News

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are among the trendiest technologies in the world right now, and The University of Texas at Austin is rapidly becoming a leader in advancing these concepts as they come to impact more aspects of our daily lives.

The March cover of Nature Reviews Materials features a paper written by Farzad Zangeneh-Nejad and co-authored by WNCG alumni Dimitrios Sounas and Romain Fleury and WNCG professor Andrea Alù. Metamaterials provide a platform to leverage optical signals for performing specific-purpose computational tasks with ultra-fast speeds. In their paper "Analogue Computing with Metamaterials," Zangeneh-Nejad et. al. survey the basic principles, recent advances and promising future directions for wave-based-metamaterial analogue computing systems.

Texas ECE sat down with WNCG alumna Dr. Kalpana Seshadrinathan (PhD, 2008) to discuss her career in electrical and computer engineering. Seshadrinathan is part of the team that received a 2020 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award. TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF.

WNCG professor Jeff Andrews has been elected Chair of the Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) of the IEEE Communications Society.  CTTC sits at the forefront of theoretical research on communications. The committee is especially interested in “novel use of communication theory and/or information theory to solve problems in areas that include (but are not limited to) source and channel coding, storage, modulation, detection, estimation, synchronization, multiple access, interference mitigation, and networking.”

Ted Rappaport, founding director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Membership in the Academy honors those who have “made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice, or education, including […] significant contributions to the engineering literature.” They are accomplished pioneers of new and developing fields of technology, credited with major advancements in traditional engineering fields or innovations in engineering education.

WNCG professor Todd Humphreys, an expert in GPS spoofing, is featured in a recent New York Times opinion piece on the nation's need for a GPS backup. Although the system is essential, it's also vulnerable. Read the full piece by Kate Murphy in The New York Times. 

The National Academy of Television and Arts & Sciences has awarded Alan Bovik, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, and his team of student collaborators with a 2020 Technology & Engineering Emmy® Award. The team will be recognized for algorithms that optimize streaming media to millions of homes around the globe.

WNCG student Matthew Faw was one of two Texas ECE PhD students selected as 2020-2021 recipients of UT NXP Foundation Fellowship awards. The NXP Foundation Fellowship program provides one-year fellowships to support third or fourth year PhD students pursuing research in machine learning, artificial intelligence, millimeter wave radar and advanced microprocessing or microcomputing technology. The NXP Foundation aims "to develop strong youth STEM programs and encourage innovation that makes a difference in the world."

Diligent Robotics, a healthcare technology company founded by WNCG professor Andrea Thomaz, is on the forefront of the fight against COVID-19. As highlighted in Forbes, robots like Diligent's Moxi are increasingly being used for essential functions in the patient-care setting. Read more at Forbes.com.  

Although advanced neural networks continue to dramatically improve the capabilities of artificial intelligence systems, they are associated with substantial energy use. In an effort to address this problem a growing number of organisations are focused on the creation of technologies designed to reduce energy use in the training and operation of such systems.