UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER
FALL 2021
HONORING OUR PAST, GROWING OUR IMPACT INSIDE A TRIBUTE TO GUANG GAO
A STRATEGIC PLAN OF ACTION
FIRST GRADUATE CYBERSECURITY COHORT
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR 2
JAMIE PHILLIPS DEPARTMENT CHAIR & PROFESSOR
JPHILLI@UDEL.EDU
DEAR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES, As we reflect on the past year, we can clearly see the importance of facing challenges head-on and striving for science-based solutions. That’s exactly what we aim to do every day in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Ensuring that success means having a strong plan in place, one that will strategically guide us into a future where we use innovation to enrich society and address global challenges. The fundamental discoveries of our research and the ingenuity of our students can change the world and deliver us a healthier, happier and more just society. Thanks to our new strategic plan, we have a road map for doing just that, whether it’s using computational methods in biology to target drug-resistant cancers or advancing wireless communications technologies with unique 3D printing techniques. As we work toward such a future, we also need to remember the importance of community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have all come to rely on one another like we never have before, and I can easily say that we are all stronger for it. That sense of inclusive community, combined with a diversity of people, perspectives, and technical backgrounds, will only strengthen the plan we’ve laid out for our future here at ECE. I cannot understate how impressed I have been by the spirit and resilience of my colleagues, and how time spent at UD here has shaped the lives of many, including the legacy of Dr. Guang Gao and the generosity and outstanding work of Tom McCormick and Theo Fleck. It’s been my honor to lead this incredible department over the past year, and I’m thrilled to share some highlights of accomplishments among students, staff and faculty. I cannot wait to see what the next year brings. Thank you for your support, and we hope you enjoy celebrating these accomplishments along with us as you read through our latest department magazine. All the Best,
Jamie Phillips Chair Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Delaware
Fall 2021
Electrical & Computer Engineering This magazine is published for the alumni, friends and peers of the College of Engineering. University of Delaware College of Engineering 102 Du Pont Hall Newark, DE 19716
Electrical & Computer Engineering Magazine
FALL 2021 ECE DEPARTMENT Jamie Phillips Department Chair Cyndi McLaughlin Business Administrator Elizabeth Mestro Administrative Assistant and Department Communications
SECTIO NS 04
CONTENT CONTRIBUTORS Maddy Goss Beth Miller Julie Stewart STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Kathy F. Atkinson Evan Krape PRINTING University Printing
Please submit address changes to ece-info@udel.edu or call (302) 831-2405.
JP Morgan Certificate Program
05 Features 08
Strategic Plan
10 Research 16
Faculty News & Highlights
18
Student News
22
Advisory Council
23
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HARNESSING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE pg10 The University of Delaware is an equal opportunity/
UD PROF. RUDOLF EIGENMANN IS PART OF $20 MILLION NSF CYBERINFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT
affirmative action employer and Title IX institution. For the University’s complete non-discrimination statement, please visit www.udel.edu/aboutus/legalnotices.html
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
FIRST GRADUATE CYBERSECURITY COHORT 4
First JP Morgan Chase & Co. Graduate Cybersecurity Certificate Cohort After completing three intensive cybersecurity courses over the last eight months taught jointly by ECE faculty members Bohacek, Cotton, Novocin, and Tsoutsos, the first cohort of 30 JPMC employees celebrated a virtual graduation on Wednesday, October 27th. In a zoom gathering with students, JPMC executives, and UD faculty and staff from Electrical and Computer Engineering and Professional & Continuing Studies, guest speaker Adam Bulava, Executive Director of Global Head of Attack Simulation & Firmwide Resiliency Exercises for JP Morgan Chase & Co. gave a short talk of his role in maintaining JPMC’s cybersecurity posture and reflected on the importance of this type of education
2022 cohort of 30 JPMC
to JPMC and its employees. Two graduating employees,
students have been
Rafael Calderon, and Kevin Wojcik gave short remarks
gathered and are being
on their perspective on the program and related some of the ways the material has helped them in their jobs or career. Ten members of the initial cybersecurity cohort have applied and been granted admission to continue their studies in the ECE Master of Science in degree in Cybersecurity which has a current enrollment of 110 students in campus and online programs.
University of Delaware
Applications for the
reviewed. This second cohort will run over 2022 Spring, Summer, and Fall semesters.
