The University
The University Northwestern University was chartered in 1851 as an independent institution of higher education in Illinois and has grown to be one of the strongest research universities in the country. The university has two campuses, one in downtown Chicago, and one in downtown Evanston, 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. The 20-acre Chicago campus houses the McGaw Medical Center and the School of Law. The 239-acre Evanston campus houses the College of Arts and Sciences, Schools of Education and Social Policy, Music and Speech, the Medill School of Journalism, the Kellogg School of Management and the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. The University has 2500 faculty members and 17,800 students in the two campuses. About 3,500 of the students are graduate students. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is part of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, which is located in a beautiful campus right next to Lake Michigan.
According to the l999 rankings published by the U.S. News and World Reports, Northwestern University is ranked 14th in the country in terms of undergraduate national universities. The list includes Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Duke, U Penn, Caltech, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth and Northwestern. In terms of graduate school rankings, the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is ranked 15th, and the Electrical Engineering program within the ECE department is ranked 18th and the Computer Engineering Program is ranked 21st. Our department rankings have been going up every year.
The ECE department offers two undergraduate programs leading to B.S. degrees, one in electrical engineering, one in computer engineering. It also offers a graduate program in electrical and computer engineering leading to M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. In addition it offers a professional Master's program in the area of Information Technology (MITP).
During the past two years, we have significantly revised the undergraduate curricula in both electrical and computer engineering. There is now a strong emphasis on lab-based learning. For example, all the computer engineering courses have migrated to the use of commercial computer-aided design tools from Mentor Graphics. These tools are used in courses dealing with logic design, computer architecture, VLSI design and various project based courses. Many of the courses in the networking, communications and signal processing area in the electrical engineering curriculum have started using software packages in MATLAB in their design and analysis problems. In 1997, the McCormick School started a revolutionary way of teaching engineering to all our undergraduates in a series of courses called Engineering Analysis and Design. In the past, engineering students were not exposed to engineering until they entered their junior year. During the freshman and sophomore years, they used to take courses in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics without much relevance to engineering. In our new curriculum, mathematics, physics, and computer programming are integrated in a series of 4 quarter courses on Engineering Analysis while exposing them to various fields in engineering. In addition, there is a two quarter sequence of courses on Engineering Design and Communication which trains students in the skills of engineering design and teaches them written and oral communication skills during their freshman year.
During the 1998-99 year, we have designed a new undergraduate curriculum in both electrical engineering and computer engineering that will be effective for students entering in Fall 2000 and will be available in pilot form for students entering in Fall 1999. Both the curricula will involve all students taking two freshman level courses, Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Introduction to Computer Engineering; these courses will provide a broad overview of the two fields and motivate students about these fields early on with some exciting hands-on labs. We have also designed a set of fundamentals courses to provide students a solid foundation in various aspects of electrical engineering, namely Circuits, Signals and Systems, Electromagnetics and Photonics, Solid State Engineering, and Electronics. All students in electrical engineering will have to take the five fundamental electrical engineering courses. Similarly we have designed five fundamental courses that all computer engineering students will be required to take. All other courses in the two curricula are electives.
During 1998-99, we have undertaken some serious efforts towards revising all the electrical and computer engineering labs in the ECE department. We have acquired two dozen new HP and Sun workstations, and 20 new PCs for the computing labs in the past year. With some funding from Hewlett-Packard Corporation, we have acquired 15 lab benches each consisting of latest state-of-the-art equipment such as digital oscilloscopes, logic analyzers and function generators, integrated with personal computers. We have also started a new lab in Wireless Communications with funding from Motorola Corporation. The results of all these changes will be to have exciting and relevant labs for our undergraduate students.
Research in our ECE department spans a wide variety of disciplines essential to the growing information technology field, and our faculty are organized to six research groups:
Our research activities have grown significantly in the past few years. During the 1998-99 year, our total research funding was about $9 million for the year, which comes to about $300,000 per faculty member per year. In contrast, our research funding was $3 million in 1994-95, $4 million in 1995-96, and $6 million in 1996-97.
The department is involved with five interdisciplinary research centers:
Our ECE faculty consists of 30 full-time faculty members, five of whom are Chaired Professors. Several of our faculty have received major international awards: nine of them are Fellows of IEEE; two are Fellows of OSA; one is a Fellow of AAAS; five faculty have received PYI, NYI or CAREER awards from the National Science Foundation. Two of our emeritus faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
During the 1998-99 year, we had 239 undergraduate students. The breakdowns of the undergrads were 112 undergrads in electrical engineering, 127 students in computer engineering. About 17% of our undergraduate students are female, and about 6% are African American or Hispanic. This results in a student faculty ratio of 8.0 students per faculty for the undergraduate students.
