Dr. Garrett Rose, Dr. James Plank, Dr. Mark Dean and Graduate Researcher Parker Mitchell, of the TENNLab– Neuromorphic Architectures, Learning, Applications group, are featured in a new video, speaking about neural networks and neuromorphic computing. HDIAC, the Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center, has released this video, entitled “Neural Networks for the Homeland Defense & Security R&D Community of Interest.”
Parker Named Interim Dean of College
Lynne Parker, Tickle College of Engineering
Lynne E. Parker has been named interim dean of the Tickle College of Engineering.
Parker, the associate dean for faculty affairs and engagement for the college, takes the role effective Monday, May 7, as former dean Wayne T. Davis has been selected to lead the UT Knoxville campus as interim chancellor.
“It’s an honor for me to lead the college during this time of transition,” said Parker, a professor in the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “I look forward to working with TCE colleagues to maintain the momentum of the college until Dean Davis’s successor arrives.”
Parker earned a bachelor’s degree from Tennessee Tech University in 1983, a master’s from UT in 1988, and a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, all in computer science.
She is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a distinguished member of the Association for Computing Machinery, a senior member of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the American Society for Engineering Education. She has also served as a National Science Foundation division director for information and intelligent systems, and as a distinguished research and development staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
CS Honors Students Produce Short Film to Illustrate the Importance of Computer Science
The honors students in COSC 317 created this short film to illustrate the importance of Computer Science in real-world situations- specifically in law enforcement.
“The Great UTKCSPD Case”
One seemingly simple carjacking leads to a far more dangerous scheme. A retired detective must come back onto the force to work with a computer scientist and outsmart an elusive hacker in this educational and action packed short film.
2018 Gonzalez Family Awards Banquet- April 26, 2018
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- Dr. Kevin Tomsovic
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- Dr. Kamrul Islam
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- Wade Jenkins
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- Julia Elkins
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- Dr. R.C. and Connie Gonzalez
EECS Master’s Student Receives Best Oral Paper Presentation Award
Frances Garcia
Electrical Engineering student Frances Garcia received the Best Oral Paper Presentation award for her presentation on a paper titled “A SPICE Model for GaN-Gate Injection Transistor (GIT) at Room Temperature” at the Connecticut Symposium on Microelectronics & Optoelectronics (CMOC) 2018 held in New Haven, CT.
Garcia received her B.Sc. degree in physics from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA. She is currently working on her Master Sc. Degree in electrical engineering under supervision of Dr. Syed Kamrul Islam. She is a DOE Wideband Gap Trainee Fellow at the University of Tennessee. Her research interests include semiconductor device modeling and characterization and power electronics.
Cyberattacks can cripple cities, but Knoxville and Knox County say they’re prepared
Stella Sun, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science – UTK, discusses cyber security with the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Before city employees of Atlanta could even turn their computers back on last month, Knoxville’s IT Director Janet Wright sent an email to city staff: Stay vigilant.
Wright was responding to a cyberattack that crippled the region’s largest city and shut down city computers for five days.
The city was attacked with ransomware, a kind of malware that invades computers or computer networks and then locks them down, with the attackers demanding a ransom before they will unlock them.
Wright, and Knox County’s network and cybersecurity manager David Grindstaff, said the city and county are safe and their respective staffs work diligently to prevent what happened in Atlanta.
“We’re very aware, and (after Atlanta) we embarked on an employee education program to educate them on what emails might be unsafe and to look at and see if it was really sent from the person you thought it was from … before you click, think about what you’re clicking on,” Wright said.
Big Orange Power: Spencer Cochran Working on Third Engineering Degree
For Knoxville native Spencer Cochran, staying at UT for graduate school was a given.
Cochran began his journey at UT after graduating from Halls High School in 2011. During his undergraduate years, a few things pushed him toward an electrical engineering degree.
“I always thought I wanted to work on robotic prosthetics,” Cochran said. “The longer I was in school, the more I began to feel like electrical engineering was just as appropriate, if not more appropriate, for that dream.”
