IT Excellence at Illinois: News

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Modeling Radiation Key Component to Landing Safely on Mars

Apr 12, 2021 6:00 pm2 views

In 2015, AE Professor Marco Panesi received a NASA Early Career Faculty award to study radiation in the back shell of entry capsules. On February 18, 2021, we witnessed his research findings in action as Perseverance landed safely on Mars.
$10M Ana Avatar Xprize Names Hauser's Project a Semifinalist for Worldwide Robotics Competition

Apr 7, 2021 10:45 pm0 views

Illinois CS professor Kris Hauser’s team of graduate students will continue working toward the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE – a large-scale global incentive competition – after earning one of 38 semifinalist selections.
Illinois ECE Alumna Oversees NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Mission

Apr 5, 2021 10:30 pm0 views

Illinois ECE alumna MiMi Aung (BSEE '88, MS '90) is overseeing the operations for NASA's Ingenuity helicopter, which recently landed on Mars along with the Perseverance Rover. Once the helicopter detaches, it will conduct several test flights on the surface, marking the first powered flights on another planet.
Choudhury Comments on Future of Remote Work in the Wall Street Journal

Apr 2, 2021 5:15 pm0 views

With the COVID-19 pandemic turning remote work into the new norm, the laptop has become the key focus of work-from-home technology. However, this heavy reliance on the laptop has brought light to several significant issues ranging from sound quality to security and privacy. In a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, several experts came together to discuss what developments are and should be coming for the improvement of remote work. Illinois ECE Professor Romit Roy Choudhury, W.J. "Jerry" Sanders III - Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Scholar in Electrical and Computer Engineering, is one of the experts who provided commentary on filtering background noise in remote work settings.
Mitra Publishes New Textbook on Verification Techniques

Mar 31, 2021 10:00 pm0 views

Reflecting on his father’s habit of regularly penning newspaper articles, plays, and stories, Illinois ECE professor Sayan Mitra ascribes his writing to, perhaps, a familial trait. Also inspired by the work of some of his fellow ECE faculty, and taking a detour from his usual research productivity, Mitra used 2019-2020 to finish writing his textbook.
Sauer Receives IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award

Mar 29, 2021 11:00 pm0 views

Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, was recently awarded the 2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Awardfor his exceptional career-long contributions to power systems modeling and dynamic analysis, and for leadership in power engineering education.
Six Illinois ECE Faculty Members Receive NSF Career Awards

Mar 26, 2021 3:45 pm0 views

Six Illinois ECE faculty members have recently been named recipients of NSF CAREER Awards. The NSF CAREER Award is a prestigious award in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in both research and education and can advance the mission of their respective department or organization.
Cunningham Develops Microscope Technique To Detect Individual Viruses For Power Rapid Diagnostics

Mar 22, 2021 6:00 pm0 views

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A fast, low-cost technique to see and count viruses or proteins from a sample in real time, without any chemicals or dyes, could underpin a new class of devices for rapid diagnostics and viral load monitoring, including HIV and the virus that causes COVID-19
Safer Illinois Software Team Presents at Two Conferences

Mar 17, 2021 11:15 pm0 views

The Safer Illinois application, designed in part by Illinois ECE researchers, has been crucial to the University of Illinois’ ongoing efforts to keep students, faculty, and staff safe amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the future, all the data collected by the app will need to be encrypted and analyzed with the user’s permission. A team of researchers and students are currently developing an infrastructure called RokWall, which could help protect user data, while making the most of the information. The research was recently presented at two conferences the last week in February.
New Research Looks To Combat SCN Through Neuroscience

Mar 10, 2021 10:00 pm0 views

Lurking in more than 99% of soybean fields across the Midwest is a worm capable of feeding on and damaging entire crops. Millions of dollars have been spent trying to combat these destructive pests through the development of resistant soybean plants, but after decades of successful use, those solutions have begun to fail. Once again, soybean production is in trouble, and Illinois ECE researchers are being forced back to the drawing board, but this time they are looking to attack the nematode from within.
Prof. Jian-Ming Jin awarded ECE’s Distinguished Educator Award for his excellence in electromagnetics education