During the 1999-2000 year, we have 253 undergraduate students, 143 in computer engineering and 110
in electrical engineering.During the 1998-99 year, we had 163 graduate students. The breakdowns of the graduate students were 32 terminal M.S. students, 65 M.S./Ph.D. students, 65 Ph.D. students, and one non-degree student. This results in a student faculty ratio of 5.4 students per faculty for the graduate students. About 20% of our graduate students are female, and about 3% are African American or Hispanic.
During 1999-2000, we have 161 graduate students.
During 1998-99, we graduated 21 B.S. students in electrical engineering, 24 B.S. students in computer engineering, and 29 M.S. and 16 Ph.D. students in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
We have a departmental staff of 18, which includes secretaries, computing services staff, and staff for the MITP program.
The ECE department occupies about 50,000 square feet in the Technological Institute which houses the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Of this total, about 8100 square feet are assigned to instructional labs, 25,000 square feet are for research labs, 3400 square feet are for computing labs, and the rest are assigned to faculty and departmental offices. The space comes to about 1560 square feet per faculty, or 140 square feet per student.
The ECE department has excellent computing facilities. This includes several powerful servers, 14 high-performance HP workstations, 14 high-performance SUN workstations in the ECE Wilkinson Lab, and 20 new personal computers in the ECE Engineering First lab. We have upgraded most of our computers in the department in the last two years. The research computers in the department include 70 high-performance HP and SUN workstations connected via a high-speed ATM network, and three parallel computers, including a 16-processor IBM SP-2, an 8-processor IBM J-40, and an 8-processor SGI Origin 2000. All departmental computers are linked to the University's 622 Mbps OC-12 SONET network.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Northwestern University L356 Tech Institute 2145 Sheridan Road Evanston, IL-60028 TEL: (847)-491-5410 FAX: (847) 491-4455URL: www.ece.nwu.edu
For general matters, contact: Prof. Prith Banerjee, Walter Murphy Professor and Chairman,
banerjee@ece.nwu.edu , (847) 491-3641For information about graduate programs, contact Prof. Larry Henschen, Director of Graduate Programs,
henschen@ece.nwu.edu,(847) 491-3338, or Ms. Judy Stein, Graduate Secretary, judy@ece.nwu.eduTo request ECE departmental information and a Northwestern University Graduate School application package send your surface mailing address to the Graduate School Application Request page: http://www.imgweb.nwu.edu/img/gsappreq.html or
grad@ece.nwu.eduFor information about our undergraduate electrical engineering program, contact: Prof. Prem Kumar, Director of Undergrad EE Program,
kumarp@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-4128For information about our undergraduate computer engineering program, contact: Prof. Majid Sarrafzadeh, Director of Undergrad CE Program,
majid@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-7378For information regarding our alumni and industrial relations, contact: Prof. Alok Choudhary, Director of Alumni and Industrial Relations,choudhar@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 467-4129 For information regarding our departmental publicity matters, contact: Prof. Peter Scheurmann, Director of Publicity, peters@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-7141 For information regarding our departmental computing labs, contact: Prof. Jorge Nocedal, Director of Computing, nocedal@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-5038 For information regarding our departmental labs, contact: Prof. Alan Sahakian, Director of Labs, sahakian@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-7007
