Welcome to 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.
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ECE to launch MS degree program in Cybersecurity
Drexel University will launch a masters of science in cybersecurity degree program in September 2013. Faculty in the College of Engineering, the Goodwin College for Professional Studies and the College of Information Sciences and Technology developed the program in partnership with government and private organizations including the National Security Agency. The goal of the program is to develop and disseminate deeply technical curricula that can be used by Drexel and other institutions to create a highly trained workforce to secure the nation's cyber-infrastructure. The new program is supported as part of a National Science Foundation grant to advance cybersecurity education and is leveraging Drexel's designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.
Given the rapid growth in the use of the Internet and wireless networks for communication and data exchange, it is essential that new engineers be trained in the latest technology to mitigate cyber-crimes and other illegal intrusions into the information infrastructure, said Dr. Kapil R. Dandekar, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and principal investigator of the grant from the National Science Foundation.
The 45-credit curriculum will be targeted toward students with backgrounds in computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, telecommunications and other related technical fields. The program consists of core courses designed to build theoretical foundations in computer networking, mathematics, policy, ethics, privacy and legal issues along with electives and laboratories in specialized technical areas including applied cryptography, web security and network anomaly detection. In addition, students will have the opportunity to participate in a six-month co-op program and gain research laboratory experience across multiple sub-disciplines in cybersecurity through a new research rotations program inspired by medical school rotations.
Leveraging Drexels unique strengths in translational research and cooperative education, through this degree program, we will increase the pool of cyber professionals available to the public and private sectors to face future cybersecurity challenges, said Dandekar.
For more information on the program or to apply, please click here .
Posted May 10, 2013.
ECE faculty wins second Knight Arts Challenge fund
Drexel University's Expressive & Creative Interaction Technologies (ExCITe) Center is taking a step forward in efforts at the intersection of the arts, technology and science thanks to a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The ExCITe Centers proposal was chosen from a field of more than 1,300 initial submissions to receive funding from the foundations Knight Arts Challenge. Support will help engage and develop new audiences for the arts by developing a series of live music concerts enhanced with audio-visual technologies spanning various musical genres.
The focus will be on three major programming initiatives at the ExCITe Center: producing technologically augmented and interactive live concerts like the recent "Science of Jazz" concert during the Philadelphia Science Festival; creating hackathons for arts-related apps; and launching an artist-in-residence program to co-develop new works. Each element is an integral part of ExCITes mission to create a space where creative people can work together on innovative projects directly benefitting the Philadelphia region.
"Everyone loves live music, and most of us carry a powerful computing device -a smartphone- in our pockets," said Dr. Youngmoo Kim , director of the ExCITe Center. "The opportunity to explore this intersection for greater understanding and enjoyment of music, particularly jazz and classical performances, has yet to be fully realized."
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundations Knight Arts Challenge funds innovative projects that engage and enrich Philadelphias communities. More than 1,300 organizations, groups and individuals applied for the Philadelphia Arts Challenge this year. The field was narrowed to 69 finalists, from which ExCITes proposal was one of 43 chosen for an award.
This award also represents the continuation of a partnership between Drexel and Knight Foundation over the past several years to support the arts in Philadelphia. Kim received a Knight Arts Challenge award in 2011 to develop an interactive smartphone app for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Students at Drexels Pennoni Honors College write a serial arts column for the Philadelphia Daily News as part of a grant from the Knight Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Posted May 3, 2012.
ECE student wins first place at IEEE Region 2 Student Activity Conference
At the 2013 IEEE Region 2 Student Activities Conference held at West Virginia University in April, Drexel ECE sophomore Alexander Pietrocola placed first in the Student Paper & Presentation competition.
His research paper, entitled Dynamic Control of an Omnidirectional Self Restoring Ball Balancing Robot, was an accumulation of the research Alexander has been working on since Summer 2012. The paper describes various control algorithms used to stabilize an autonomous robot that balances and moves on a spherical ball, also known as Ballbot.