FEATURE
REMEMBERING GUANG Computer engineering pioneer remembered as dedicated scholar
Professor Guang R. Gao passed away peacefully on Sunday evening September 12th surrounded by his immediate family. Professor Gao was an accomplished Computer Scientist who inspired many students and touched many lives. He had a passion for education, research, and unbelievable enthusiasm in passing on his love and inspiration to learn. To his final moments, his greatest happiness was just that. He spent those days doing what he loved, working on his lifetime book on data flow, counseling students, discussing research topics with colleagues, and spending time with his 2 grand-daughters. Dr. Gao is loved for his genuine kindness, compassion, decency, and above else as an eternal optimist. He only saw the best in people and never had a bad thing to say about anyone. He is beloved, and took chances in people from all
kinds of backgrounds throughout his academic career. His research over a career that spanned four decades, has powered some of the world’s fastest computers, largest government and private sector initiatives in high performance computing, big data, AI, and is a pioneer of data flow architectures. He challenged himself to become an entrepreneur, started a tech company, and continued to press his boundaries out of his comfort zone. His words and wisdom will be remembered in his many books, journals, articles, speeches, and his mentorship of students, and colleagues. He is survived by his wife Peggy of 51 years, son Nick, daughter inlaw Tiffany, and their 2 beautiful grand-daughters, Madeleine, and Evelyn. His legacy will be cherished and remembered through the many lives that he has helped to inspire.
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
FEATURE 6
A Tribute to Guang Gao Guang Gao, an internationally recognized scholar and Endowed Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the University of Delaware Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, passed away on Sept. 12, 2021. Dr. Gao was an award-winning researcher, an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) fellow and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) fellow who excelled in the areas of compilers technology, high-performance computing, dataflow models, and architectures for supercomputing and parallel systems. But it was his deep passion for education and research, met with his unmatched enthusiasm to pass on his love of learning, that left a mark on his many colleagues and students. “Prof. Gao lived an incredible life that impacted and enriched everyone that had the opportunity to meet him,” said Ken Barner, Charles Black Evans Professor and former chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). “He told me incredible stories about his life’s journey from a young boy to a premier scientist. He was a kind soul who wanted the best for everyone. His energy and curiosity were unbounded. My life is better for the times I spent with this gentle giant. Prof. Gao will live forever in the hearts of those he touched.” Dr. Gao paved the way as the first person from mainland China to receive a computer science doctorate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986. Prior to that, he received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University in 1968 and his master’s degree in computer science from MIT in 1982. Throughout his accomplished career, Dr. Gao served as an endowed visiting professor at Tsinghua University and a visiting professor for several top Chinese universities while also completing over 600 publications and advising more than 30 Ph.D. students, 60 master’s program students and hundreds of undergraduates, including notable alumni such as Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan-Dianping, and Alan Emtage, who is the creator of Archie, the world’s first Internet search engine. “Prof. Gao has been an exceptional mentor and a constant source of inspiration and motivation,” said Siddhisanket University of Delaware
“Prof. Gao lived an incredible life that impacted and enriched everyone that had the opportunity to meet him.” — Ken Barner
Raskar, the last Ph.D. student he mentored. “In addition to my Ph.D. adviser, he was a fatherly figure for me. I enjoyed every research discussion, insightful conversation, motivational speech, inspiring stories as well as interesting discussions on world history, politics and geography! When Prof. Gao accepted to mentor me, he told me: ‘Now you are under my wings,’ and I always felt I was. Though his support and guidance will be missed, his legacy shall continue in the field of dataflow model of computation.” The legacy of Dr. Gao’s work has also been associated with his entrepreneurial effort applying his dataflow R&D results for real-world applications through ET International Inc. (ETI). A unique achievement of Dr. Gao’s team at ETI was its critical role in the now-legendary supercomputing system project funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and IBM, known as IBM Cyclops-64 Supercomputer. The success of the Cyclops64 was recognized by ETI as a winner of the supercomputing disruptive technology award at the 2007 Supercomputing Conference as one of the largest supercomputers built on many-core chip technology at that time and in use in the real world. Dr. Gao had always wanted to adopt his Computer Systems Design and Related Services knowledge into production. In 2000 he formed ET International as a spin-off from the University of Delaware. At the time it was a small start-up that began in a conference room at UD with 4 undergraduate interns. The dream was a fledgling idea to help commercialize the research concepts from his computer systems design and software, as well as multi-core systems. It seemed like a daunting task to launch such a young company, in an industry dominated by large, existing conglomerates. However, Professor Gao worked tirelessly through these challenges and inspired his team with his enthusiasm and drive. In 2003 ETI started to provide software services to IBM in connection with the building of some of the world’s largest supercomputers. Over the next decade, ETI grew to more than 40 employees and generated multi-million revenues in connection with projects on supercomputing and high-performance systems. Clients included large corporations and agencies. Most recently, Dr. Gao was a Named Professor Emeritus and the founding director of Computer Architecture and Parallel System Laboratory (CAPSL) in ECE. This past August, Dr. Gao was interviewed as one of the early pioneers in parallel processing at the 50th anniversary of the International Conference of Parallel Processing. Little did anyone know that this would become a very precious recording.