Mar 8, 2021 7:30 pm1 views

Jian-Ming Jin, the Y. T. Lo Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Director of the Electromagnetics Laboratory and Center for Computational Electromagnetics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Executive Dean of the Zhejiang University-University of Illinois Joint Institute focusing on engineering education, is a 2020 recipient of the University of Michigan ECE Distinguished Educator Award. This award is the highest recognition granted by ECE to its alumni in academia and recognizes those who have made a significant and lasting impact in education.
Song and Mayo Clinic Researchers Awarded $2.2M DOD Grant for Breast Cancer Imaging Study

Feb 26, 2021 7:30 pm0 views

Four in ten* patients screened for breast cancer are at a higher risk of misdiagnosis due to the presence of dense breast tissue. Traditional mammography cannot reliably diagnose the disease in these patients, sometimes even with the help of supplemental screening.
Carle Illinois Welcomes Haran and Oelze

Feb 19, 2021 3:15 pm7 views

Eight faculty from The Grainger College of Engineering have joined Carle Illinois College of Medicine with Health Innovation Professor appointments including Illinois ECE professors Kiruba Sivasubramaniam Haran and Michael L Oelze. The new faculty deliver on Carle Illinois’ strategy to leverage the University of Illinois’ exceptional faculty to serve as agents of change in medical education, innovation, and research at the world’s first engineering-based college of medicine.
ACM Recognized Meseguer, Tong for Contributions to the Computing Field

Feb 13, 2021 12:00 am0 views

Two Illinois CS faculty recently earned recognition by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, for achievements in computing.
Prof. Yurii Vlasov Elected to National Academy of Engineering

Feb 10, 2021 7:00 pm2 views

Yurii A Vlasov, Founder Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is recognized for his contributions to the development and commercialization of silicon photonics for optical data communications.
Illinois ECE Researchers Publish Article Describing Illinois Rapidvent Emergency Ventilator

Feb 8, 2021 5:15 pm0 views

The design, testing, and validation of the Illinois RapidVent emergency ventilator has been published in the journal Plos One. The article, “Emergency Ventilator for COVID-19,” with contributions by multiple Illinois ECE researchers, is the first of its kind to report such details about an emergency ventilator that was designed, prototyped, and tested at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
'Shot in the Dark' Provides a Path Toward Collaborative Research That Better Predicts COVID-19 Severity

Feb 1, 2021 9:30 pm1 views

The radiologist for DuPage Medical Group only knew Forsyth as a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence. Their lack of a relationship didn't undo the excitement he had to form a collaborative research effort, though. His goal was to guide medical imaging in a new direction, one that could offset a few growing trends in this country’s healthcare system.
Kim Honored as ACM Fellow for Work on Power-Efficient Computing

Jan 29, 2021 11:45 pm0 views

Illinois ECE Professor Nam Sung Kim has been named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world's largest educational and scientific computing society. He is honored "for contribution to design and modeling of power-efficient computer architectures."
TOYOTA Research Institute Launches Collaboration With Illinois, Other Academic Institutions

Jan 27, 2021 8:00 pm0 views

The Toyota Research Institute (TRI) announced today that it has selected 13 additional academic institutions to participate in the next five year phase of its collaborative research program. These universities join MIT, Stanford and the University of Michigan which have worked with TRI over the last five years to expand the body of research into artificial intelligence (AI) with the goal of amplifying the human experience.
Cunningham Leads Team to Create Fast, Cheap, and Accessible Covid-19 Antibody Test

Jan 22, 2021 1:45 pm8 views

As the numbers of those infected with COVID-19 has continued to climb, the desperate need for a vaccine was apparent. Even now with the invention and administration of several COVID-19 vaccinations, the question remains: How effective are these vaccines? HMNTL students Congnyu Che, Weijing Wang, and Nantao Li, also members of the ECE Nanosensors Group, along with Postdoctoral Researcher Bin Zhao and Illinois ECE Professor Brian T Cunningham have recently been published in Talanta journal for the development of a cost efficient COVID-19 antibody test.
CSL Professors Research Group Testing, Statistical Analysis of Covid-19

