Electrical Engineering Overview
Has there ever been a better time to be an electrical engineering student? We doubt it. We're making exhilarating progress in areas ranging from wireless communications to biomedical diagnostics, with implications that will be felt in our everyday lives.
Fuel-efficient power generation, electronic speech recognition, self-assembling molecular electronics - the variety and potential impact of our students' research is staggering. In laboratories and classrooms, students draw on the expertise and knowledge of our stellar faculty as well as from nearly every department within the College of Engineering, integrating practical, hands-on research experience with challenging and interesting course work. Their efforts towards what is rapidly becoming an all-purpose technical degree prepare them for careers in medicine, patent law, sales, business management and in nearly every field of engineering.
Interdisciplinary research is a cornerstone of our department. For example, EE faculty and students are working at the Microscale Life Sciences Center - teaming up with the Departments of Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Microbiology, Laboratory Medicine and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Their goal is to develop microsystems for analyzing complex cellular processes - with dramatic applications for cancer research and treatment.
The team approach is nothing new to the Department of Electrical Engineering. Drs. David Allstot, Mani Soma, Richard Shi, and Scott Hauck are garnering international acclaim for their collective work on integrated circuits; while Drs. Radha Poovendarn, Sumit Roy, and James Ritcey are raising the bar on network security and wireless communications. Technology stemming from the results of all these projects could end up in your next cell phone or laptop computer.
Thinking big sometimes means thinking small. Drs. Karl Böhringer, Babak Parviz and Eric Klavins, together with graduate and undergraduate students, are blazing a path to the future of nanotechnology, designing self-assembling systems on the molecular level.
There is a palpable excitement surrounding the Department of Electrical Engineering; an enthusiasm that pervades every classroom and laboratory, invigorating our students and spurring on our faculty to fresh innovations. In an age when electronics play a major role in daily life and the promise of nanotechnology is coming to fruition, it truly is a great time to be a student of electrical engineering.