For information regarding general administrative matters, contact: Ms. Deneen Marie Bryce, Director of Administration,
deneen@ece.nwu.edu, (847) 491-3376 or , contact : Nancy Singer, Chairman's Secretary, nancy@ece.nwu.edu or call (847) 491-5410.ADVISORY BOARD
Professor Jacob Abraham
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
Dr. Tom Anderson
Hewlett Packard
0500 Ridgeview Court
MS 49UD-OC
Cupertino, CA 95014
Mr. Sidney Griffin
Engineering Program Manager
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
P.O. Box 7313
Mountain View, CA 94039
Dr. Ron Stout
Lucent Technologies
2000 North Naperville Rd., Rm. 4B-433
P.O. Box 3033
Naperville, IL 60566-7033
Ph.D. and M.S. Degrees Granted
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 1998-99
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Name
AdvisorChen, JianValerie Taylor
"
Mesh Partitioning for Distributed Systems"June 1999
Goil, Sanjay
Alok Choudhary"High Performance On-Line Analytical Processing
and Data Mining on Parallel Computer"
June 1999
Kim, Jedon
Manijeh Razeghi"Investigation of InAsSb Material System for Uncooled
Long-Wavelength Infrared Photodetector Applications"
June 1999
Levandovsky, Dmitry
Prem Kumar"Quantum Noise Suppression Using Optical Fibers"
June 1999
Michel, Erick John
Manijeh Razeghi"Sb-Based Materials for Infrared Photodetectors:
Growth, Characterization, Fabrication and Analysis"
December 1998
Neild, Tania
Lawrence Henschen"The Virtual Data Integator: An Object-Oriented
Mediator for Heterogeneous Database and Integration"
June 1999
Park, Young-Kun
Michel Marhic"Eigenvalue Method for Accurate Numerical Vector
Calculation of Optical Fiber Dispersion"
December 1998
Tsai, Chun-Jen
Aggelos Katsaggelos"
Disparity and Motion Fields Estimationin Bi-Channel Video Sequences"
December 1998
Vasilyev, Michael
Prem Kumar"
Multimode Optical Tomography of Quantum States"June 1999
Wu, Di
Manijeh Razeghi"MOCVD Growth and Characterization of InAsSb/InAs(SbP)
on InAs Substrate for the Mid-Infrared Laser Applications"
June 1999
Zhang, Xialong
Manijeh Razeghi"Investigation of Optical Properties of III-Nitride"
December 1998
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 1998-99
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Name
AdvisorKumar, Vijay
Eric Schwabe"Bandwidth Allocation Algorithms for
All-Optical Networks"
December 1999
Shim, Junho
Peter Scheuermann"An Intelligent Cache Manager in Data Warehousing
Environment and its Application to the Web Caching"
December 1998
MASTER OF SCIENCE GRADUATES 1998-99
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
Name
AdvisorAgami, Gregory M.
Chung-Chieh Lee"The Impact of Superior RF Filtering on
Competitor-Induced Interference"
June 1999
Asadullah, Saadia Chung-Chieh Lee
"Option C"
June 1999
Bazargan, Kiarash
Majid Sarrafzadeh"Floorplanning in Deep-Submicron Under Uncertainty"
December 1998
Becker, John Carl Srikanta Kumar"Performance Evaluation of Resource
Allocation Algorithms for Packet Data Wireless
Communication Networks"
December 1998
Bertos, Georgios Yiorgos
Alan Sahakian"A Microprocessor-Based Position Controller
for Electric-Powered Upper-Limbed Prostheses"
June 1999
Chang, Shin-Yen
Michael Honig"Characterization of Intercell Interference
with Voice and Data in DS-CDMA"
June 99
Chang, Wei-Hsin
Chung-Chieh Lee"Option C"
June 1999
Chao, Yang
Der-Tsai Lee"On a Web-Based Telemanipulation and
Monitoring System"
December 1998
Chen, Jingyao
Seng-Ting Ho"Generalized Snell’s Law"
December 1998
Chudzik, Michael Patrick
Carl Kannewurf"Fabrication and Characterization of
Heterostructures for Superconducting Applications"
December 1998
Geisler, Jonathan Gary
Valerie Taylor"Performance Coupling: A Methodology for Analyzing
Application Performance Using Kernel Performance"
June 1999
Gu, Guangyu
Scott Hauck"Accelarating Photoshop Applications with
Reconfigurable Hardware"
June 1999
Hackett, Rosemary
Michael Honig"Option C"
December 1998
Johnson, Timothy Michael
Michael Honig"Option C"
June 1999
Joisha, Pramod G.