“To me, Dr. Guang Gao always sounded like the last of a generation of ‘old school’ professors—the kind that always took his responsibility as an ‘elder of the village’ very seriously,” said Babatunde (Tunde) Ogunnaike, former dean of the College of Engineering. “Gao, as he was known by everyone, always treated contemporaries with respect, and junior faculty as colleagues. He was universally respected and admired in the community at large, and one of my deepest regrets is that, try as we might, we were never able to get him a well-deserved election into the National Academy of Engineering. His generosity of soul enriched our community, and we will miss him greatly.” In 2007, Dr. Gao was elected as both an IEEE fellow and ACM fellow, and in 2013 he won the Overseas Outstanding Contribution Award of the China Computer Federation (CCF). He also was the recipient of the 2017 IEEE Computer Society (CS) B. Ramakrishna Rau Technical Award “for contributions to compiler techniques and microarchitectures for instruction-level and thread-level parallel computing.” In addition, he won the Gauss Award, which honors the most outstanding research paper in the field of high-performance computing (HPC), in 2011. Beyond his professional accomplishments, Dr. Gao was dedicated to reaching out to new generations of undergraduate and high school students, constantly encouraging them to pursue STEM careers. “For me, Gao was more than my adviser,” said José M. Monsalve Diaz, one of the last students who graduated under Prof. Gao. “He was a close friend that I highly admired. He completely shaped my professional development, encouraging me to always think outside of the box, even if that meant to go against mainstream ideas in the field.”
Diaz said Dr. Gao always offered excellent advice and could recall papers and references from many years past when answering questions, as if he were a walking library. “To this day, I am surprised by how deep his thoughts were, and how much he cared about answering the most difficult questions in our field,” Diaz said. Dr. Gao’s extensive knowledge in his field would often lead to complete history lessons on a topic, until those asking would have to say, “No space, stop!” said ECE Associate Prof. Xiaoming Li. “He was also an exceptionally warm adviser to his students,” Li said. “Over the years, I had never seen him show frustration around students. Even long after graduation, many of his students are still close to him. And I know some always see him as a fatherly figure.” Prof. Gao spent his last days doing what he loved, working on his lifetime book on dataflow, counseling students, discussing research topics with colleagues and spending time with his two granddaughters. “He never relented,” said Rudi Eigenmann, professor of electrical and computer engineering. “Long after his retirement and only a few months before his last breath, he still asked us to write new NSF proposals with him.” Dr. Gao’s impact was felt deeply not only by the students he taught or the research colleagues he mentored, but by anyone who was met by his genuine kindness as he walked through the corridors of Evans Hall. Previous and current staff members recalled many different instances when his kindness and concern for others was the first thing on his agenda. Whether it was scheduling time
for an appointment to talk about work issues or just to say hi, his first statement was usually a gracious “I don’t want to take too much of your time.” “Dr. Gao was a luminary at the University of Delaware who shaped our department and activity in computer engineering. He did what he loved, and a large part of that was mentoring students and faculty over the span of decades, and well beyond retirement,” said one of his newest colleagues, ECE Chairperson Jamie Phillips. “As I started as department chair, I sincerely hoped to get perspectives of alumni and emeritus faculty to help guide future directions. Not only was he eager to lend a hand, but he arranged a call 11 days before my start date to introduce himself, wish me luck in my new role and to ask, ‘How can I help you and the ECE department?’ I explained how much I would value his input, and within a few hours, he sent me a copy of detailed meeting notes of our conversation and some suggestions going forward. Since that time, we continued to engage in regular conversations to share news on department activities and to hear his perspectives. That gives a brief window into Dr. Gao’s enthusiasm, dedication and selfless way of helping others.” As the engineering community mourns his loss, a common thread continues to emerge: That even with his international recognition for his science and intellect, it is Dr. Gao’s kindness, gentle manner and perseverance that will not be forgotten. “Dr. Gao was a kind man who truly cared about his many graduate students,” said Gwen Looby, academic adviser in the department. “It was always a pleasure to interact with him. The affection and respect that his students had for him was obvious.” Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
STRATEGIC PLAN 8
BUILDING OUR FUTURE ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING ARE CENTRAL TO THE TECHNOLOGIES TRANSFORMING SOCIETY– INFORMATION, SECURITY, ROBOTICS, ENERGY AND SUSTAINABILITY AND BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE– PROVIDING THE INTELLECTUAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL BRIDGE BETWEEN THE CYBER AND PHYSICAL WORLDS. We focus on how the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) will prepare the next generation of talent and leadership in addressing major societal and global challenges. We align with the vision of the College of Engineering and the University of Delaware to be the destination for an extraordinary education and transformational research, making the world better today and for generations to come.
