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2024 Undergraduate Student Awards

These students are recognized for their outstanding scholarship, research, service, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Stéphane Lafortune voted 2024 HKN Professor of the Year

Prof. Lafortune is receiving this honor for the second time. Last year, he taught the introductory course in signals and systems, and a new introductory course focused on the challenges of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Kamal Sarabandi receives Ellis Island Medal of Honor

The national award recognizes the importance of immigrants and their descendents to U.S. economic and social vitality. Honorees are read annually into the Congressional Record.

William D. Becher: In Memoriam (1929-2014)

Dr. William “Bill” Becher was an alum of the Department, former ECE Chair at U-M Dearborn, and devoted steward of the former EECS Alumni Society and U-M Amateur Radio Club.

Markus Borsch receives ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award for research on lightwave electronics

With his dissertation, Borsch takes on the unknown and enables the future of solid-state quantum electronics.

Integrating battery storage into electrical grids can sometimes increase emissions due to market forces

An electricity market analysis found adding battery storage to enhance grid reliability may cause power generation markets to favor coal over natural gas.

Wei Lu named James R. Mellor Professor of Engineering

Lu is internationally renowned for his pioneering efforts in the development and commercialization of novel electrical devices, specifically memristors for memory and logic applications.

Raj Rao Nadakuditi honored with Master’s Mentoring Award

Prof. Nadakuditi received this award from the Rackham Graduate School in recognition of his many contributions to the education of students at the master’s level.

Paula Pernia awarded Staff Excellence Award for her remarkable contributions as Facilities Manager

As ECE Facilities Manager for ECE, Pernia has exhibited stellar performance over 27 years at the University, while embodying the values of ECE that make it a great place to work.

Alum Kamal Rudra recognised as Young Scientist to attend 73rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

Rudra will have the opportunity to meet 39 Nobel Laureates at the event, including Gérard Mourou.

Aaditya Hambarde receives top honors for his work as a Graduate Student Instructor

Taking inspiration from such luminaries as Dr. Rita Pierson and Mahatma Gandhi, there is no question that Hambarde was an inspiration to many of those that he taught at Michigan.

The Krumm Family Scholarship Fund will support future electrical and computer engineering students

The Krumm Family Scholarship Fund is the second scholarship fund endowed by Charles and Patricia Krumm in their quest to benefit society through higher education.

Students and ECE staff celebrate Black History Month

A group of students and ECE staff visited the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, and enjoyed lunch at Ima Izakaya restaurant in Corkdown, Detroit.

Report issued on state of intelligent vehicle dependability and security

Safe operation of fully autonomous vehicles on public roads is not anticipated in the near future.

Amanda Liss receives Harry B. Benford Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership

Liss is recognized for her commitment to bringing sustainable energy to the people of the Pantanal region of Brazil.

Aditya Varma Muppala doubly recognized for outstanding teaching and research

Aditya has made long-term contributions to a graduate course in applied electromagnetics, initiated a Youtube channel to disseminate knowledge worldwide, and made breakthrough contributions in imaging systems.

Nouman Khan awarded the Richard and Eleanor Towner Prize for Distinguished Academic Achievement

Khan is a dedicated educator and researcher in the areas of multi-agent systems and networks.

Andrea Goldsmith honored with the 21st William Gould Dow Distinguished Lectureship

Goldsmith shared her journey to becoming an Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor, entrepreneur, and author, and her wisdom for current and future ECE students.

Kamal Sarabandi’s leap of faith in Michigan

Prof. Sarabandi arrived in Ann Arbor as a first year graduate student 40 years ago on February 29, another leap year, and built a career that has earned him engineering’s highest honors.

ECE Expeditions heads back to Silicon Valley

The 7th cross-country voyage of the ECE Expeditions program took students to the Bay Area to visit Meta, Kodiak Robotics, KLA, and SiTime.

Joseph Costello awarded Rackham Predoc to support research on brain-machine interfaces

Costello is working to restore mobility to individuals by developing improved brain-machine interfaces.

Anjali Devi Sivakumar awarded Barbour Scholarship to support her research on analytical wearables for health monitoring

Sivakumar is developing analytical devices to measure and analyze insensible, or vapor, sweat for disease diagnosis.

Shubham Mondal awarded Rackham Predoc to support research on III-Nitride semiconductors for next generation electronics

Mondal’s materials research is expected to impact fields such as data centric computing, edge intelligence, and quantum photonic devices.

GenAI diffusion models learn to generate new content more consistently than expected

Award-winning research led by Prof. Qing Qu discovered an intriguing phenomenon that diffusion models consistently produce nearly identical content starting from the same noise input, regardless of model architectures or training procedures.

The power of a “can do” spirit: Wei-Kuan Lin’s journey to success

When Wei-Kuan Lin began to struggle with graduate school, Prof. L. Jay Guo’s compassion, support, and advice empowered him to succeed.

