2024 ECE Annual Award Winners

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northwestern Engineering recognized 12 students and faculty during its annual awards ceremony on May 31.

“It is always a great pleasure to recognize some of the outstanding students and faculty in our department,” said Randall Berry, John A. Dever Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering.

Best Teaching Assistant Award

Computer engineering student Haris Bajramovic (BS/MS ’24) received the Best Teaching Assistant award.

The Best Teaching Assistant award is based in part on nominations from students.

“Haris always finds time in his busy schedule to help people out one-on-one,” a nominator said. “He is very patient when explaining things.”

Best Computer Engineering PhD Thesis Award

Yixuan Wang (PhD ’24) received the Best Computer Engineering PhD Thesis Award for “Safety-Assured Autonomy for Learning-Enabled Cyber-Physical Systems.” His research interests focus on safety-assured design, machine learning, and adaptation for cyber-physical systems. Wang was advised by Qi Zhu, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and (by courtesy) computer science at Northwestern Engineering.

Best Electrical Engineering PhD Thesis Awards

Jun Hee Lee (PhD ’24) and Yunan Wu (PhD ’24) earned Best Electrical Engineering PhD Thesis Awards.

Lee’s thesis is titled “Fundamental Studies on P-type Ga2O3 Epitaxial Layers Grown By MOCVD.” A member of the Center for Quantum Devices (CQD), Lee was advised by Manijeh Razeghi, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and CQD director.

Yunan Wu studied image and video processing, diffusions, model optimization, and computer vision with adviser Aggelos K. Katsaggelos, Joseph Cummings Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, in the AI in Multimedia – Image and Video Processing Laboratory. Wu’s thesis is titled “Weak Supervision in Deep Learning for Medical Imaging and Astrophysics.”

Best MS Thesis Awards

Michael Richards (BS/MS ’24) won the Best Electrical Engineering MS Thesis Award. Richards was advised by Matthew Grayson, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern Engineering.

Yueyuan Sui (MS ’24) received the Best Computer Engineering MS Thesis Award. Sui was advised by Zhu.

Outstanding Graduating Seniors

Outstanding Seniors are selected based on undergraduate academic performance. Kevin Considine (’24) was named the Outstanding Graduating Electrical Engineering Senior. James Liu (’24) was awarded Outstanding Graduating Computer Engineering Senior.

ECE Project Showcase Winners

Marisabel Aguilar (’24), Tommy Chookaszian (’24), and Yash Tulsyan earned the Project Showcase Award for their design project “FPGA miner.” The team presented their work at the Spring ECE Project Showcase and won the award by attendee vote.

Allen Taflove Best Teacher Award

Ermin Wei, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, industrial engineering and management sciences, and (by courtesy) computer science, earned the student-nominated Allen Taflove Best Teacher Award.

“Professor Wei goes above and beyond to help students,” a nominator said. “She does a great job explaining and simplifying difficult academic concepts.”