The Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

The poster submission of first-year EECS graduate student Abijith Kowligy to the Heraeus Foundation seminar on “Micro & Macro-Cavities in Classical and Non-classical Light” was upgraded by the organizers to an oral presentation – an honor given to a “few” of about 70 or so submissions from around the world. This is a distinct honor for a first-year graduate student.  Abijith earned a double BS from Northwestern University in EECS and Physics in 2011.

Wilhelm und Elsie Heraeus Foundation seminars are organized by the German Physical Society (Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft) on topics of current interest and held at the Physikzentrum, in Bad Honnef (near Bonn/Cologne), Germany. More details about this particular topic can be found at:

http://www.mpl.mpg.de/mpf/php/abteilung1/index.php?lang=en&show=conferences&in=heraeus492.

Dibyendu Dey won the audience favorite award in the category of Laboratory Research in Applied Research Day organized by InNUvation  (http://innuvation.org/). The event took place on 9th of March at Silverman Hall on the Evanston campus on Northwestern University. Dibyendu presented his research titled "Towards an integrated Plasmonic Bio-sensor". InNUvation is an organization which promotes innovation and entrepreneurship at Northwestern University.

The students in Prof. Yan Chen's EECS 354 (Network Penetration & Security) class won 8th place out of 72 teams worldwide for the iCTF (international Capture the Flag) competition, the largest educational live hacking contest in the world. This year there were almost a thousand attendees.

SPIE has awarded a $2000 Educational Scholarship in Optical Science and Engineering to John Kohoutek, graduate student in electrical engineering at Northwestern University. Kohoutek's interest is in discovering ways to simulate the casimir force for arbitrary layer structures and three dimensional geometries and applying those simulations to novel devices.

During his summer internship at GM's Battery and Hybrid division, EECS undergraduate Gabriel Peal developed a diagnostic tool for servicing battery packs in Chevy Volts.  Gabriel's standalone tool will replace tools that cost up to $50,000, but itself costs less than $100 in parts. 

Gabriel says: "The need for my project arose as it became clear how little infrastructure there is to service electric vehicles."

"General Motors has stationed battery packs across the country ready to be shipped to customers who have had problems with the battery packs in their Chevy Volt.  However, every single battery pack has to be shipped back to Michigan on an annual basis to be checked and serviced regardless of whether or not they actually need servicing," Gabriel explains.  "Once they arrive in Michigan, they are serviced with tools that cost upwards of $50,000." 
 
His tool is portable and easy to manufacture, so service workers can diagnose and fix battery packs on-site across the country, preventing the need to ship large quantities of batteries back to Michigan annually.   

Gabriel is a junior working on his B.S. in electrical engineering and concurrently earning a Masters degree in computer science, plays on the club Ultimate Frisbee team, and is working in Prof. Bryan Pardo's Interactive Audio Lab.  

Computer Science major Brad Weinberger has been awarded an Academic Year URG in the fifth review cycle of the year for his project, “Lowering the Access Barrier to Advanced Rendering Technologies”.  Brad's Faculty Advisor is Prof. Jack Tumblin of EECS.

CS undergraduate Andrew Gocke has been awarded Honorable Mention in the nationwide CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards 2011 competition.    Andy has made substantial contributions to multiple research projects in the EECS department, says Prof. Peter Dinda.

Patrick McNally, a graduate student in the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University is one of the Illinois Technology Foundation's "50 For The Future", a program honoring Illinois' most promising technology students.

Can Bayram, a graduate student at the Center for Quantum Devices at Northwestern University in Ilinois, shared the 2009 award with Michael Grant after his work developing semiconductor-based energy-efficient high performance optoelectronic device technologies impressed the judges.

EECS undergraduate research advisee Samantha Dale Strasser was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study for a year at Cambridge University starting in the fall of 2011.  She was one of 14 graduating seniors selected nationwide out of 100 candidates from the 50 top research universities.

Over the past nine weeks, six twelve-year-old students  in West Rogers Park learned about cartesian planes, the pythagorean theorem, function composition, variables, data types and partial functions --  all through a functional programming curriculum taught by volunteer Northwestern students!

Nikola Borisov, a computer science major in EECS has been selected one of the "50 For The Future," a program honoring Illinois' most promising technology students sponsored by the Illinois Technology Foundation.