Prithviraj Banerjee"Compilation of Regular HPF Programs Using
a Linear Algebra Framework"
December 1998
Jost, Adrian
Randy Freeman"Clarinet Sound Synthesis By Physical
Modeling with Analysis of Control Variables"
June 1999
Liu, Hui-Jean
Majid Sarrafzadeh"Optimal and Heuristic Algorithms for VLSI Routing"
June 1999
Morales, Lizdabel
Chung-Chieh Lee"Option C"
December 1999
Periyacheri, Suresh Babu Prithviraj Banerjee"
Matlab Functions for Reconfigurable Computing"June 1999
Raghavendran, Sriram
Alok Choudhary"A Prototype for Visualization of Large Datasets"
December 1998
Strebel, Marcel
Randy Freeman"Modelling and Nonlinear Control of Heating,
Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems"
December 1998
Suris, Juan
Lawrence Henschen"
Option C"June 1999
Tsai, Jeng-Luen
Prem Kumar"Option C"
December 1998
Varnasavang, Parinund
Seng-Tiong Ho"Option C"
June 1999
Wang, Shunliang
Majid Sarrafzadeh"Parameterization in VLSI Design"
June 1999
Wojkowski, Joseph S. Manijeh Razeghi
"Uncooled InAs(x)Sb(1-x)Infrared Photodetectors
for the 5-8 um Atmospheric Absorption Spectrum"
June 1999
Wu, Jia-Jiun
Manijeh Razeghi"LP-MOCVD Growth and Characterization
of III-Nitrides"
Ye, Zhi Alex
Prithviraj Banerjee"A Compiler for a Processor with a
Reconfigurable Functional Unit"
June 1999
Zhang, Ying Scott Jordan
"Option C"
June 1999
MASTER OF SCIENCE GRADUATES 1998-99
COMPUTER SCIENCE
Name
AdvisorCanal, Philippe
Der-Tsai Lee"Finding Paths Among Obstacles in Two Layers
Interconnection Model"
December 1998
Research Groups
Overview
Research in the ECE Department spans a wide variety of disciplines essential to the growing information technology field. The ECE faculty are organized into six research groups to focus on key areas in this field:
•
Solid-State Engineering • Signal Processing• Photonic Systems and Technology • Parallel and Distributed Computing
•
Networks, Communication, and Control • VLSI Design and CAD Each group:
Graduate students benefit from their group’s relative autonomy because progress toward an M.S. or Ph.D. is planned and monitored by a small and cohesive group of faculty specializing in the student’s precise technology area.
Specific topics of research for individual faculty are listed below. There are several focused research areas as well; these represent major research thrusts that involve several faculty and for which the department is especially noted. The contact person's name is highlighted. These persons serve on the department’s Graduate Committee.
Solid State EngineeringThe Solid State Engineering group focuses primarily on the science and technology of semiconductors for quantum structures and devices operating from the ultraviolet up to far infrared. Quantum devices are fabricated using the most advanced semiconductor synthesis technologies (MOCVD, MBE,, gas source MBE, etc), as well as micro-fabrication techniques (high-precision photolithography, e-beam evaporation, RTA, reactive-ion-etching, etc.). The quantum devices are fully tested at each step in the fabrication process using advanced characterization techniques such as diffraction, SEM, TEM, photoluminescence, and the Hall effect. Most of the research is performed within the Center for Quantum Devices, in a "clean room" environment similar to what is found in industry.
These quantum devices designed and constructed by the Group are in great demand by today's applications. Ultraviolet lasers and photodetectors are needed for astronomy, space communications and the monitoring of engines and heat sources. Red, green and blue (RGB) solid-state lasers are needed for high brightness full-color displays and optical data storage (CD, DVD). High power 0.808 m m, 0.98 m m, 1.3 m m and 1.5 m m lasers and VCSELs are needed for medical applications and fiber optical communications. Infrared lasers (e.g. Quantum Cascade lasers), photodetectors (e.g. QWIP) and focal-plane-arrays (FPA) are needed for chemical analysis and night vision.
Other research activities in the group include the synthesis, characterization and modeling of high temperature superconductors, conducting oxides and polymers, thermoelectric materials for refrigeration applications and solid-state materials for optical and microwave communication applications. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are:
Carl Kannewurf, Professor. Ph.D., Northwestern University. Measurement and analysis of electronic transport and related properties in high-temperature superconductors; transparent ceramics; mixed electronic-ionic conductors; intercalated polymer systems; thermoelectric materials for possible refrigeration applications. Nathan Newman, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Stanford. Fabrication of novel semiconductor, superconductor, and dielectric devices; characterization and modeling of surface, interface, and bulk phenomena within these structures; improvement of a wide range of electronic devices having applications in communications, medical diagnostics, defense, and consumer electronics. Manijeh Razeghi, Group Coordinator, Walter P. Murphy Professor. Director, Center for Quantum Devices. Ph.D., Orsay University (France). MOCVD and MOMBE growth of III-V and II-VI semiconducting multiple quantum wells and superlattices; optical, electrical, and structural characterization of semiconductor materials; solid-state physics; modeling and fabrication of discrete photonic and electronic devices; optoelectronic integrated circuits; characterization, modeling, and University fabrication of quantum structures and quantum devices.Christopher Jelen , Assistant Professor (as of September 1999) PhD Northwestern. Research interests: Quantum devices.