Jan 15, 2021 9:00 pm2 views

Most of the United States has become fairly intimately acquainted with COVID-19 testing – be it by spit, nasal swab, or blood. While this type of individual work has been effective in identifying cases, CSL professors Venugopal Veeravalli and Lav Varshney are seeking to improve the efficiency of these tests and determine how to quickly detect changes in the distribution of disease prevalence data through their research project, "Efficient Strategies for Pandemic Monitoring and Recovery."
Illinois ECE Graduate Student Wins Prestigious IEEE Awards

Jan 13, 2021 6:45 pm0 views

Illinois ECE graduate student Megan Culler recently won the 2019 IEEE-USA Jim Watson Student Professional Awareness Achievement Award, recognizing IEEE members who volunteer to share their professional experiences with students and encourage active, lifelong IEEE membership. This award was first established in 2011, but this is the first year that a student has been selected as the recipient.
Making AI Robust and Bringing It to the Edge

Jan 6, 2021 12:00 pm0 views

Enhancing so-called edge devices, such as cell phones, smart watches, and other IoT devices, with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities is a major goal for researchers in both industry and academia. These devices generate huge volumes of sensory data from their built-in sensors in the form of cameras, microphones, gyroscopes, and other technology. Processing all this data is challenging due to the limited computational resources and constrained energy supply of edge devices. A team led by Illinois ECE Professor Naresh R Shanbhag, Jack S. Kilby Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is working to improve the energy efficiency and functionality of these devices.
Driggs-Campbell Leads Research Effort with USDA NIFA Grant to Increase Autonomy in Agricultural Robots

Dec 21, 2020 10:30 pm2 views

Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Katherine Rose Driggs-Campbell is leading a team of Grainger Engineering researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who recently received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to develop software tools to make programming fleets of agbots easier while providing tools for runtime monitoring. The team is also developing the interaction modules to make the agbots more intuitive to use by addressing human behavior modeling and planning.
Popescu Develops New Method Using Artificial Intelligence to Study Live Cells

Dec 18, 2020 8:45 pm2 views

Researchers led by Illinois ECE Professor Gabriel Popescu at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign have developed a new technique that combines label-free imaging with artificial intelligence to visualize unlabeled live cells over a prolonged time. This technique has potential applications in studying cell viability and pathology.
Waldrop Leads $75 Million NASA Mission to Investigate Earth's Atmosphere

Dec 16, 2020 8:30 pm10 views

Lara Waldrop, Illinois ECE Assistant Professor and Y. T. Lo Fellow in Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been selected by NASA to develop a Solar Terrestrial Probes (STP) Science Mission of Opportunity, budgeted for $75 million. Her mission, titled “Global Lyman-alpha Imager of the Dynamic Exosphere”, or “GLIDE” for short, was chosen for implementation after a competitive selection process and is expected to be launched in 2025.
Computational method provides faster high-resolution mass spectrometry imaging

Dec 11, 2020 4:45 pm0 views

A new computational mass spectrometry imaging method enables researchers to achieve high mass resolution and high spatial resolution for biological samples while providing data sets exponentially faster.
Illinois ECE Research Define Earable Computing: A New Research Area in the Making

Dec 9, 2020 2:30 pm0 views

A team of Illinois ECE researchers are defining a new sub-area of mobile technology that they call “earable computing.” The SyNRG team (Systems and Networking Research Group) believes that earphones will be the next significant milestone in wearable devices, and that new hardware, software, and apps will all run on this platform.
Bayram and Feng Awarded Defense University Research Instrumentation Program Grants

Dec 7, 2020 8:15 pm2 views

The Department of Defense has awarded Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grants to six University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professors - two of whom are Illinois ECE faculty members. Illinois ECE Associate Professor Can Bayramand Research Professor Milton Feng, Nick Holonyak, Jr., Endowed Chair Emeritus in Electrical and Computer Engineering, were among the recipients of the grants. The grants were made to 85 institutions for 2021.
Grainger Engineering Earns Six Defense University Research Instrumentation Program Grants

