UMass Lowell ECE Newsletter
May 2012
ECE Departmental Award Winners
On Friday, May 4th, during the Graduating Student Banquet, several top students in Electrical and Computer
Engineering were recognized, as were the best EE and CpE teachers for the academic year 2011/2012.
Prof. James E. Powers Award (Highest Academic Achievement)
Bonie T. Rosario (Computer Engineering)
May 2012
Prof. Carl A. Stevens Award (Highest Academic Achievement)
John J. Foley (Computer Engineering)
Faculty News
HKN (Eta Kappa Nu)
Bonie T. Rosario (Computer Engineering)
Outstanding Graduate Students
Sanping Li (Computer Engineering)
Nan Wu (Electrical Engineering)
Undergraduate Research Awards
Katherine A. Aho (Electrical Engineering)
Scott A. Wilson (Electrical Engineering)
Dean's Gold Medal for Highest Academic Achievement
Computer Engineering
Undergraduate: Bonie T. Rosario
Graduate: Dongchao Xu
Electrical Engineering
Undergraduate: Khalid Kanane
Graduate: Rachel E. Wakim, Osman K. Ekekon
Outstanding Teacher Award
Michael Geiger (Computer Engineering)
Oliver Ibe (Electrical Engineering)
Prof. Salameh presents keynote
1
Prof. Luo judges robotics competition
2
Prof. Prasad
recognized News
by ASEE
Student
2
Prof. Akyurtlu receives AFOSR grant
2
Recent ECE publications
3
Student News
Profiles: Outstanding Graduate
Student Award winners
4
Ph.D. qualifier changes
4
Recent Ph.D. defenses
5
AETC news and notes
5
Got News? Please contact Dr. Michael
Geiger, ECE Newsletter Editor, at
Michael_Geiger@uml.edu
Prof. Ziyad Salameh Presents Keynote Address
Professor Ziyad Salameh was the keynote speaker at the 2011 IEEE Jordan Conference on
Applied Electrical Engineering and Computing Technologies (AEECT), held at the
University of Jordan from December 6-8. The topic of Professor Salameh’s talk was
“Vehicle to Grid Technology (V2G).” This international conference provides a unique
forum to discuss practical approaches and state of the art findings in using applied
electrical engineering and computing technologies to solve national problems that face
Jordan and other developing countries.
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UMass Lowell ECE Newsletter
May 2012
Prof. Yan Luo Judges Boston FIRST Robotics Competition
Professor Yan Luo served on the judges’ panel
of the 2012 Boston FIRST robotics competition,
held at Boston University on March 23-24. The
largest robotics competition in Boston, FIRST
works with mentors in business, education and
government to make science as cool as sports.
Prof. Yan Luo (3rd from right) with other Boston FIRST judges
Source: http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2012/03/30/boston-first-robotics2012-rebound-rumble-in-pictures/6/
FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of
Science and Technology) was founded in 1989.
Based in Manchester, NH, the charity designs
programs to motivate young people to pursue
science, technology, engineering, and math
opportunities, while building confidence,
knowledge, and life skills.
The Boston FIRST competition's 2012 theme was “Rebound Rumble,” a game played by two competing
alliances on a flat, 27 x 54 foot field. Each alliance consists of three robots that compete to score as many
basketballs into their hoops as they can during a 2 minute, 15 second match, with higher hoops worth more
points. 53 teams from four countries (US, Canada, Mexico, Turkey) participated in this year's competition.
Prof. Luo served on the 19-member judges’ panel, which also consisted of MIT faculty members and robotics
startup executives. They watched the games played by enthusiastic students and evaluated the teams for
awards based on creativity, quality, and teamwork.
More information is available at http://www.bostonfirst.org/
Prof. Kanti Prasad Recognized by ASEE
Professor Kanti Prasad was recently recognized with two awards from the American
Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)—the “Best Teacher Award for the Northeast
Section” and the “Best Campus Representative for Zone 1.”
Prof. Prasad served as Vice Chair of the ASEE NE Section Conference at UMass Lowell on
April 27-28. The conference had 388 attendees, including nearly 200 students. Prof. Prasad’s
role included securing conference sponsorship from Analog Devices and Goodrich.
Prof. Alkim Akyurtlu Receives $650k AFOSR Grant
Professor Alkim Akyurtlu recently received a new grant as sole PI from the Air Force Office
of Scientific Research (AFOSR). The title of the grant is, “Homogeneous Negative Refractive
Index Materials with Parametric Loss.”