University of Delaware
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
RESEARCH 10
HARNESSING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UD Prof. Rudolf Eigenmann is part of $20 million NSF Cyberinfrastructure Project
It takes real intelligence and plenty of collaborative muscle to harness the potential of artificial intelligence. Most of us can barely grasp the concept of human-made machines learning how to process and analyze enormous amounts of data, then using that mass of information to understand things at new scales and in new combinations, delivering useful insights that our brains would never be able to produce on their own. Now University of Delaware Prof. Rudolf Eigenmann, interim chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and professor of electrical and computer engineering, is playing a critical role in a new $20 million National Science Foundation-supported project designed to expand access to artificial intelligence. AI for the masses, you might call it. The project, called the NSF AI Institute for Intelligent Cyberinfrastructure with Computational Learning in the Environment (ICICLE), is one of 11 new National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes the NSF announced recently. It is the second year of such investment by NSF. This $220 million in support follows the $140 million that created the first seven AI institutes in 2020. The overall effort now includes partners in 38 states. “These institutes are hubs for academia, industry and government to accelerate discovery and innovation in AI,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said when the new institutes were announced. “They lead to new capabilities that improve our lives from medicine to entertainment to transportation and cybersecurity, while growing the economy and maintaining global competitiveness.” The goal is to provide this power tool — artificial intelligence — to researchers and many others who would not otherwise have access to the speed, efficiency, insight and accuracy it can provide. NSF also sees the potential to help older adults lead more independent lives and improve the quality of their care; trans-
University of Delaware
form AI into a more accessible “plug-andplay” technology; create solutions to improve agriculture and food supply chains; enhance adult online learning by introducing AI as a foundational element; and support underrepresented students from elementary school to postdoctoral levels to improve equity and representation in AI research. The work is led by NSF in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Google, Amazon, Intel and Accenture. The institute Eigenmann is part of is led by Ohio State University. His focus will be on cyberinfrastructure, which includes hardware from supercomputers to tiny data-collection devices, the software that drives that hardware, the networks that carry the data and the applications that produce and consume that data — the physics problems, the biology problems, the chemistry problems, for example. Eigenmann knows his way around all these things. He was an NSF program manager in the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure before joining UD’s faculty in 2017. “Data is a big word and there is such an enormous amount of data,” he said. “We need to be careful in managing and harnessing the data. That is another big question or element of cyberinfrastructure.” The principal investigator is Dhabaleswar K. (DK) Panda, professor of computer science and engineering at Ohio State. Eigenmann is one of 46 researchers participating from 13 universities. “Industry partners will play an important role in what we do for various reasons,” Eigenmann said. “What academics can do is dwarfed by what industry does, so we have to know what industry is doing and how we can synergize.”’
Developing AI capabilities across all colleges is a growing thrust at UD, Eigenmann said. Several students will be working on this new project, he said, and he anticipates involvement by other colleagues. “When I arrived at UD, we started to build a faculty network in high-performance computing, with colleagues in all colleges involved,” he said. “Colleagues from all over
the University participate in the Data Science Institute. It will take more, but this is a very good starting point.” The ICICLE team will build and prove its system around three application domains: Smart Foodsheds (food produced locally), Digital Agriculture, and Animal Ecology.
Center, Case Western Reserve University, Iowa State University, Indiana University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Texas at Austin/Texas Advanced Supercomputing Center, the University of Utah, UC San Diego/San Diego Supercomputing Center, UC Davis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and IC-FOODS.
In addition to UD and Ohio State, collaborators include: the Ohio Supercomputing
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
RESEARCH 12
DARK MATTER DETECTION UD’S SINGH AND COLLABORATORS PROPOSE REPURPOSING TABLETOP SENSORS TO SEARCH FOR DARK MATTER
Scientists are certain that dark matter exists. Yet, after more than 50 years of searching, they still have no direct evidence for the mysterious substance. University of Delaware’s Swati Singh is among a small group of researchers across the dark matter community that have begun to wonder if they are looking for the right type of dark matter. “What if dark matter is much lighter than what traditional particle physics experiments are looking for?” said Singh, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UD. Now, Singh, Jack Manley, a UD doctoral student, and collaborators at the University of Arizona and Haverford College, have proposed a new way to look for the particles that might make up dark matter by repurposing existing tabletop sensor technology. The team recently reported their approach in a paper published in Physical Review Letters. Co-authors on the paper include Dalziel Wilson, an assistant professor of optical sciences from Arizona, Mitul Dey Chowdhury, an Arizona doctoral student, and Daniel Grin, an assistant professor of physics at Haverford College.