Dec 4, 2020 5:30 pm2 views

The Department of Defense has awarded Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) grants to six University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professors - all of whom are Grainger Engineering faculty or affiliates. Grants were made to 85 institutions for 2021.
Illinois ECE Student Builds UVC-Sanitization Robot During Quarantine

Dec 2, 2020 4:30 pm0 views

An Illinois ECE student is making a new sanitation device to help decrease exposure to the COVID-19 virus. It’s a UVC sanitation robot named “The Terminator Turbo” that its creator says can provide a highly efficient, effective, and relatively inexpensive sanitation solution for large, high-traffic, high infection-risk areas like hospitals, airports, clinics, schools, and restaurants.
Six Illinois faculty members elected AAAS Fellows

Nov 25, 2020 8:30 pm0 views

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Six professors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been elected 2020 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Alleyne honored with Air Force public service award

Nov 23, 2020 5:45 pm0 views

CSL Professor Andrew Alleyne was honored this year with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force Exceptional Public Service Award. It is the most prestigious award granted by the U.S. Air Force to non-employee civilians.
Three Illinois scientists rank among world's most influential

Nov 20, 2020 5:15 pm0 views

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Three faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2020 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list.
Study of Non-Covid-19 Deaths Shows 2020 Increase in Several Demographics

Nov 18, 2020 10:15 pm0 views

March through May saw a significant increase in deaths over previous years – and not just from COVID-19, says a new study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When deaths attributed to COVID-19 were removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention totals, the death rate in several demographics outpaced the same period in 2019, the study found. The timeframe represents the first three months of response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Kim Helps Disney Create Frightening, Realistic Robot

Nov 16, 2020 11:30 pm0 views

Disney is famous for their use of audio-animatronics on classic attractions like the Pirates of the Caribbean and It's a Small World. However, Disney is continuing to innovate their technology thanks to the help of Illinois ECE Associate Professor Joohyung Kim. Along with engineers from Walt Disney Imagineering (Disney's research division) and robotics researchers from the California Institute of Technology, Kim created a skinless robot with human-like eyes that can make Disney attractions even more engaging and perhaps a bit more terrifying.
$87 million multi-institutional grant will help Illinois advance bioindustrial manufacturing

Nov 11, 2020 6:15 pm0 views

An $87 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense matched by more than $187 million in non-federal cost-share will fund collaborative efforts by a team of private and public entities, including the University of Illinois, to advance sustainable and reliable bioindustrial manufacturing technologies.
Illinois ECE Graduate Student Develops New Method To Quantify QCE In Optical Fibers

Nov 9, 2020 3:00 pm0 views

Illinois ECE graduate student Nanjie Yu and his advisor Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Peter D Dragic recently developed a new method to quantify the quantum conversion efficiency (QCE) in optical fibers. Their research was recently published in the IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology.
Entrepreneur Hall Establishes CS Scholarships

Nov 6, 2020 2:00 pm2 views

A successful entrepreneur, Isaac Hall (BS CS '04) gained a growing appreciation for his Illinois CS education each time he hired employees for his two startup companies—Syncplicity, a file synchronization firm, and Recurly, a subscription management and billing company.
Illinois ECE Ultrasound Discovery Becomes New Tool for Detecting Early Fatty Liver Disease

Nov 2, 2020 5:15 pm2 views

A new breakthrough by Illinois ECE researchers will make it easier to detect, prevent, and treat nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The research team’s methods use noninvasive ultrasound, that could be used during a routine physical, to measure the amount of fat in the liver. The discovery could have a major impact on the prognoses of millions of people suffering from NAFLD around the world.
Hauser, Ramos paving the way for robotic search-and-rescue capability

Oct 30, 2020 3:45 pm0 views

CSL associate professor Kris Hauser and MechSE assistant professor João Ramos were recently awarded a three-year NSF grant to investigate the teleoperation of wheeled humanoid robots. “The idea is to study how robots can help people do their jobs better,” Ramos said. “We will try to develop a robot that enables remote manual labor.”
Illinois ECE Graduate Program Ignites New Features for Advanced Learning