Photonic Systems and TechnologyThe Photonic Systems and Technology Group focuses focuses on microcavity lasers, nanostuctures, quantum and nonlinear optics, integrated optics, fiber-optic and infrared waveguide devices, fiber-optic communications, computational electromagnetics, and imaging through turbulence. Special emphases include: applications of novel quantum amplifiers in optical communications, imaging, and cryptography; devices for tera-bit per second WDM and TDM optical networks; and applications of computational techniques in integrated and nonlinear optics. A sophisticated laboratory has recently been established to fabricate VLSI-scale photonic devices and circuits. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are:
Seng-Tiong Ho, Associate Professor. Ph.D., MIT. Recipient NSF CAREER Award. Quantum optics; nonlinear optics; ultrafast optical devices; microcavity lasers. Prem Kumar, Group Coordinator, Professor. Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo. Fellow, Optical Society of America. Nonlinear and quantum optics; picosecond and subpicosecond phenomena; laser and atomic physics; optical communications and networks. Martin Plonus, Professor. Ph.D., University of Michigan. Fellow, IEEE. Superresolution imaging through atmospheric turbulence; double-passage imaging techniques; wave propagation through turbulence; image restoration; adaptive optics; structure of atmospheric turbulence. Allen Taflove, Professor. Ph.D., Northwestern University. Fellow, IEEE. Applied electromagnetic field theory; finite-difference time-domain computational electrodynamics; modeling of ultrafast electronic and optical devices; wireless signal propagation and scattering; biomedical applications of microwaves, especially detection of early-stage breast cancer. Bruce Wessels, Professor, Joint appointment with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Ph.D., MIT. Synthesis and characterization of electronic and photonic materials and devices; compound semiconductors; materials preparations; defect studies by deep-level transient spectroscopy; MOCVD processing of ceramic superconductors. Horace Yuen, Professor. Sc.D., MIT. Optical communications; theoretical quantum optics; measurement theory; cryptography. Networks, Communication, and ControlThe Networks, Communications and Control Group focuses on communications, telecommunications and communication networks, and control theory. Specific areas of study include: mobile wireless multi-user communication, estimation and detection, wireless networks, resource allocation and routing in communication networks, data network protocol design, network performance modeling and analysis; detection, estimation, and filtering with applications to communications and control systems; multimedia applications; nonlinear and robust control, and stochastic hybrid systems. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are:
Randy Freeman, Assistant Professor. Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara. Control systems; controller synthesis methods for systems having significant nonlinearities andThe Signal Processing Group focuses on the digital representation and algorithmic manipulation of speech, audio, image and video signals. Specific topics within this general area include image and video processing, recovery and compression; multimedia signal processing; filter design and rank-order operators; image and video transmission; medical and biomedical signal processing; medicalimaging; and algorithms for medical instrumentation. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are:
Arthur Butz, Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of Minnesota. Digital signal processing; median and related filtering. Michael Honig, Professor. Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Fellow, IEEE. See Systems, Networks, and Communications Group. Aggelos Katsaggelos, Group Coordinator, Ameritech Professor. Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology. Fellow, IEEE. Multidimensional digital signal processing; digital image and video processing; video coding and transmission; computational vision; implementation of signal-processing algorithms; multimedia signal processing. Alan Sahakian, Associate Professor, Joint appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison. Instrumentation; signal and image processing for medical and aerospace applications; automatic detection and treatment of atrial cardiac arrhythmias by implanted devices. Thrasos Pappas, Associate Professor (as of September 1999), PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research interests: Image processing, multi-dimensional signal processing. Parallel and Distributed ComputingThe Parallel and Distributed Computing Group studies all aspects of parallel and distributed computing. Specific areas of study include parallel and distributed architectures and systems; parallel compilers and runtime systems; parallel applications; parallel input-output and disk organizations; measurements and performance analysis tools for parallel systems; parallel and distributed database and transaction systems; on-line analytical processing and data mining.
