Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 21:12:39 GMT Server: NCSA/1.5 Content-type: text/html ECE: Department Overview
College of Engineering
University of Wisconsin - Madison

ECE

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department Overview


The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UW-Madison is recognized for excellence in research, instruction, and service to the profession. It ranks among top electrical and computer engineering departments in national surveys, consistently producing talented graduates whose skills are respected throughout the nation and the world. Its distinguished faculty of 55 members leads exciting research efforts that span both traditional and emerging areas in electrical and computer engineering. Many have been recognized for their research contributions with awards from national and international organizations; among the faculty are nine IEEE Fellows and eight NSF Presidential Young Investigator award recipients.

Research in the department encompasses virtually every specialty within electrical and computer engineering. Our department is noted for its "hands-on" approach to graduate education, complemented with a strong theoretical program. This blend offers students a tremendous range of research and educational opportunities exploiting both technological and conceptual innovations in electrical and computer engineering. Interdisciplinary research and educational programs are a major component of the activities at UW-Madison. Many electrical and computer engineering faculty and graduate students conduct interdisciplinary research in such diverse fields as materials science, dynamical systems, space science, manufacturing systems, fusion, and applied probability. These efforts typically involve cross departmental collaboration with faculty in other branches of engineering and such areas as medicine, computer science, physics and mathematics.

The campus boasts a large number of interdisciplinary centers and industrial consortia to coordinate and enhance such efforts. These centers provide access to state of the art technology for a "critical mass" of talented students, faculty, and professional research staff, and focus on innovations destined to enhance the competitive position of U.S. engineering and technology. Many of these centers and consortia operate with direct industry participation. This permits students to obtain first hand knowledge of modern industrial research needs and to establish important links between the industrial participants and the department. Among these centers and consortia are: Engineering Research Center for Plasma-Aided Manufacturing, Center for X-ray Lithography, Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC), Wisconsin Manufacturing Automation and Robotics Consortium, Thin-Film Research Consortium, Materials Science Industrial Consortium, and Wisconsin Information Sciences and Communications Consortium.

Quality instruction has always been among the highest priorities in our department. Our faculty feel a strong sense of responsibility to provide the finest possible education for both graduate and undergraduate students. This commitment is evidenced in our faculty's many textbooks that have been adopted by universities in the U.S. and abroad. The members of this department have always sought to maintain a symbiosis between research and teaching, with research contributions yielding improvements in curriculum, and fundamental insights from the classroom providing a foundation for innovative research. Some of the recent research contributions of our faculty are listed in an enclosure at the back of this brochure.

Approximately three hundred students are currently enrolled in our graduate program, with roughly 40 percent being doctoral candidates. The department awards an average of 70 master's degrees and 15 doctoral degrees each year. Demand for our graduates among industrial, government and academic employers is consistently high. Our alumni have been active contributors to the advancement of electrical and computer engineering throughout the department's more than hundred year history, and they remain leaders in industry and academia today.


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