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Region 2 Student Activities Conference is an annual regional conference with students from IEEE student branches spanning Ohio to New Jersey and down to Virginia. Student branches are invited to this weekend-long event with workshops and competitions designed to build better branches and develop and show off their engineering skills. Other competitions at the conference were ethics, physics, and brown bag competitions, as well as a project showcase. Alexander represented Drexels IEEE student branch and placed first ahead of senior teams from George Mason University, University of Maryland, Gannon College, and Lafayette College.
Posted May 3, 2013.
ECE faculty member selected as IEEE Delaware Valley Young Electrical Engineer of the Year Award
The Philadelphia section of IEEE on April 13 awarded Drexel ECE Professor Dr. Baris Taskin with one of three Young Electrical Engineer of the Year awards for creative and recognized important works by an engineer under 35 years of age.
Dr. Taskin has been in the department since 2005, after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. He heads the Drexel VLSI lab, and is widely published in the field. He also has headed up a REU site on campus for undergraduates in the fields of power and energy, which has specifically benefited underrepresented populations in engineering.
The department congratulates Dr. Taskin on this award and his many achievements that led to this honor.
Posted May 3, 2013.
ECE student co-op highlights - spring/summer 2013
This spring and summer terms, our ECE students will be working for over 50 different in their co-op positions, including Lockheed Martin, Exelon Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc., PJM Interconnection LLC, NAVSEA, Comcast, Ewing Cole, and Motorola. Two highlights are computer engineering student Tajik Choudhury, who is at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer, and Tamine Mokdissi, also a computer engineering student, who is doing her spring term co-op as a research assistant in Drexel's Privacy, Security and Automation Lab and will be spending her summer in the Microsoft Explore Summer Internship Program in Seattle, WA.
Posted May 2, 2013.
ECE Celebrates Award winners at the annual ECE Honors Dinner
The ECE Department celebrated the success of twenty-nine students at the annual ECE Honors Dinner on March 5 th at Drexel’s Paul Peck Alumni Center. Dr. Moshe Kam and Dr. Tim Kurzweg distributed award certificates to the winners of the Drexel merit based scholarships, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power & Energy Society (PES) Scholarship Plus Initiative™. ECE Faculty, as well as parents, siblings and friends, 
attended the dinner to congratulate the ECE students. The Drexel scholarships that were awarded included the Suryadevara Basavaiah Family Educational Fund, Boeing, Harry E. Muchnic, Milton Rosenberg, Thomas W. Moore, Nathan Swerdlow and the F. C. "Scotty" Powell Awards.
Posted March 15, 2013.
ECE faculty member feature in American Nuclear Society Publication
Drexel auxiliary faculty member Christopher Peters, teaching professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department, has been featured in the January 2013 issue of Nuclear News magazine, an American Nuclear Society Publication. The article titled, “Video Games in the Classroom” highlights Peters’ work using aspects of modern gaming technology, such as a Microsoft Kinect motion sensor, to project lessons onto a large screen to teach a class. Systems such as the Xbox 360, when in conjunction with a Microsoft Kinect have the capability to capture and display 2-D and 3-D images that can be used to show students a real example of a nuclear power reactor, which can be manipulated and controlled by the user.
“It’s a little piece of what I call technological heaven,” says Peters.
As part of a senior design project, students studying nuclear engineering are using the simulator to gain a better understanding of how nuclear power reactors work in the safety of a classroom. Four ECE students, Paul Martin, Like Lui, Paul Rua and Josh Waldman, developed the initial idea of using a gaming console to help teach and convinced Peters to give this low cost option a try.
“But then I did a little research on it and found that this piece of equipment is being used to defuse bombs and to do surgery,” says Peters. “This generation of students has a different learning modality. They’re more visual. They like to be interactive and have the immersive effect.”
Peters presented his findings at the 2012 ANS Annual Meeting in June to peers and members. To view a video of the simulator using Microsoft Kinect at Drexel, click here. For more information on the American Nuclear Society Publication, Nuclear News, view the official site here.
Posted January 23, 2013.
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