The Group also studies parallel algorithms for various applications in science and engineering. They include VLSI computer-aided design applications; applications in transportation and finite-element problems; computational geometry and scientific visualization; algorithms for optimization, numerical computing; robotics and computer vision. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are: Prith Banerjee, Department Chairman, Walter P. Murphy Professor. Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fellow, IEEE. Recipient, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, ASEE Terman Award. Parallel algorithms for VLSI computer-aided-design applications; parallelizing compilers for distributed-memory multiprocessors; parallel architectures with emphasis on fault tolerance. Alvin Bayliss, Professor, Joint appointment with the Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics. Charles Deering McCormick Chair in Teaching Excellence. Ph.D., New York University. Numerical analysis; large-scale scientific computing; combustion; computational fluid dynamics; solid mechanics; acoustics. Alok Choudhary, Group Coordinator, Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recipient, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. High-performance computing and communication; high-performance I / O; compiler and run-time systems for high-performance computing; multimedia systems; databases. Scott Hauck, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. University of Washington. (See VLSI Group) Lawrence Henschen, Professor. Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Theorem proving; deductive databases; automated reasoning; use of meta-level reasoning in guiding search mechanisms of automated reasoning programs; distributed heterogeneous databases; intelligent assistant / tutor for novice programmers. Gilbert Krulee, Professor. Ph.D., MIT. Natural language systems; two-level grammars; intelligent support systems. D.-T. Lee, Professor. (See VLSI Design and CAD Group) W.-C. Lin, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Purdue. Computer vision; pattern recognition; neural networks; computer graphics. Jorge Nocedal, Professor. Ph.D., Rice University. Distributed computing over the Internet; scientific computing; design and analysis of algorithms; software development; numerical solution of large-scale nonlinear optimization (NLO) problems; applications of NLO to weather forecasting, pollution modeling, optimal design, and chemical engineering. Peter Scheuermann, Professor. Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook. Physical database design; parallel I/O systems and distributed file systems; data warehousing; database applications for the Web; distributed and federated database systems; data mining. Valerie Taylor, Associate Professor. Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Recipient, NSF Young Investigator Award. Performance of parallel scientific applications; computer architecture; visual supercomputing environments. C.-H. Wu, Associate Professor. Ph.D., Purdue. Robotics; CAD / CAM; industrial control; automated manufacturing; neural networks; computer graphics and images; automated medical instrumentation; surgical robot systems. VLSI Design and CAD The VLSI Design and CAD Group focuses on the challenges of developing digital hardware for complex systems. This area investigates how best to design integrated circuits, processors, and computing systems to deliver the highest performance at reasonable cost and power consumption. This also involves consideration of how advances in process and circuit technology drive future hardware implementation. The Group’s research areas include: ASIC and digital hardware design; microprocessor design; embedded systems design; FPGA architectures, systems, applications and adaptive computing; CAD software and algorithms for physical design; logic and behavioral synthesis; CAD theory; CAD for low power design; parallel algorithms for VLSI CAD; and other areas of VLSI design and CAD. The Group’s faculty and their research interests are: Prith Banerjee, Department Chairman, Walter P. Murphy Professor. (See Parallel and Distributed Computing Group) Scott Hauck, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. University of Washington. NSF Career Award. Field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA) architectures, applications, and computer-aided-design tools; multi-FPGA systems, logic emulators, and adaptive computing; logic partitioning; parallel processing. D.-T. Lee, Professor. Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fellow, IEEE; Fellow, ACM. Geometric computing with visualization; application to VLSI layout; Web-based visualization tools for remote collaborative research; development of neuromuscular-like controller (NMC) technology; applications of NMC to vibration control and robotic-arm control. Majid Sarrafzadeh, Group Coordinator, Professor. Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Fellow, IEEE. VLSI design; computer-aided design; high-performance architectural design; design and analysis of algorithms; computational complexity; FPGA and reconfigurable computing; hardware for digital signal processing. H3>Interdisciplinary Research CentersOverview
In addition to its six research groups, the ECE Department also is involved with five interdisciplinary research centers, each enhancing graduate education and research activities at Northwestern University. These centers are:
In contrast to the research groups, the centers have no academic or administrative role in graduate student progress toward their M.S. or Ph.D. degrees. However, the centers substantially benefit their affiliated students by providing unusually wide-ranging and long-term opportunities for financial support and technical collaboration.
The centers routinely facilitate close collaboration with students, faculty, and research professionals affiliated with other McCormick departments; University departments outside McCormick; the University’s other multidisciplinary centers; other universities; federal national laboratories; and private industry. Such collaboration enables affiliated students to broaden their research experiences and expose themselves to a wide range of career opportunities.