Announcing the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Garmin co-founder and UT alumnus Min H. Kao and his wife donated $12.5 million in 2005 towards the construction of the building that now bears his name. Dr. and Mrs. Kao gave an additional $5 million in endowments at that same time to enhance the department.
The UT Board of Trustees gave final approval to that agreement in 2008, which included a provision that the department housed in the building—electrical engineering and computer science—should also be named in his honor.
Kao requested that the naming not take place at the time, but the provision remained in effect until he so chose to make it public.
That time is now, and the department has officially become the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
“This is a big moment for our department and for UT,” said Min H. Kao Professor and department head Leon Tolbert. “Dr. Kao is and has been a tremendous supporter of ours, and we are proud to share his name.”
While programs, centers, and even colleges at UT have been named, it marks the first time that a department has undergone a naming.
Tickle College of Engineering Dean Wayne Davis thanked Kao for the continued support of his alma mater, and for the transformational changes he has helped to bring about on campus.
EECS Professor Becomes United States Citizen
Congratulations are in order for one of the newest citizens of the United States, who also happens to be a professor here in EECS: Dr. Jayne Wu! She became a naturalized citizen in February 2018.
Associate Professor Dr. Jayne Wu was born in Hefei, China, and lived in that same city until she went to Shanghai to pursue a Ph.D. in semiconductor devices, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 1999, she received her degree from CAS and left Shanghai for South Bend, Indiana. She was offered a scholarship to study for a Ph.D. in the area of MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Wu graduated in 2003 and then set her sights on becoming a faculty member at a research university. After doing a one-year postdoc, she joined what, at the time, was the ECE department at the University of Tennessee.
“I became a US citizen this February. This is a natural choice for me. I feel comfortable here. I have been in the US for 19 years. The last two steps of naturalization process include an interview in Memphis and an oath ceremony in Chattanooga. The latter took place this past February. I drove there myself. Honestly, I don’t feel different before and after the process. People treat me the same. May I attribute that to very tolerant culture of America?” Congratulations, Dr. Wu!
UT Electrical Engineering Ph.D. Student Awarded Student Travel Grant
28 promising graduate-level student engineers from around the world were recently awarded stipends for travel to and from the conference ISSCC 2018. Among them was UT Electrical Engineering Ph.D. student Samira Shamsir. She received the IEEE SSCS Student Travel Grants to attend this year’s conference in San Francisco.
Student Travel Grants + Women in Circuits Travel Grants
The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Student Travel Grant Award (STGA) program recognizes and promotes early career accomplishments in all solid-state circuits fields by supporting graduate student travel to SSCS-sponsored conferences: ISSCC and A-SSCC.
With the help of the STGA program, up-and-coming young engineers:
- may network with researchers from industry, academia, and government from all over the world
- learn about IC design breakthroughs, and about challenges that have not yet been solved or need to be addressed, in-person and in advance.
STGA applicants must be SSCS members, enrolled for at least a year in a PhD program, and be recommended by one professor. (A dissertation topic needs not yet to have been selected.)
Samira Shamsir received her B.Sc. degree (with honors) in electrical and electronic engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 2015. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research focus lies on the implementation of advanced biomedical sensors and systems and semiconductor device modeling. Samira has co-authored in several international journals and conference proceedings including International Journal of High Speed Electronics and Systems (IJHSES), IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering (RBME), and 2017 USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting (NRSM) in Boulder, CO. In addition, she presented her works on IEEE 60th Midwest Symposium of Circuit and System in Boston, MA and in IEEE Region-10 Humanitarian Technology Conference (R10HTC) in Bangladesh in 2017. She has achieved the J. Wallace and Katie Dean Fellowship and Department Excellency Fellowship in 2016 and the Min H. Kao Fellowship in 2017. She has been awarded the outstanding teaching assistant award in the year 2016-17 from her department and the chancellor’s citation award for extraordinary professional promise in 2017. In addition, she achieved several travel awards from Graduate Student Senate in UTK, PowerAmerica, and IEEE SSCS.