The Panorama project team includes Cornell faculty members (L-R) Zhiru Zhang (ECE), Christopher Batten (ECE), Adrian Sampson (CS) and Ed Suh (ECE, not pictured).

$5M grant will tackle pangenomics computing challenge

By: Eric Laine

Sometimes to create a breakthrough, researchers need a problem complex enough to demand a fundamentally new approach. A team led by Christopher Batten, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, found a truly big one: graph-based pangenomics. As scientists continue to catalogue genomic variations in everything from plants to people, today's computers are struggling to provide the power needed to find the secrets hidden within mass amounts of genomic data. Batten’s team is responding with the Panorama project, a five-year, $5 million NSF-funded effort to create... Read more

Whitman and Dove

Megan Whitman to join ECE as Admin Director, Jed Dove retires

[ In a message to the Cornell ECE community, Professor and Director Alyssa Apsel delivered the following announcment.] I am thrilled to announce that Megan Whitman will join the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering as our Director of Administration on December 1, 2021. Megan began her career at Cornell as a science communicator and project manager for the Lab of Ornithology. While working there she earned an MBA from the Johnson Graduate School of Management and transitioned to administration, first for the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, then for the College of... Read more

Teaching award recipients

Four ECE faculty receive teaching awards

Four ECE faculty members have been honored with Excellence in Advising and Teaching Awards by the College of Engineering. The annual awards recognize distinguished teaching and mentoring within the college, as well as leadership in path-breaking science and technical innovation. David Albonesi received the Fiona Ip Li ’78 and Donald Li ’75 Excellence in Teaching Award David Delchamps received the Kenneth A Goldman ’71 Excellence in Teaching Award Amal El-Ghazaly received the Michael Tien ’72 Excellence in Teaching Award Mert Sabuncu received the Michael Tien ’72 Excellence in Teaching Award "I... Read more

Brain image courtesy of Dr. Amy Kuceyeski.

Structural and Functional Alignment in the Brain Linked to Age, Sex and Cognition

The degree to which the brain’s wiring aligns with its patterns of activity can vary with sex and age, and may be genetic, suggests a study published by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The study finds that this alignment may also have implications on cognition. The results published in Nature Communications help shed light on one of the biggest mysteries in biology—how the brain works, according to senior author Dr. Amy Kuceyeski, associate professor of mathematics in the Department of Radiology and in neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell... Read more

Contents of the CURIE Academy project kits

Professor Christopher Batten prepares for a new kind of CURIE Academy

CURIE Academy is a one-week summer program for high school students who excel in math and science and are curious about careers in engineering. CURIE Academy scholars are young women of all backgrounds from all over the country who will be high school juniors or seniors. This year’s project, designed by ECE Professor Christopher Batten, is focused on the Internet of Things (IoT) and titled Computing at the Edge. The work is organized around several themes including early disaster warning, the smart home, a wearable health monitor and digital agriculture. Project kits including a variety of... Read more