This grant, which covers the period May 1, 2012 to April 30, 2015, provides $650,399 in
funding for Prof. Akyurtlu’s research.
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UMass Lowell ECE Newsletter
May 2012
Recent ECE Publications
ECE Department faculty members and their students recently published the following journal and conference papers:
Professor Martin Margala
V. Kaushal, I. Íñiguez-de-la-Torre, T. González, J. Mateos, B. Lee, V. Misra, M. Margala, “Effects of a high-k dielectric on the
performance of III-V Ballistic Deflection Transistors,” accepted for publication in IEEE Electron Devices Letters, April 2012.
K. Kulovic, M. Margala, “Time Based Embedded Test Instrument with Concurrent Voltage Measurement Capability,” accepted
for publication in Journal of Electronic Testing: Theory and Applications, Springer, April 2012.
W. Vanderbauwhede, S. Chalamalasetti and M. Margala,“Throughput Analysis for a High-Performance FPGA-Accelerated
Real-time Search Application”, accepted for publication in International Journal of Reconfigurable Computing, scheduled
for publication April 2012.
S. Purohit, M. Margala, “Investigating the Impact of Logic and Circuit Implementation on Full Adder Performance”, accepted
by IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems, scheduled publication April 2012, available on-line since May 2011.
I. Iñiguez-de-la-Torre, S. Purohit, V. Kaushal, M. Margala, M. Gong, R. Sobolewski, T. Gonzales, J. Mateos, " Exploring Digital
Logic Design Using Nano-Devices Through Monte Carlo Simulations", IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, 10(6)
pp.1337-1446, Dec. 2011.
Professor Samson Mil’shtein
J. Valenzuela and S. Mil’shtein, “Applications of a Navigation Instrument Based on a Micro-Motor Driven by Photons” Sensors
and Transducers Jour. 13(1), pp 10-20, 2011
S. Mil’shtein and J. Palma, "FinFET with Constant Transconductance", Microelectr. and Solid State Electr.accepted volume 3,
May, (2012),
S. Mil’shtein, A. Pillai, S. Sharma, G. Yessayan, “Design of Cascaded Low Cost Solar Cell with CuO substrate”, accepted , Intern.
Conf. on Physics of Semiconductors. ICPS-2012
S. Milshtein, and L. Devaraconda " Design of SiC MESFET with Constant Gm " accepted , Intern. Conf. on Physics of
Semiconductors. ICPS-2012
Professor Ziyad Salameh
A. Cultura and Ziyad Salameh,” Dynamic Performance of Skystream Wind Turbine-Generator Subjected to a Wind Gust." IEEE
Int’l. Conference on Industrial Technology, March 19-21, 2012, Athens, Greece.
D. Patel and Z. Salameh ,” PV Powered Water Well in Rajasthan-India.” IEEE Int’l. Conference on Industrial Technology, March
19-21, 2012, Athens, Greece.
Professor Xingwei Wang
N. Wu, X. Zou, Y. Tian, J. Fitek, M. Maffeo, C. Niezrecki, J. Chen, and X. Wang, "Ultra-fast fiber optic pressure sensor for blast
event measurements." Accepted to appear in Measurement Science & Technology, 2012.
X. Zou, A. Chao, Y. Tian, N. Wu, H. Zhang, T. Yu, and X. Wang, "An experimental study on the concrete hydration process
using Fabry-Perot fiber optic temperature sensors", Measurement, 45(5), 1077–82, 2012.
X. Zou, A. Chao, N. Wu, Y. Tian, T. Yu, and X. Wang ''Miniature fiber optic temperature sensor for concrete structural health
monitoring'', Accepted by SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation conf., San Diego, CA, 13
March 2012.
N. Wu, Y. Tian, X. Zou, and X. Wang ''Study of the compact fiber optic photoacoustic ultrasonic transducer'', Accepted by SPIE
Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation conf., San Diego, CA, 13 March 2012.
X. Zou, W. Cong, N. Wu, Z. Pei, and X. Wang ''Novel fiber optic sensors and their application on cutting temperature
measurement in rotary ultrasonic machining of titanium'', Accepted by ASME Int’l Symposium on Flexible Automation
(ISFA2012).