Semyon Meerkov retires, and continues his work on Production Systems Engineering

Prof. Meerkov’s interest in control and manufacturing led to a new field of Production Systems Engineering.

Anthony Grbic named John L. Tishman Professor of Engineering

Grbic is a world leader in the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces, Watch his lecture.

Auto industry deadlines loom for impaired-driver detection tech, U-M offers a low-cost solution

As the comment period closes on the new federal requirement, a U-M team led by Prof. Mohammed Islam demonstrates that upgrades to current technologies could do the job

Jiangnan Liu receives SVCF Scholarship to support research in quantum photonics

Liu is a PhD student investigating new materials for future opportunities in quantum photonics.

Rhonda Franklin receives ECE Distinguished Alumni Educator Award

Franklin described her personal journey that led to her current research in RF and microwave technology for diverse applications, and her own work as a mentor to current students.

Augmented reality system for accessible play, iGYM, goes international

Using iGYM’s computer vision module, the U-M team partnered with the University of Tsukuba’s FUTUREGYM Team to develop new interactive games that allow children of all abilities to play together.

New Quant-UM organization empowers undergrads interested in Quantum Science and Technology

The club is partnering with the Quantum Research Institute to educate and support students across the university who have an interest in quantum fields.

Remembering alum David Mills, who brought the internet into perfect time

Mills created the Network Time Protocol, which enables any device online to know precisely what time it is.

Don Winsor: Leading IT support in EECS

Dr. Don Winsor leads the EECS Department’s Departmental Computing Organization (DCO) with joy and grace.

Shubham Mondal receives SVCF Scholarship to support his research in semiconductor materials

Mondal works to improve the operation of electronic and optoelectronic devices using III-Nitride based semiconductor materials.

2024 EECS Outstanding Achievement Awards

The EECS Department has honored four faculty for their sustained excellence in instruction and curricular development, distinguished participation in service activities, or for their significant achievements in scholarly research.

Mack Kira receives CoE Monroe-Brown Foundation Service Excellence Award

Prof. Kira’s efforts led directly to the establishment of the University of Michigan Quantum Research Institute.

Fawwaz Ulaby receives CoE Edward Law Emeritus Outstanding Service Award

Prof. Ulaby spearheaded and manages the Free ECE Textbook Initiative, benefiting students around the world.

Leland Pierce receives the Jon R. and Beverly S. Holt Award for Excellence in Teaching

Dr. Pierce’s heroic efforts to turn a hands-on lab into a virtual learning experience were highly successful.

Zetian Mi receives CoE Rexford E. Hall Innovation Excellence Award

Prof. Mi has launched two startup companies to promote his pioneering research in artificial photosynthesis and GaN nanoLEDs for applications in sustainable energy, displays and disinfection.

Andrew Owens receives CoE 1938E Award

Prof. Owens brought a fresh approach to teaching the enormously popular field of computer vision, while caring deeply about the wellbeing of his students.

Large open dataset aims to improve understanding of building electricity demand response

Data collected from 14 commercial buildings can help inform efforts to balance electrical grids, maintaining reliability.

Linking online and offline social networks to better predict real world impact

Prof. Lei Ying leads a new MURI that is focused on the interplay between online and offline networks and how they could impact disruptive behavior and events.

Living Labs: testing energy efficiency and flexibility in University buildings

Researchers advocate for pairing real-world data with model-based simulations to help the U.S. decarbonize and electrify commercial buildings.

ECE PhD student Duncan Madden recognized for his work on antenna arrays

Duncan Madden received 2nd place in the 2024 Ernest K. Smith USNC-URSI student paper competition.

Janice M. Jenkins (1932-2023): In Memoriam

Janice Jenkins, the first female faculty member in EECS, was a trailblazer who left a distinguished legacy.

Michael McCorquodale (1974-2023): In Memoriam

Dr. McCorquodale, recipient of the 2009 CoE Alumni Society Recent Engineering Graduate award, left a legacy of entrepreneurial excellence and unwavering support of students.

Seven ECE staff recognized for their outstanding contributions to the ECE community

Devon Degraffenreed, Misha Erementchouk, Jeff Horosko, Elizabeth Oxford, Eva Ruff, Ann Stals, and Punam Vyas received the CoE Staff Incentive Award for their contributions to ECE.

Nouman Khan works to study and improve the operation of multi-agent systems and networks

Khan was awarded a Rackham International Student Fellowship for his research on data-driven control of multi-agent systems, as well as research that studies the spread of information in networks.

Improving generative AI models for real-world medical imaging

Professors Liyue Shen, Qing Qu, and Jeff Fessler are working to develop efficient diffusion models for a variety of practical scientific and medical applications.