Heydaribeni

Nasimeh Heydaribeni’s research interests are game theory and its applications in networked systems with emphasis on mechanism design dynamic games with asymmetric information and information design. Learn more >

Elizabeth Hou

Elizabeth Hou conducts research in the area of Signal and Image Processing and Machine Learning. Learn more >

Huanting Huang

Huanting Huang conducts research in the area of Applied Electromagnetics and RF Circuits. She has won multiple awards for her work. Learn more >

Alyssa Kody

Alyssa Kody conducts research in the area of Control Systems. Learn more >

Nooshin M. Estakhri

Nooshin M. Estakhri conducts research in the area of Optics and Photonics. She received the Helen Wu Award for her work. Learn more >

Rebecca Lentz

Rebecca Lentz works on creating high efficiency thermo-photovoltaic cells that recycle energy stored as heat back into electrical power. Learn more >

Menglou Rao

Menglou Rao conducts research in the area of Applied Electromagnetics and RF Circuits. Learn more >

Stephanie Ross

Stephanie Ross conducts research in the area of Power and Energy. She received a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship for her work. Learn more >

Behnoush Rostami

Behnoush Rostami conducts research in Bio-MEMS. Learn more >

Anna Stuhlmacher

Anna Stuhlmacher conducts research in the area of Power and Energy. Learn more >

Yuanying Wang

Yuanying Wang conducts research in the area of Power and Energy. Learn more >

Zhanni Wu

Zhanni Wu is working on advanced metasurfaces, which could help next-generation wireless communication, commercial and military radar systems, imaging, and antenna systems. Learn more >

Mengqi Yao

Mengqi Yao conducts research in the area of Power and Energy. She won a High Quality Paper Award at the PowerTech Conference. Learn more >

Wenzhe Zang

Wenzhe Zang conducts research in the area of Optics and Photonics. Learn more >

Xueru Zhang

Xueru Zhangis working to improve data security and address important ethical issues related to AI and discriminatory data sets. Learn more >