N. Wu, Y. Tian, X. Zou, and X. Wang ''Photoacoustic generation using gold nanostructure fabricated by femtosecond laser'',
Accepted by ASME Int’l Symposium on Flexible Automation (ISFA2012).
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UMass Lowell ECE Newsletter
May 2012
Graduate Student Profiles: Outstanding Graduate Student Award Winners
For this newsletter issue, we present profiles of this year’s Outstanding Graduate Student Award winners:
Sanping Li, our award winner in Computer Engineering, has
worked with Professor Yan Luo on sponsored research projects
since Fall 2008. He advanced to PhD candidacy in Spring 2009.
His recent work has focused on real-time network traffic
classification with machine-learning algorithms and acceleration
of these algorithms through multicore and application specific
processors.
Since he joined UMass Lowell, Sanping has published four peerreviewed research papers in top ranked ACM/IEEE conferences
in the computer architecture and network areas, including a Best
Paper Award winner in the computer architecture track of the
IEEE NAS conference in 2010. He was awarded a travel grant to
the NSF GENI Engineering Conference in 2009. He has also
contributed to two of Prof. Luo’s grant proposals.
Nan Wu, our award winner in Electrical Engineering, joined the
research group of Professor Xingwei Wang as a Research
Assistant in 2008. His doctoral research focuses on the study of a
fiber optic ultrasonic transducer using photoacoustic principle;
he defended his dissertation proposal this past January .
Nan’s publications include one first author journal paper in one
of the highest impact journals in his research area. He has also
published ten first author conference papers, as well as coauthored six peer-reviewed journal articles and eleven
conference papers. He is also a co-inventor on two patents. Nan
has presented seven talks at SPIE conferences, including SPIE
Defense Security and Sensing, and SPIE Smart Structures and
Materials & Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.
Nan received the Professional Development Award from the
Graduate Student Association of UMass Lowell in 2010, and the
NSF Student Scholarship for an ANCRiSST short course in 2009.
Ph.D. Qualifier Changes
An important note for doctoral students: the format of the ECE Ph.D. Qualifying Exam has changed. For more
details on these changes, please go to http://www.uml.edu/ecegrad and read the appropriate section of the
Doctoral Handbook.
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UMass Lowell ECE Newsletter
May 2012
Recent Ph.D. Defenses
Congratulations to the following students, who recently defended their Ph.D. dissertations:
Dr. Ashok Solanki (adviser: Prof. Kanti Prasad) successfully defended his dissertation on March 22nd. His
research focus was BIST and BIC for Advanced MEMS Devices with a special testing methodology using
electrical stimulus. Ashok started at Analog Devices on April 2 as a Design & Test Engineer in the Advanced
Development Group.
Dr. Kemal Kulovic successfully defended his dissertation, “New Embedded Test Methods for Systems-onChip,” on April 17. His Ph.D. committee consisted of his adviser, Prof. Martin Margala, Prof. George Cheney,
and Prof. Gordon Roberts, his external examiner from McGill University.
AETC News and Notes
First, a humorous look at two very important events:
Anup Pillai with his wife Kavitha
Winter months are known to bring pandemics of flu and other viruses.
However, this past December, some AETC students were bitten by a new
“virus,” as they did marry one after another. The potential negative impact of
these events is easy to evaluate. At first, the married student loses his interest to
do research and any other activities. With time, the individual’s analytical ability
degrades, but, after two months, this ability slowly returns and the
“thermodynamic equilibrium” settles. These facts are statistically proven, and
academic supervisors should take these situations into account.
In the month of December, two AETC graduate students, Anup Pillai and Vishal
Kunnil, were married in a span of 10 days. For that, both Anup and Vishal spent
two years of RA assistantship money to impress their brides and to travel to
India. On behalf of AETC faculty and staff, we wish each of these two young
families a long, happy life together and, most of all, love and harmony.
Vishal Kunnil and his wife Neeraja
Other AETC news of note:
•
In January, Dr. John Palma, who graduated in Spring 2011, was hired as
a Lecturer in the ECE Department. Dr. Palma joins Professor Joel
Therrien as AETC alumni currently working in the department.
•
In February, AETC undergraduate student Scott Wilson was accepted to
the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University.
•
In March, former AETC graduate student Paula Bustos, who is now an
engineer with the Leadership Program at BAE, was nominated for an
achievement award by AMES.
Dr. John Palma teaching the
basics of circuit theory
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