Center for Optimization Technology
(www.mcs.anl.gov/home/otc)The Center for Optimization Technology is a joint enterprise of Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University. It was founded in 1994 with support from Northwestern and the
U.S. Department of Energy. The Center’s mission is to: (1) increase awareness of the benefits of the latest optimization techniques among potential users in industry, government, and academia; and (2) make these techniques widely available by providing advanced distributed-computing and software environments. These goals are being achieved by combining the best optimization algorithms, modern computational tools and interfaces, and the power and reach of the Internet.
Center activities currently focus on the Network-Enabled Optimization System (NEOS), consisting of a comprehensive optimization software library, interfaces and servers that allow users to run this software either locally or remotely over the network, and a guide to optimization technology on the World Wide Web. The Center’s products are designed to help at each problem-solving stage: modeling real-world applications, solving mathematical problems, and interpreting the results. Users are able to download software from the NEOS Library and run it on their own hardware. The NEOS Server also offers users a novel alternative: remote solution of optimization problems on the Center’s computational facilities via communication using the World Wide Web, email, and ftp.
In this mode, users supply a problem description and data. Then, the NEOS Server chooses the appropriate software, solves the problem, and returns the results. This facility has already been used by hundreds of students and professionals worldwide. The Center is now planning a new server design that makes use of distributed computing to accelerate the optimization process.
The Center has a variety of current research collaborations with industry and government ranging from logistics planning, power-generation schedules, optimal placement of elements in computer chips, scheduling of operators in a telephone pool, and optimal pricing of seats for airlines. Affiliated researchers currently include: Northwestern University — John Birge (Dean MEAS), Collette Coullard (IEMS), Mark Daskin (IEMS), Robert Fourer (IEMS), Sanjay Mehrotra (IEMS), Jorge Nocedal (ECE, Deputy Director), and David Simchi-Levi (IEMS).
Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing
(www.ece.nwu.edu/cpdc)The Center for Parallel and Distributed Computing conducts leading edge, fundamental science and engineering research aimed at providing a sound basis for the technology of parallel and distributed computing. Founded in 1996, the Center’s research focuses on all aspects of this technology area — namely, parallel architectures, parallel compilers and software, parallel algorithms and applications, parallel and distributed database systems, and parallel I/O systems.
Currently, the Center has the following computing resources: a 16-processor IBM SP-2 distributed-memory message-passing multicomputer; an 8-processor IBM J-40 shared-memory multiprocessor; an 8-processor SGI Origin 2000 distributed shared-memory multiprocessor; and 50 high-end Hewlett-Packard Unix workstations (models C-110, C-180, and B-132). All of the workstations and parallel-processing computers are connected together to form a large distributed-computing infrastructure by 4 Cisco LS1010 ATM switches. The Center currently consists of 11 faculty members from the McCormick School of Engineering, 2 scientists from Argonne National Laboratory, 32 graduate students, and 5 undergraduate students. Affiliated researchers include: Northwestern University — Prith Banerjee (ECE, Director), Alvin Bayliss (ECE / Applied Math), Ted Belytschko (CE / MechE), Alok Choudhary (ECE), Scott Hauck (ECE), D.-T. Lee (ECE), Jorge Nocedal (ECE), Majid Sarrafzadeh (ECE), Peter Scheuermann (ECE), Allen Taflove (ECE), and Valerie Taylor (ECE); Argonne National Laboratory — Ian Foster and William Gropp.
Advancing the frontiers in this cutting-edge scientific field is an exciting and challenging adventure, for which the Center has assembled a strong team of graduate and undergraduate students, research scientists and professors with diverse backgrounds, working within the Center’s unique state-of-the-art research facility. The creativity and ingenuity of this strong team has proved successful in solving the many scientific issues encountered on a daily basis, achieving a number of breakthroughs and staying ahead of competition. At the same time, as an integral part of a high-level educational institution, the Center has been educating and training future leaders for both academia and industry.
