Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel

Welcome to the site of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Drexel University, one of the most dynamic and innovative communities of scholars and researchers in the nation. We are a major resource of high-quality professionals in all areas of ECE, from original investigators in nanotechnology, robotics, multimedia and clean energy - to analysts who use optimization techniques to study the stock markets, and telecommunication engineers who work on new wearable communication devices for first responders.

ECE faculty member receives Department of Energy grant

Dr. Adam Fontecchio has received a new Department of Energy STTR Phase 2 grant for $750,000 entitled "H-PDLC Tunable Filter for Hyperspectral Imaging.".  The Drexel portion of the 2 year project budget is $375,000.

Working with an industrial collaborator, Optra Inc. of Topsfield, Massachusetts, this project will develop an extremely fast spectrally tunable filter for remote surveillance applications such as airborne detection of activities associated with the production of weapons of mass destruction.  When such a tunable filter is used in concert with imaging optics and a focal plane array, the result is a high speed hyperspectral imager that enables advanced detection and identification capabilities over basic imaging systems.  A key attribute for this project is the ability to rapidly tune between the visible spectal bands to support hyperspectral imaging from a moving platform such as an aircraft.

Posted December 8, 2009.

DrexelCast: Orchestra Concert Event on November 21

The Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory, in partnership with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Specticast, will host five orchestra concert broadcast presentations on the Drexel campus throughout the 2009-2010 performance season.  These internet-based broadcasts will be presented in high definition in the Mitchell Auditorium in the Bossone Research Enterprise Center located at 3120 Market Street and are free and open to the public.

The next DrexelCast will take place on Saturday, November 21 at 8 p.m. and is Mahler's Seventh Symphony, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach.  For more information about this and the other presentations, please visit the DrexelCast website. 

These DrexelCast presentations are sponsored by the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, the Penoni Honors College and the College of Engineering.

Posted November 18, 2009.

ECE Department Head elected President of IEEE

Dr. Moshe Kam, Robert Quinn Professor and Department Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, was elected by the membership of IEEE to serve as President-Elect in 2010.  He will serve as the 49th President and CEO of IEEE in 2011, and as Past President in 2012.  These positions make him also a voting member of the IEEE Board of Directors and the IEEE Assembly and a Corporate Officer.  All positions are, however, unpaid volunteer positions.

Kam, 54, leads Drexel's Center for Excellence in Information Assurance Education, and directs the Data Fusion Laboratory - a research laboratory founded 20 years ago to investigate radar target classification.  His professional interests are in wireless communications, dynamic systems, robotics and navigation, detection and estimation, and engineering education.  His research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), The National Institute for Justice (NIJ), DARPA, ONR, NSWC, US Army - CERDEC, Lockheed Martin and GlaxoSmithKline.

Kam received his B.Sc. degree in 1977 (Tel Aviv University), and his M.S. (1985) and Ph.D. (1987) degrees from Drexel University, all in electrical engineering.  He is an IEEE Fellow "for contributions to the theory of decision fusion and distributed detection" (2001) and a recipient of an IEEE Third Millennium Medal.  He served as an NSF Presidential Young Investigator (1990-1995) and is a Professional Engineer licensed in Pennsylvania.  His IEEE volunteer positions included Chair of the IEEE Philadelphia Section (1998), Director of Region 2 (Eastern USA, 2003-2004) and Vice President for Edcuational Activities (2005-2007).

Incorporated in New York State, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an international organization with more than 380,000 professional and student members from over 160 countries.  IEEE maintains 38 technical societies dedicated to specific technical topics, such as signal processing and consumer electronics.  The IEEE has also developed over 900 industrial standards, and is responsible for 30% of the world's technical documentation on electrical engineering, computers, and control systems.  IEEE manages more than 900 technical and scientific conferences every year.

IEEE was established in 1963 from a merger between the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, established 1884) and the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, established 1912).  Among Presidents of these organizations were Alexander Graham Bell (1891-2), Charles P. Steinmetz (1901-2), Lee de Forest (1930) and Frederick E. Terman (1942).  There was only one other IEEE President who served on Drexel University faculty, Bruce A. Eisenstein (2000).

Posted October 8, 2009.