Undergraduate Advising

Faculty Statements on Undergraduate Research

Narendra Ahuja

Undergraduate student can participate in research projects in the areas of computer vision, pattern recognition, human computer interaction, novel cameras and image and video retrieval.

Rashid Bashir

We are looking for undergraduate students interested in integrating Nanotechnology with Biotechnology for diagnostics, therapeutics, and tissue engineering.

Jennifer Bernhard

Students with an interest in applied electromagnetics, including antennas and high frequency circuits, are encouraged to contact me via e-mail. The background required for an undergraduate research position in my lab includes good performance in ECE 329 and ECE 450, with other advanced EM courses always a plus. For first- and second-year students who haven't taken these courses yet, opportunities may exist from semester to semester to help with the research projects of advanced undergraduates or graduate students, but at a more basic level.

Stephen Boppart

There is a long history of undergraduate research opportunities in Prof. Boppart’s Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory. Over the last 8 years, over 30 undergraduate students have conducted research leading to an undergraduate thesis. Research areas cover aspects of optical imaging and physics, signal and imaging processing, image acquisition systems, biomedical optics and biophotonics, and laser and optical source development. Undergraduate research experiences typically extend over three or more semesters, and result in the completion of an undergraduate thesis and a departmental symposium presentation. Exceptional research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national conferences.

Marie-Christine Brunet

I do not do research anymore because I have other duties in the department (lecturer, chief advisor); but I have been conducting various projects to help advising, such as ECE lab videos (on our ECE website now for prospective students); I also recruit students for projects related to the improvement of ECE 110. I welcome any enthusiastic student with creative ideas and/or with good programming skills.

Andreas Cangellaris

Current undergraduate research opportunities in our group involve: a) application of circuit and electromagnetic theory concepts to the understanding and quantittaive assessment of electromagnetic interference effects in high-speed electronic systems and their impact on system signal integrity; b) behavioral modeling of MEMS devices.

Deming Chen

Behavioral synthesis for low power (preferred background: ECE425) Circuits process variation modeling (preferred background: STAT/MATH451) SoC (system-on-a-chip) design (preferred background: ECE425 and ECE391) Logic synthesis (preferred background: ECE425 and ECE462)

Keh-Yung Cheng

Undergraduate research opportunities in areas of compound semiconductor materials and device fabrication are available for students who are looking for challenging topics. Some journal publications done by undergraduate students (*) are listed below: 1. R. H. Chan* and K. Y. Cheng, "Optimization the reactive ion etching of p-InGaP with CH4/H2 by a two-level fractional factorial design process", J. Vac. Sci. and Technol., B14, 3219-3225, 1996 2. J.H. Epple, C. Sanchez*, T. Chung, K.Y. Cheng, and K.C. Hsieh, "Dry etching of GaP with emphasis on selective etching over AlGaP," J. Vac. Sci. and Technol. B20, 2252-2255, 2002. 3. K. Meneou*, H. C. Lin, K. Y. Cheng, J. G. Kim and R. U. Martinelli, "Wet thermal oxidation of AlAsSb alloys lattice matched to GaSb", J. Appl. Phys., 95, 5131-5136, 2004.

Milton Feng

RF and MIcrowave ICs design

Lippold Haken

I encourage undergraduates that would like to do research towards designing and implementing devices to look into ECE395. The primary goal of ECE395 is to build the device; you decide on all hardware components, PCB layout, software programming, motor control or any mechanical aspects you may have, etc. If you develop novel algorithms or techniques you may optionally present your results at the Undergraduate Research Symposium, and optionally show your work at Engineering Open House.

Douglas Jones

Research on communication systems: methods for peak-power reduction (to improve energy efficiency) for modern wireless communication systems. Students should have taken, enjoyed, and done well in ECE 410; ECE 361 and ECE 420 preferred. Research in 3D audio: methods for recreating accurate 3D perception of the direction of sound through headphones from data recorded with various microphone arrays. Students should have taken, enjoyed, and done well in ECE 410; ECE 420 preferred.

Philip Krein

Each year, several undergraduate students are supported to conduct research within the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics. Activities range from circuit board layout and construction to advanced research projects. Students work side by side with graduate students and faculty to carry out experimental activities in energy, electromechanics, and power electronics.

Erhan Kudeki

Projects in ionospheric radar signal processing for students with ECE 313 and 410 background.

Rakesh Kumar

I am looking for motivated undergraduate students to join my group. Email rakeshk@uiuc.edu if you want to do research in computer architecture, reconfigurable computing, or hardware/software interface. See our research/publications pages (http://passat.crhc.uiuc.edu) for a sampling of our research. Please attach your CV as well.

Paul Kwiat

I routinely have talented undergraduates working in my group. They typically begin assisting with ongoing projects before taking responsibility for their own research project. Much of the research has resulted in published papers, with the students as co-authors.

