2024 ECE Day: Seminar and Student Research Competition

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Illinois Institute of Technology recently held its annual ECE Day event on April 5, 2024. This day-long event showcased the department’s commitment to innovation, collaboration, and academic excellence among its students, faculty, and External Advisory Board.

Eighty students across all degree levels showcased their research, and 45 were named as finalists in first, second, or third place.

ECE Day is the culmination of various activities, including a strategic meeting with the ECE External Advisory Board, research panels, a seminar, and student research competitions.

The seminar was given by Kenneth Zdunek (Ph.D. EE ’91), senior vice president and chief technology officer at Roberson and Associates and adjunct faculty at Illinois Tech. His seminar was titled “Adventures in Wireless System Design.”

“We would like to thank Ken Zdunek for his inspiring seminar presentation,” says Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie. “Ken is an inventor and leader in the analysis, research, and design of wireless networks and systems. He holds 17 patents and was recognized as an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers fellow in 2008 for his leadership in integrated voice and data systems. In his seminar, Ken shared valuable lessons and insights from his many years of experience in the field of wireless communications.”

The event culminated in an award ceremony and reception, where the winners of the student research competition were announced. Congratulations to the following winners:

Undergraduate Best Team Design Projects—Spring 2024

First Place—Samuel Karson (CPE, M.S. CPE 4th Year), Nathan Cook (CPE, M.A.S. ECE 5th Year), and Oumou Toure (EE 5th Year)—“Risk Watch Fall Detection”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Inika Singh (CPE 4th Year), Elthon Alvarez (EE 4th Year), Jennifer Duarte (CPE 4th Year), and Huy Cao (CPE, M.S. CPE 4th Year)—“SmartSlice Station”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—Joanna Findura (CPE, M.S. CPE 5th Year), Sariuna Iumozhapova (CYSE 5th Year), and Yuhao Zhou (EE, M.S. EE 4th Year)—“AquaTrack Fish Tank Monitor”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Undergraduate Best Team Design Projects—Fall 2023

First Place—Gabriel Roskowski (CPE 4th Year), Robert John Soler (CYSE, M.A.S. CYF 4th Year), and Alae Moudni (CPE 4th Year)—“Automated Security Patrolling Robot”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Lukas Klicker (EE, M.S. CPE 5th Year), Joanna Findura (CPE, M.S. CPE 5th Year), and Alex Maliwat (CPE, M.Eng. Artificial Intelligence for Computer Vision and Control 5th Year)—“Infant Monitoring System”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—James Benson (EE, M.S. CPE 5th Year), Guillaume Hansen (M.A.S. ECE), Muhammad Rafay Danish (CPE, M.A.S. AI 5th Year), and Khoa Truong (CPE 4th Year)—“Smart Robot Air Quality Monitor”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Master’s Best Individual Research Projects

First Place—Pin-Chien Chen (M.S. EE 2nd Year)—“Enhanced Fake News Detection Through Dataset Integration”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yu Cheng

Second Place—Gundrapally Achyuth (M.S. EE 1st Year)—“Ultra Low Power Techniques for Object Detection on the RT-Level”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ken Choi

Third Place—Yuan Ma (M.S. EE 2nd Year)—“Detection Transformer with Efficient Multiscale Decoder”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Joohee Kim

Master’s Best Team Research Projects

First Place—Spandana Korabandi (M.S. EE 1st Year), Anirudh Pusuluri (M.A.S. Computer Engineering in Internet of Things 1st Year), and Akshaykumar Swarnakumar (M.A.S. ECE 2nd Year)—“IoT Enabled EcoSentry Bin”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place—Iker Alcorta (M.A.S. Computer Engineering in Internet of Things 1st Year) and Igor Bogaz (M.A.S. Computer Engineering in Internet of Things 1st Year)—“Smart Soccer Boots”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—Timothy Seibert (CPE, M.S. CPE 4th Year) and Guillaume Seigle (M.A.S. BMI 2nd Year)—“Smart Sleep Tracker”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Ph.D. Category: Networks and Communications

First Place—Ziru Chen (M.S. EE ’17, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Practical Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Lin Cai

Second Place (Tie)—Eli Hwang (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Uplink NOMA via Special Incidence Matrix”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Guillermo Atkin

Second Place (Tie)—Oluwaseun Ajayi (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Self-Renewal Machine Learning Approach for Fast Wireless Network Optimization”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yu Cheng

Third Place—Yu Xiao (M.S. EE ’18, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Time Asynchronous NOMA for Increasing BER performance”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Guillermo Atkin

Ph.D. Category: Signal and Image Processing

First Place—Jane Downer (AI/M.A.S. AI ’23, Ph.D. CS Candidate)—“Identifying Backdoored Graphs in Graph Neural Network Training: An Explanation-based Approach with Novel Metrics”
Adviser: Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ren Wang

Second Place—Yipeng Qu (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Enhancing Query Formulation for Universal Image Segmentation”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Joohee Kim

Third Place (Tie)—Xirang Zhang (M.S. EE ’21, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“A Feasibility Study on Deep Learning for Standard-Dose Cardiac-Gated Spect Images”
Adviser: Harris Perlstein Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Yongyi Yang

Third Place (Tie)—Mehdi Toumi (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Edge Preserving Deep Learning De-Noising for Cardiac Spect”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Jovan Brankov

Ph.D. Category: Power Electronics

First Place—Triston Cooper (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Superconducting Momentary Circuit Interrupter”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ian Brown

Second Place—Nicholas Krause (EE ’14, M.S. EE ’16, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Electric Machine Thermal System Identification”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ian Brown

Third Place—Mohammad Qasem (Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Data-Integrated in Li-ion Battery Modeling for eVTOL Energy Systems”
Adviser: Carl and Paul Bodine Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Mahesh Krishnamurthy

Ph.D. Category: Digital Systems and Cybersecurity

First Place—David Arnold (EE/M.S. CPE ’19, Ph.D. CPE Candidate)—“An Enhanced Data Historian For Cyberattack Detection in Industrial Control Systems”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Second Place (Tie)—Guanting Chen (M.S. EE ’19, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“SAT Solver with Machine Learning and Weighted Literal Incidence Graph Representation”
Adviser: Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Jia Wang

Second Place (Tie)—Hans Johnson (M.S. EE ’21, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Improving Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) for Quantum Computing Readout Signals Using Adaptive Filters for FPGAs”
Adviser: Walter and Harriet Filmer Endowed Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Jafar Saniie

Third Place—Nader Alnatsheh (EE/M.S. EE ’22, Ph.D. EE Candidate)—“Low Power Techniques for DNN Accelerator Design from Model-Level to RT-Level”
Adviser: Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ken Choi

Image: Group photo of ECE Day attendees.