Two graduating seniors recognized for academics and service

From among the accomplished members of the Cornell ECE Class of 2020, two seniors, Katie Bradford and Kevin Ying, have been selected to receive prestigious year-end awards. The William S. Einwechter Award Katie Bradford ’20 will receive the William S. Einwechter Award, presented annually to a member of the ECE Senior Class who has demonstrated distinguished records of service to ECE and its students, to the College and to the University. Bradford’s work in ECE focused on hardware, ranging from UAVs with the CUAir autonomous aerial system project team, to robotics projects in the Maker Lab... Read more

Yongjin Cho’s paper is Editor’s Pick in Applied Physics Letters

Yongjin Cho, research associate in electrical and computer engineering, is the lead author of a new paper published by the journal Applied Physics Letters. The paper titled “Molecular beam homoepitaxy on bulk AlN enabled by aluminum-assisted surface cleaning” was selected as an Editor’s Pick. ECE Professors Huili Grace Xing and Debdeep Jena are among the paper’s co-authors. The research examines the effectiveness using aluminum to assist in the cleaning of native surface oxides of bulk AlN. “Native surface oxide of AlN substrate has been a major obstacle to the success of high quality sample... Read more

Christina Delimitrou receives Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship

Delimitrou is an assistant professor and the John and Norma Balen Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in electrical and computer engineering. She leads the Systems, Architecture, and Infrastructure Lab (SAIL) and her research interests include cloud computing, computer architecture and applied machine learning. The Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship recognizes promising new faculty, whose exceptional talent for research and innovation identifies them as emerging leaders in their fields. This year, 185 individuals were nominated and five were selected. Delimitrou’s recent work focuses on... Read more

Cloud Computing for Agility, Complexity, and Speed

By: J. Edward Anthony

Cloud computing has become synonymous with the internet itself. If you watch Netflix, call an Uber, or meet on Zoom, a cloud data center is delivering the processing power and data storage to make your experience possible. “But cloud systems have a serious problem,” says Christina Delimitrou, Electrical and Computer Engineering, “—unpredictability.” As a business service, cloud computing has provided the infrastructure for a veritable tech explosion in the past decade. An internet startup can purchase a small plot in the cloud and then expand as business grows, all without buying or... Read more

Cornell community rallies to make masks to address PPE shortages

By: Alek Mehta

Faculty, students and staff in the College of Art, Architecture and Planning joined the College of Engineering to assist an urgent request by Weill Cornell Medicine to rapidly 3D-print visors to protect doctors at the forefront of the COVID-19 health crisis. Jenny Sabin, the associate dean of AAP, told The Sun that Prof. Kirstin Hagelskjaer Petersen, electrical and computer engineering, contacted her to help Weill Cornell Medicine. They estimated that they needed 20,000 to 50,000 visors daily and needed them from anyone who could help. Read more

ECE undergrad’s NSF fellowship will support Ph.D. research

Eric Lei ’20, a student of ECE Associate Professor Christoph Studer, has been awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students pursuing degrees in STEM fields. The program’s goal is to help ensure the vitality and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States. The GRFP provides three years of educational support for individuals whose research has demonstrated potential for significant achievements in their fields. The program... Read more

Cross-campus effort rushes 3D-printed gear to Weill Cornell

By: Melanie Lefkowitz

Using Weill Cornell Medicine’s specifications, faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members are 3D printing frames for face visors, ideally with PET or PETG (polyethylene terephthalate, or polyethylene terephthalate glycol-modified) filament, which can be sterilized under ultraviolet light. In fewer than three days, she said, the effort grew from two labs printing at AAP into a network of faculty, staff, students, alumni and other institutions and architecture departments across the country. Read more

Wagner explores communication feedback links with new NSF grant

Aaron Wagner, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) award from the National Science Foundation for his project titled "A Theoretical Foundation For Practical Communication with Feedback." The project will develop practical methods to improve communication system performance by using feedback links and mathematically characterizing optimal methods for using feedback links. The improved understanding of how to use feedback should improve wireless communication technologies... Read more

Goldfeld receives NSF award for analysis of deep neural networks

Ziv Goldfeld, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research Initiation Initiative (CRII) award from the National Science Foundation for his project titled “New Paradigms in Generalization and Information-Theoretic Analysis of Deep Neural Networks.“ The project will study how information is processed in deep neural networks (DNNs) classifiers to make the decisions of AI mechanisms more transparent to end users and other stakeholders. The main objective is to shed light on the process by which DNNs... Read more