Stephen Levinson

My lab is engaged in research intended to design and test anthropomorphic robots that learn as children do by experience with the environment. We are especially interested in language acquisition. Most undergraduates do not have the necessary background to do independent work in this area. However, there have been a few successful undergraduate projects related to the control hardware and software of the robots. Students who have an iterest in this area are encouraged to discuss potential projects with me.

Michael Loui

Undergraduates can participate in the following projects: (1) develop and assess role-play scenarios for teaching responsible conduct of research; (2) identify student misconceptions in digital logic and discrete mathematics; (3) assess the effectiveness of learning teams in ECE 110; and (4) characterize ethical issues in computational modeling and research. Student researchers should have excellent written and oral communication skills.

Joseph Lyding

Our group regularly involves undergraduate researchers in nanotechnology projects aimed at gaining an atomic level understanding of important phenomena that govern the development of nanoelectronic devices. Current projects involve the use of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to study carbon nanotubes, graphene and bonded silicon wafers. We are also involved in controlling the growth of carbon nanotubes.

Yi Ma

My main research interest is in finding the most pertinent mathematical principles for analyzing and understanding high-dimensional sensorial data such as images and videos, so that machines and human can make more intelligent decisions. The research endeavor has led me into the following specific areas: Computer Vision, Image Processing, and Data Analysis and Processing. Interesting research projects include: face recognition, image-based 3D modeling, and future content based search technologies.

Michael Oelze

Several projects are available for undergraduate research including the use of coding schemes to enhance ultrasonic imaging capabilities, devising improved measurement and calibration techniques for ultrasonic imaging, and quantifying materials using ultrasound. Students involved in these research opportunities will learn to characterize and calibrate ultrasonic sources, process data, and develop important laboratory skills.

Elyse Rosenbaum

My group builds transmission line pulse testers to deliver high amplitude, short duration current pulses to semiconductor devices. There are almost always opportunities for self-motivated undergraduates to contribute to the design and automation of these measurement systems.

William Sanders

As Director of the Information Trust Institute, I coordinated (with other faculty and staff) the development of a significant summer intern program. The program paired promising undergraduate students from around the world with ITI faculty members who are doing research on information trust topics (including security, reliability, safety, privacy, survivability, and correctness) that are relevant to the students' interests. Many of the summer interns had previously been limited to classroom work, and were excited by their experiences attacking real-world research problems and interacting with professors on an informal, individual basis. Several students reported that their internships had encouraged them to pursue graduate studies, particularly at Illinois, even if they had not previously considered postgraduate work. Faculty members also appreciated the program, since it not only provided direct support for their research efforts through the students' work, but also allowed them to build relationships with outstanding undergraduates, possibly leading to graduate work or other collaborations. In 2007, 18 students from around the U.S. and as far away as Serbia and India participated in the program. The internships, which are supported by state and federal funds, include stipends and, in some cases, an allocation for travel expenses. Interested undergraduate students in their second or third year at any university can apply for the program by following directions on the ITI web site (www.iti.uiuc.edu).

Gary Swenson

Three undergraduates were involved in our Research Group, in the development of new receivers for our Na wind/temperature lidar. The students were Ben Graf, Tony Mangognia, and Ben Krop. Ben Graf and Tony Mangognia are now graduate students. There contributions were outstanding as was the professional engineering problem solving experiences in working with our group. Tony is the lead TA for ECE 445 this semester.

Gregory Timp

My current research is at the nexus between three disciplines: semiconductor nanoelectronics, optics and life sciences. My activities are highly collaborative, interdisciplinary and wide ranging—spanning nanofabrication, nanoelectronics, atomic and molecular physics to cell biology. My recent contributions can be categorized succinctly as follows: (1) in nanoelectronics I leverage transistor physics and fabrication to study electron transport in semiconductors; (2) in nanobiotechonlogy I study molecular transport through synthetic nanopores in ultra-thin membranes; and (3) in laser-guided assembly of nanosystems I use holographic optical traps to precisely manipulate atoms, molecules and cells into useful arrays.

Nitin Vaidya

Prof. Vaidya's research group conducts research in the area of wireless networks. Opportunities are sometimes available for undergraduate students interested in working on projects involving experimentation with a wireless mesh testbed, and protocol design for wireless Networks. Suitable students will have taken ECE/CS 438; prior experience working with Linux is desired.

Venugopal Veeravalli

The Illinois Center for Wireless Systems (ICWS) supports undergraduate scholars who are interested in working on topics related to wireless communication. Please see www.icws.uiuc.edu.

Benjamin Wah

Undergraduate research opportunities are available in the areas of real-time multimedia on the Internet, voice-over-IP, real-time video, and financial engineering. Students interested should have a background in computer engineering or computer science. Some courses related to these research areas include computer networks, multimedia processing, signal processing, and optimization.