University of Delaware
NO ORDINARY MATTER Singh explained that if you add up all the things that emit light, such as stars, planets and interstellar gas, it only accounts for about 15% of the matter in the Universe. The other 85% is known as dark matter. It doesn’t emit light, but researchers know it exists by its gravitational effects. They also know it isn’t ordinary matter, such as gas, dust, stars, planets and us. “It could be made up of black holes, or it could be made up of something trillions of times smaller than an electron, known as ultralight dark matter” said Singh, a quantum theorist known for her pioneering efforts to push forward mechanical dark matter detection. One possibility is that dark matter is made up of dark photons, a type of dark matter that would exert a weak oscillating force on normal matter, causing a particle to move back and forth. However, since dark matter is everywhere, it exerts that force on everything, making it hard to measure this movement. Singh and her collaborators said they think they can overcome this obstacle by using optomechanical accelerometers as sensors to detect and amplify this oscillation. “If the force is material dependent, by using two objects composed of different materials the amount that they are forced will be different, meaning that you would be able to measure that difference in acceleration between the two materials,” said Manley, the paper’s lead author. Wilson, a quantum experimentalist and one of the UD team’s collaborators, likened an optomechanical accelerometer to a miniature tuning fork. “It’s a vibrating device which, due to its small size, is very sensitive to perturbations from the environment,” he said. Now, the researchers have proposed an experiment using a membrane made of silicon nitride and a fixed beryllium mirror to bounce light between the two surfaces. If the distance between the two materials changes, the researchers would know from the reflected light that dark photons were present because the silicon nitride and beryllium have different material properties. Collaboration was a key part of developing the experiment’s design, according to Manley. He and Singh (theorists) worked with Wilson and Dey Chowdhury (experimentalists) on the theoretical calculations that went into the detailed blueprint for building their proposed tabletop accelerometer sensor. Meanwhile, Grin, a cosmologist, helped shed light on the particle physics aspects of ultralight dark matter, such as why it would be ultralight, why it might couple to materials differently and how it might be produced.
As a theorist, Manley said the opportunity to learn more about how devices work and how experimentalists build things to prove the theories that he and Singh develop has deepened his expertise while simultaneously widening his exposure to possible career paths.
A GROWING BODY OF WORK Importantly, this latest work builds on previously published research by the collaborating teams, reported last summer in Physical Review Letters. The paper, which included contributions from former UD graduate student Russell Stump, showed that several existing and near-term laboratory-scale devices are sensitive enough to detect, or rule out, possible particles that could be ultralight dark matter. The research reported that certain types of ultralight dark matter would connect, or couple, with normal matter in a way that would cause a periodic change in the size of atoms. While small fluctuations in the size of a single atom may be difficult to notice, the effect is amplified in an object composed of many atoms, and further amplification can be achieved if that object is an acoustic resonator. The collaboration evaluated the performance of several resonators made of diverse materials ranging from superfluid helium to single-crystalline sapphire, and found these sensors can be used to detect that dark matter-induced strain signal. Both projects were supported in part through Singh’s funding from the National Science Foundation to explore emerging ideas around using state-of-the-art quantum devices to detect astrophysical phenomena with tabletop technologies that are smaller and less expensive than other methods. Together, Singh said, these papers extend the body of work on what is known about possible ways to detect dark matter and suggest the possibility of a new generation of table-top experiments. Singh and Manley are working with other experimental groups, too, to develop additional tabletop sensors to look for such dark matter or other weak astrophysical signals. They also are actively cultivating broader discussions on this topic within the dark matter and quantum sensors communities. For example, Singh recently discussed transformational instrumentation advances in particle physics detectors at a virtual workshop organized by the Department of Energy’s Coordinating Panel for Advanced Detectors (CPAD). She also presented these results at a special workshop during the American Physical Society’s April meeting. “It’s an exciting time, and I am learning a lot from the questions posed by scientists from diverse backgrounds at such workshops,” said Singh. “But it’s worth noting that my most original research ideas still come out of questions posed by curious students.” Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
RESEARCH 14
University of Delaware Professors Marianna Safronova and Rudolf Eigenmann combine physics and computer science to develop their atomic portal.
new atomic data portal
UD’S SAFRONOVA, EIGENMANN AND COLLABORATORS SHARE THE POWER OF PRECISION ATOMIC PHYSICS Even if you’re one of the most precise physicists on the planet — as University of Delaware Professor Marianna Safronova is — you still will need collaborators whose skills complement your own and make new opportunities possible.
Bindiya Arora, a UD alum who now is a physics professor at Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) in Punjab, India, worked on the fundamental physics and modeling with Safronova. Eigenmann, computer engineering graduate student Parinaz Barakhshan and physics graduate student Adam Marrs developed the computer mechanisms and interfaces that put the calculations to work.