Oct 26, 2020 8:15 pm0 views

An evolving curriculum and five-year funding guarantee are changing the landscape for graduate students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Illinois ECE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. A record number of new courses are proving to be a “game changer” in meeting the demands of rapid technological advances in industry and ensuring Illinois ECE graduate students are not only on pace, but at the forefront of engineering and technology.
Election Analytics Website Presents Perfect Merger of Computer and Social Science

Oct 19, 2020 6:30 pm6 views

Since 2008, Illinois CS professor Sheldon H. Jacobson has worked with students to create, develop and publish the Election Analytics @ Illinois website. Over those 12 years, there have been many great reasons for Jacobson to continue the project.
CSL researcher works to program robots with common sense

Oct 16, 2020 1:30 pm2 views

Personal robots have long been a staple in science fiction but are not yet a reality in the real world. One of the major roadblocks is that robots lack a key trait: Common sense. CSL Assistant Professor Saurabh Gupta has a newly funded research project entitled, “Scaling Up Robot Learning by Understanding Internet Videos Humans,” exploring the possibility of using videos to provide robots with this kind of intuitive knowledge.
Alchemy student team develops key technology for Safer Illinois App

Oct 14, 2020 9:45 pm0 views

A large part of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s plan to return to campus this fall has been the Safer Illinois mobile application. Researchers determined that an essential component of the campus’ testing and targeting practices would be contact tracing but wanted to do so in a way that wouldn’t compromise user privacy. Developing this important feature was a complex undertaking with a tight deadline, but several Illinois ECE students were up for the challenge.
Rosu Sharpens Company Vision With Third NASA SBIR Grant

Oct 12, 2020 9:45 pm0 views

A decade ago, Illinois CS professor Grigore Rosu had a vision for the company he started, called Runtime Verification. He simply wanted to commercialize the technology he developed in his research lab at the university. As with most new concepts, though, Rosu can recall the early detractors that rejected his research. But, as time passed and his perseverance endured, he began to develop that very same research into published papers and conference discussions.
Leburton's bio-sensing breakthrough published in Nature

Oct 9, 2020 4:45 pm0 views

An innovative work by Illinois ECE Professor Jean-Pierre Leburton, Gregory Stillman Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his team offers a novel approach to follow and investigate the evolution of unrepaired breaks in DNA strands - potentially detecting, and preventing disease, more effectively. The research was recently published in Nature.
Bleakney and collaborators want to disrupt the wheelchair market

Sep 28, 2020 12:30 am1 views

As coach of the Illinois wheelchair track team, Adam Bleakney knows about the chronic overuse of shoulders and elbows by his athletes. But as a daily wheelchair user himself, he also knows about the challenges of navigating life.
Making a Homemade COVID Mask? Study Explains Best Fabric Choices

May 11, 2020 11:30 pm0 views

Health authorities believe COVID-19 spreads by the transmission of respiratory droplets, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends homemade cloth face coverings for use in public spaces. Starting today, Illinois joins many other states in requiring people to wear masks while out. However, initial uncertainty regarding the masks’ effectiveness in reducing exhaled droplets leaves some people unsure or skeptical of their usefulness during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Mechanical science and engineering professor Taher Saif spoke with News Bureau physical sciences editor Lois Yoksoulian about a study that he and his graduate students, Onur Aydin and Bashar Emon, performed on the effectiveness of common household fabrics for use in homemade masks.
Abdelzaher Repurposing Social Networking Models to Predict COVID Spread Under Different Social Distancing Policies

May 4, 2020 11:15 pm1 views

Since the COVID-19 epidemic began, there has been plenty of opportunity to observe how a vast array of truths, half-truths, and falsehoods can flare up and spread like wildfire across social media, swirl around, and just as quickly get buried and forgotten. It could serve as a fascinating case study for CSL and computer science professor Tarek Abdelzaher, who for years has studied how information propagates through social media.

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