College of Engineering News • Iowa State University

Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust funds brain stimulation research

The Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust of Muscatine, Iowa, recently committed $395,280 over a two-year period to establish a laboratory for brain stimulation research at Iowa State University. “We believe this is an important area with a range of likely beneficial impacts for health care,” said David C. Jiles, principal investigator for the project, and …Continue reading “Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust funds brain stimulation research”

Roohparvar named COO of Skyera

Iowa State University alumnus Frankie Roohparvar (BS CE ’84) has been named Skyera’s new Chief Operating Officer. Roohparvar has nearly 30 years of professional experience and has joined Skyera after 13 years at Micron, where he worked primarily with Flash memory and NAND development. “Having been involved with NAND from the early days of its …Continue reading “Roohparvar named COO of Skyera”

ECpE alum elected to Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Board of Governors

by Thane Himes ECpE alumnus Agustin A. Irizarry-Rivera (PhD EE ’96) has made quite a name for himself in his home territory of Puerto Rico. Irizarry-Rivera recently was elected to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Board of Governors. “I was pleased and honored to have been elected,” Irizarry-Rivera said. “It is a public service.” As …Continue reading “ECpE alum elected to Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Board of Governors”

ECpE researcher completes lab on a chip device

by Thane Himes Liang Dong recently completed research on a device that can help scientists find more effective ways to protect crops and combat Parkinson’s disease by studying, of all things, worms. Nematodes possess simple nervous systems, but still share important characteristics with the nervous systems of humans. By studying nematode nerves, researchers can learn more …Continue reading “ECpE researcher completes lab on a chip device”

Texas Instruments adopts ECpE researcher’s testing algorithm

by Thane Himes High-performance semiconductors are individually tested to guarantee quality before they can be shipped to customers. This is done by inputting precisely known data values into a part, and measuring how the part responds to the input data. As Moore’s law continues to push up performance and push down prices, test time has …Continue reading “Texas Instruments adopts ECpE researcher’s testing algorithm”

Iowa State researchers developing ‘BIGDATA’ toolbox to help genome researchers

ECpE’s Srinivas Aluru, Mehl Professor, is leading a research team that’s developing a set of DNA sequencing solutions using high performance computing. The researchers want to develop core techniques, parallel algorithms and software libraries to help researchers adapt parallel computing techniques to high-throughput DNA sequencing, the next generation of sequencing technologies. Read the full story …Continue reading “Iowa State researchers developing ‘BIGDATA’ toolbox to help genome researchers”

Iowa State hosts world’s largest cyber defense competition

Iowa State Electrical and Computer Engineering hosted its annual student cyber defense competition on Saturday. With more than 150 student participants, the event ranked as the largest cyber defense competition in the world. Iowa State students were split into teams and were given two weeks to build their own systems on virtual machines that could …Continue reading “Iowa State hosts world’s largest cyber defense competition”

ECpE grad student wins IEEE poster contest

by Thane Himes Subhadarshi Sarkar, grad student in electrical engineering, was awarded first prize at the 2012 IEEE PES General Meeting Student Poster Contest in July for his presentation on optimal renewable energy. Sarkar presented his poster to judges, professors, students, and professionals at the general meeting. The next day, he found out that he …Continue reading “ECpE grad student wins IEEE poster contest”

ECpE alum, former professor honored by IEEE

by Thane Himes Vijay Vittal (PhD EE ’82), former distinguished professor of electrical engineering at ECpE, has been named the 2013 recipient of the IEEE Herman Halperin Electric Transmission and Distribution Award. Vittal’s work includes a number of projects in several areas, including online dynamic security assessment, the application of a new analytical methods to …Continue reading “ECpE alum, former professor honored by IEEE”

Iowa State, Ames Lab researchers invent new tool to study single biological molecules

By blending optical and atomic force microscope technologies, Iowa State University and Ames Laboratory researchers have found a way to complete 3-D measurements of single biological molecules with unprecedented accuracy and precision. Read the story about ECpE courtesy professor Sanjeevi Sivasankar and Ph.D. student Chi-Fu Yen’s research from Iowa State News Service.

Quantifying Cascading Failure

Around 2 p.m. on August 14, 2003, an overhead transmission line carrying 345 kilovolts of electricity near Walton Hills, Ohio sagged too close to a nearby tree and shorted out. By 4 p.m., more than 50 million people were affected by one of the largest blackouts in history. In September 2011, an Arizona Public Works …Continue reading “Quantifying Cascading Failure”

Pandey advancing bio-microfluidics

“Plant disease is not a field that is well-studied, particularly among engineers,” Santosh Pandey says. “There’s this whole mystery with what goes on with the roots.” Pandey, assistant professor in Iowa State University’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is studying the impact of pathogens on plant roots. He also has a courtesy appointment in …Continue reading “Pandey advancing bio-microfluidics”

Cybersecurity in the smart grid

Manimaran Govindarasu, Associate Chair of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was interviewed by the IEEE Smart Grid Portal this week. Govindarasu offered his expertise on cybersecurity in the smart grid, and touched on the challenges and concerns researchers face when securing the nation’s power grid against cyber attacks. Read the interview with the …Continue reading “Cybersecurity in the smart grid”

ECpE students win MemoCODE Design Contest

A team of ECpE graduate students took home the top prize at this year’s MemoCODE Design Contest.  The students, Chad Nelson, Kevin Townsend, and Bhavani Rao, devised a solution they named Shepard that was 24 times faster than the second-place solution. The group was advised by ECpE’s Joseph Zambreno and Phillip Jones. Read the Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch …Continue reading “ECpE students win MemoCODE Design Contest”

ECpE mourns loss of alum

ECpE lost one of its most treasured alums last week. Richard Kohler (RK) Richards died Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at Mary Greeley Hospital. He was 90. RK graduated from Iowa State with an Electrical Engineering degree in 1943 and, after serving in the army Signal Corps during World War II, obtained a PhD in theoretical …Continue reading “ECpE mourns loss of alum”

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