This scientific research involves developing an understanding of the physics of new semiconductor crystals for novel applications and realizing advanced semiconductor devices such as lasers, photodetectors, transistors, waveguides and switches. This entails a multidisciplinary combination of solid state physics, quantum mechanics, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering and materials science, as well as a strong collaborative effort between Academia, Industry and National Laboratories. A strong testimony of the success of this endeavor has been the consistent support of several industrial corporations and government agencies from the Department of Defense to push forward the science and technology of compound semiconductor optoelectronic devices at the Center.CQD is equipped with many facilities for modeling, epitaxial growth, material characterization, device fabrication, and device characterization. CQD’s semiconductor growth capabilities are housed in a new 5,000-square-foot clean room and currently include five metallorganic chemical vapor deposition systems (including commercial systems from EMCORE and AIXTRON) and two molecular beam epitaxy systems (from EPI). State-of-the-art equipment for material characterization includes a high-resolution five-crystal X-ray diffractometer, a field-emission scanning electron microscope, an atomic force microscope, Fourier-transform photoluminescence and absorption spectrometers, several photovoltage spectrometers, a deep-level transient spectrometer, a Hall-effect system, and an electrochemical capacitance voltage profiler. Device fabrication facilities include a photolithography laboratory, wet chemistry facilities, a plasma-etching system, several thermal and electron-beam evaporators, surface profilers, and bonding devices. Affiliated faculty include: Northwestern University — Jacqueline Diaz (ECE), Christopher Jelen (ECE), Manijeh Razeghi (ECE, Director of CQD), and John Ketterson (Physics); Air Force — Gail Brown.
Center for Photonic Communications and Computing (CPCC)
This is the newest center in the ECE department at Northwestern University. Founded in the Fall of 1999, the primary goal of the Center is to conduct cutting-edge fundamental science and engineering research that will lead to the development of advanced photonic communication and computing systems. Specifically, the focus of research is on optical and optoelectronic systems that push the technological limits to ever increasing speeds (currently targeting the terabit per second range) or levels of integration or exploit the fundamental laws of nature to accomplish communication, signal processing, and computing in radically new ways. The center also provides a venue for collaboration, coordination, dissemination, and promotion of research and teaching activities in the above areas both inside and outside the university.
The research at CPCC is conducted in many state-of-the-art laboratories located within the McCormick School. These include the Quantum Communications and Cryptography Lab, the Fiber-optic Communications Lab, the Quantum and Nonlinear Optics Lab, the Opto-electronics Lab, and the Quantum Electronics Lab. These labs house many advanced solid-state as well as optical-fiber laser systems, including several sources of picosecond and femtosecond duration pulses. In addition, various optical, electro-optic, fiber-optic, and electronic instrumentation are available for ultrahigh speed (10-100 GHz) measurements and diagnostics. CPCC researchers also have access to the clean room and other materials preparation and fabrication facilities of the Materials Research Center at Northwestern University. Affiliated Northwestern faculty currently include: Anupam Garg (Physics), Seng Ho (ECE), Bill Kath (Applied Math), John Ketterson (Physics and ECE), Prem Kumar (ECE, Director), Alan Sahakian (ECE and Biomedical Engineering), Ken Spears (Chemistry), Allen Taflove (ECE), Bruce Wessels (Materials Science and ECE), and Horace Yuen (ECE and Physics). Other current affiliated members include: Mauro D'Ariano (University of Pavia, Italy), Antonio Mecozzi (Fondatione Ugo Bordoni, Rome, Italy), and Ricardo Horowicz (University of Sao Paolo, Brazil).
Council on Dynamic Systems / Control (www.ece.nwu.edu/~ahaddad/control.html)
The Council on Dynamic Systems and Control involves educational and research activities of faculty and students in several departments of the McCormick School, including Chemical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, and Mechanical Engineering. Students in this program have an unusual opportunity to perform cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research in the fields of systems, control, and manufacturing processes. Specific research areas include process control, robotics, operator-assisted devices for assembly, haptic interfaces, manufacturing systems, scheduling, and logistics. Although each student must register in one of the participating departments, the curriculum and research opportunities draw upon the offerings of all departments represented in the Council. Affiliated Northwestern faculty currently include J. Edward Colgate (MechE), Randy Freeman (ECE), Abraham Haddad (ECE), Michael Mavrovouniotis (ChemE), Michael Peshkin (MechE), and Mark Van Oyen (IEMS).
Motorola Center for Telecommunications Research
The Motorola Center for Telecommunications Research, established in Aug. 1998, has a wide variety of interests addressing important issues of the telecommunications industry. Specific current research includes:
As part of the Motorola Center, industrial and McCormick researchers and students develop strong collaborations and are educated in the latest telecommunications techniques. Affiliated Northwestern faculty currently include Michael Honig (ECE), Aggelos Katsaggelos (ECE, Director), C.-C. Lee (ECE), Majid Sarrafzadeh (ECE), and Horace Yuen (ECE).