You will need someone such as UD Professor Rudolf Eigenmann, who can take that precision, add generous amounts of computer science expertise and help to make that high-value information available to any other physicist who wants it.
Knowing the precise atoms in materials is of critical importance in engineering characteristics and science projects. Now a growing body of high-precision data is available online, giving the research community a new power tool for a broad range of applications in physics and engineering.
A project led by Safronova and Eigenmann and supported by the National Science Foundation has done just that, producing a Portal for High-Precision Atomic Data and Computation that provides extraordinary information about atomic properties in user-friendly ways.
Safronova’s calculations already have contributed to many such advances, including the development and fundamental research with optical atomic and nuclear clocks, tests of fundamental symmetries, studies of dark matter and other projects that are pushing past standard particle physics models.
It’s the periodic table on steroids and it is already drawing keen interest from researchers who need to know the nitty-gritty details of the materials they work with.
“Our group and collaborators have developed high-precision code over the past 20 years,” Safronova. “This portal makes them searchable and easy to access. In many cases, those properties have not been measured before. This data is not provided by any other database.”
“The properties are key inputs for many research projects, such as quantum simulation, development of quantum sensors, tests of fundamental physics and many others,” Eigenmann said. “Atomic data are important for astrophysicists and plasma physics applications and may help to shed light on how
University of Delaware
heavy elements such as gold and uranium are produced in the universe.”
The new portal provides access to calculations of properties of atoms and ions, such as matrix elements, transition rates, lifetimes, polarizabilities, hyperfine constants and others.
The computer science challenge included finding efficient ways to link Safronova’s complex computations with an online portal that could automatically include new data. The first version of the portal included data on 12 elements. Already, scientists and engineers have asked for more. Safronova said the hope is to add 30 more elements in the next year. The information can be used for fundamental physics, Safronova said, precision measurements, quantum simulation, atomic clocks and astrophysics, to name just a few applications. “You may wonder why we can provide this information at the University of Delaware and others can’t,” Eigenmann said. “The previous work of Marianna and her collaborators has created these computational techniques that produce precision no one else has.” The portal is open to all and free to use. And, Safronova said, it would not exist without the help of Eigenmann and his team. “I had no idea how to get that data online,” she said. “I know how to produce the data and I know how to publish the numbers. But to make a website
and release actual codes — I had no idea how to do that. Collaborating with computer scientists taught me so much about how I should write code. We redesigned a lot of codes to make more of the software.”
Safronova said the work was done using UD’s high-performance Caviness and Darwin clusters.
Marrs said the project has been a good challenge for him, too.
That means far more muscle than an ordinary computer can muster. Darwin has 6,000 cores available — the approximate capacity of 6,000 computers. Safronova’s team uses more than 500 cores.
“The collaboration forced my brain to go in two different ways,” he said. “It was very much a learning process. High precision numbers I’m familiar with. But doing it in this way, where we want it to be seen by everyone, motivated me to make the whole process as automatic as possible.” Arora said she knew from previous studies that Safronova knew how to produce precision code. But Arora had never worked on converting those codes for open access. “Compiling data from various experiments is part of my job, and this gave me insight to new findings,” she said. “All the complicated codes and software were available, but they were very hard to use. The kind of open access we are trying to provide is easy to use. You just need to know what kind of atom you want and what property you want to work on.”
“This code requires high-performance computing,” she said.
And that powerful computation now is available to those who may not have HPC skills or access. The portal is webbased, available to anyone with an Internet connection. Eigenmann said it could one day be accessible with a mobile app. That could put the power of the Darwin computations into many a pocket. “This collaboration has been rewarding on all sides,” he said. “I enjoy learning physics and some of it takes me back to high school and the periodic table. What we do in computer science — I find it rewarding when we see the application in physics, biology or chemistry. There are interesting computer science issues there.”
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
FACULTY NEWS AND HIGHLIGHTS 16
COLLEGE AWARDS
CHASE COTTON COE Faculty Award Excellence in Service and Community Engagement
FOUAD KIAMILEV COE Faculty Award Excellence in Mentoring and Advising
GWEN LOOBY COE Award Staff/Faculty Partnership
MARK MIROTZNIK COE Faculty Award Excellence in Research and Entrepreneurship RICK MARTIN COE Faculty Award Excellence in Teaching
University of Delaware
AWARDS & PROMOTIONS
FELLOWSHIPS
IEEE- Eta Kappa Nu ChapterOutstanding chapter
Gore Fellowships, Hassan Baker Electrical and Computer Engineering Congratulations Mohammed Baksh! One of 3 recipients of a Delaware Data Innovation Lab fellowship.
TINGYI GU DARPA Young Faculty Award for her proposal on developing topologically engineered active silicon photonic resonators.
ELLEN GUPTA Bendett Fellowship Award The Bendett Fellowship was established in April 2004 by Mark P. Bendett ‘81M ‘85PhD.
SWATI SINGH NSF CAREER Award for her proposal “Mechanical Sensors for Exploring the Dark Sector”
ABHI SINGH Promotion to full professor
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
STAFF NEWS / STUDENT NEWS 18
a first-class student CELEBRATING THE FIRST GRADUATE OF UD’S NEW BAIM/CYBERSECURITY DUAL DEGREE PROGRAM As a first-generation Asian American and an alumnus of the First State’s University of Delaware, Devarshi Patel knows a lot about firsts. And now, Patel has added another first to his list as he became the first graduate of UD’s master of science dual degree program in business analytics and information management (BAIM) and cybersecurity. “It is a privilege to be the first graduate of this amazing program,” said Patel, who grew up in Camden, Delaware and completed his bachelor of science in information systems as part of UD’s Class of 2018. “I hope more students interested in business and technology find their way to this M.S. program because I truly believe it provides the best of both worlds.”
University of Delaware
Patel said that he was drawn to the dual degree program, which is offered as a collaboration between UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and UD’s College of Engineering, because of his active interest in technology. “After completing a technology internship for one of the largest banks in 2018, I realized which areas of tech were gaining popularity,” Patel said. “The three main areas of tech that are on an upward trend are big data, cybersecurity and cloud computing. I decided that I wanted to focus on particular areas of technology that I knew would last indefinitely and continue to rapidly advance.” On his time in the new program, Patel said: “I had an opportunity to meet a lot of great students and professors and learn from some of the most knowledgeable instructors from both Lerner and the College of Engineering.” He added that his favorite part of the program was his experience “working on team projects with real-world applications.”
Now that he has graduated as part of the Class of 2020, Patel hopes to begin a full-time position in the cybersecurity and/or information security industries. This summer, he also worked with a friend to start a business, Iterics.io, which creates websites for small businesses.
to further reinforce their IT knowledge in the cyber domain.”
Regardless of his next step, Patel’s future is bright, said Chase Cotton, a professor in UD’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who works closely with the dual degree program. Cotton taught Patel in several cybersecurity classes and said that it’s “really exciting” for the new dual degree program to have its first graduate.
“In today’s world, almost any technical, business or healthcare student needs to be introduced to those aspects of their future careers that will be impacted by cybersecurity needs and issues,” Cotton said. “Since a large fraction of the IT workforce enters the business via a MIS path, it is very useful to let them add needed cybersecurity knowledge and skills to their IT foundations.”
Cotton also said that the program has been running “quite smoothly” so far, adding that “because today’s world has an increased focus on cybersecurity, we find the Lerner BAIM students wanting
Students like Patel who have this unique and specialized qualification, Cotton said, are well prepared to join a number of fields and career paths.
Andrea Everard, Lerner College associate dean of undergraduate programs and professor of MIS, provided additional insight on this distinctive partnership
between colleges and the benefits it provides to students in providing core and advanced courses from both colleges. “Students get the best of both degrees, with a more in-depth coverage in cybersecurity,” Everard said. “Discussion with potential employers revealed a need for graduates not only equipped with training in cybersecurity but also able to understand the business environment where these skills would be applied. Controlling organizational risks and managing security threats requires not only the more technical aspects of cybersecurity (provided through the College of Engineering) but also, very importantly, an understanding of what is required for the successful implementation and management of IT in business.”
Over three Saturdays in October and November 50 students from around the country visited UD and ECE as part of Blue & Golden Saturdays.
These B&G days are the first in-person recruiting events since 2019. As part of the open house, students heard from Drs. Phillips and Martin about Electrical & Computer Engineering and potential job opportunities after graduation. Drs. Cotton and Novocin shared experiences in computer engineering, cybersecurity and Senior Design classes and projects. Dr. Mirotznik and Mr. Lum demonstrated equipment in the Maker Space showcasing capabilities in additive manufacturing. We’re looking forward to seeing these students as blue hens in September!
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
DISSERTATION / THESIS TITLES FALL 2020–SUMMER 2021 20
Non-Thesis MS Graduates Jason Anderson Aric Canaanie Xiaodong Cao Jeffrey DiIenno Emilie Doyle Xingyu Huang Rupert James Jiaming Lin Jingyuan Luo Connor Olaya Aashiv Patel Chaiwarut Santiwipharat Jacob Sisko Kunal Vohra Zihan Zhang Yilei Zheng Devarshi Patel Jarel Benjamin Ayou Birch Winston Budala Rami Del Toro Ming Gao John Golden Enjolokee Jones Zachary Kuptsow Michael Kyle John Lynn Mark McFadden Hunter Miller Benjamin Osawe James Plastine Adithya Ragunathan Mrunal Shah Thomas Stewart Kyle Sullivan Qiyao Tang Ron Teixeira Courtney Whitman
University of Delaware
Master Theses Mohammad Baksh Advisor: Barner Modern Computer Vision and Deep Learning Approaches for Face Mask and Social Distancing Detection Navarun Jagatpal Advisor: Prather Thin Film Lithium Niobate Modulators at 1064 NM for CMOS-Compatible Systems Bowen Li Advisor: Wu A Survey on Generative Adversarial Networks Samuel Matylewicz Advisor: Goossen Effect of White-Roof on Ice Rink Refrigeration Systems Daniel May Advisor: Kiamilev Exploration of FPGA Based Accelerators in Linux Host Systems Salvatore Servodio Advisor: Li An Efficient Shuffle-Light FFT Library Simrat Singh Advisor: Gu Growth and Device Study of Chalcogenide Optical Phase Change Material Madeline Smith Advisor: A. Singh Stochastic Analysis of Gene Expression Noise Boshu Sun Advisor: Gu Laser Direct Writing Metalens with Phase Change Material and Application
PhD Dissertations Kuncheng Bai Advisor: Kiamilev Advanced Components for Electric Vehicle System: Vehicle-to-Grid Metering, Vehicle-to-Vehicle Charging, and High-Power Charge Circuit Interrupting Devices Tyler Browning Advisor: Kiamilev Enhancing and Characterizing a Packetized Display Protocol (PDP) for Infrared Scene Projectors (IRSP) Patrick Cronin Advisor: Cotton Investigating Mobile and Peripheral Side Channels for Attack and Defense Angela Cuadros Advisor: Arce Sparse Sampling in X-Ray Computed Tomography Via Spatial and Spectral Coded Illumination Benjamin Garrett Advisor: Mirotznik Development of Novel Engineered Materials for Applications at Microwave and Infrared Frequencies Fateme Hosseini Advisor: Yang Technology Trend-Driven Reliable Embedded System Design Rebekah Houser Advisor: Cotton & Wang Investigations of the Security and Privacy of the Domain Name System
Abhishek Iyer Advisor: Opila Understanding and Optimizing the Performances of PEDOT: PSS based Heterojunction Solar Cells
Siddhisanket Raskar Advisor: Gao Dataflow Software Pipelining for Codelet Model Using Hardware-Software CoDesign
Christopher Jackson Advisor: Kiamilev Hardware and Close Support Electronics Architectures for Enabling a Packetized Display Protocol on IRLED Scene Projectors
Conor Ryan Advisor: Prather Microwave Photonic SpatialSpectral Imaging
Lin Jin Advisor: Cotton & Wang Understanding the Security Risks and Censorship Behaviors on the Exploitation of Domain Names
Thomas St. John Advisor: Li Performance Analysis and Optimization for Extreme Scale Systems
Aaron Landwehr Advisor: Kiamilev A Packetized Display Protocol Architecture for Infrared Scene Projection Systems Hwaseob Lee Advisor: Gu Designed Non-Hermitian States in Notched Silicon Microring Resonator Kuang Lu Advisor: Fang A Unified Framework for Event Related Information Seeking José Monsalve Diaz Advisor: Gao Sequential Codelet Model: A Supercodelet Program Execution Model and Architecture
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
ADVISORY COUNCIL 22
Welcome, to our new members.
Dr Tulay Adali *
Mr. Bradley Cain *
Dr. William Kramer *
Mark Donhowe *
Dr. Patrick Shea *
The Advisory Council is made up of leaders from industry, alumni of the department, academia, and government. Members of the Council are committed to the advancement of the department and ensuring our degree programs, research activities, strategic planning, corporate partnerships, fundraising and public relations, continue to excel and meet the needs of employers in industry and academia.
2021–2022 ADVISORY COUNCIL Mr. Bradley Cain *
Advisory Council Chair CVS Health Digital
Dr. Tulay Adali * UMBC
Dr. Sunita Bhatia
Johns Hopkins University
Mark Donhowe *
W. L. Gore & Associates
Dr. Shalinee Kishore
Mr. Michael Lombardi
Dr. Edward Coyle
Dr. Patrick Shea *
Dr. Charles Johnson-Bey
Dr. Qian Xie
Dr. William Kramer *
Dr. Mark Bendett
Mr. James Orr
Dr. Karen Bloch
Mr. Jeffrey Six
U.S. Army
Northrop Grumman
Quantenna Communications Retired, Lockheed Martin DuPont
Georgia Tech
Booz Allen Hamilton
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Apple Inc.
T. Rowe Price
Lehigh University
* We are excited about our new members and our ** new Advisory Council Chair.
University of Delaware
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