Author: ECE ranked #35 and faculty named Highly Ranked Scholars
The UConn ECE Department is ranked 35th nationally in the 2024 Research.com top universities ranking, in the field of Electronics and Electrical Engineering. According to ScholarGPS, UConn ECE ranked #132 world-wide and #56 in the US. A number of our faculty were also recognized as international leaders in their field:
Bahram Javidi: #55 in Electrical and Computer Engineering, #2 in Digital Imaging, #5 in 3D reconstruction, and #6 in Optical engineering.
Yaakov Bar Shalom: #95 in Electrical and Computer Engineering, #1 in Sensor fusion
Shengli Zhou: #2 in Underwater acoustics
Junbo Zhao: #9 in State observer, Last five years: #1 in System dynamics, #2 in Kalman filter, #2 in State observer, #6 in Electric power system
Author: Miles of Memories: John Ayers Retires with Accolades
Associate Professor John Ayers’ career could be summarized in miles.
With two groundbreaking inventions that traveled the planet, numerous doctoral and master’s students mentored to move the industry forward world-wide, and several half marathons completed following an incredibly rare disease – one so rare it was named after him – Ayers looks at the miles logged behind him with gratefulness and humility.
His 34-year tenure in ECE encompassed thousands of research citations, hundreds of research papers, 27 research grants, eight teaching awards, 10 published books, and three new graduate courses.
“None of us aspire to this breadth of success, or enter into our careers thinking it could be possible,” Ayers said. “It shows that even an ordinary person can do the extraordinary.”
He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1990 and joined UConn’s Electrical and Computer Engineering department soon after.
Some of his achievements were singularly remarkable, such as the widespread adoption of his patterned heteroepitaxial processing invention for flat screens and infrared detectors, and the ensuing legal battle for the technology by a major consumer electronics company; the emergence of his Digital Integrated Circuits textbook as one of the top four worldwide; the development of the industry standard tool for modeling strain and defects in Silicon-Germanium (SiGe); the establishment of his research book, Heteroepitaxy of Semiconductors, as the leading authority in the field, and his invention of an electric circuit model for strain and defects in semiconductor heterostructures, which allows the application of well-established commercial circuit analysis tools to the modeling of graded and multi-layered epitaxial structures.
Ayers also served as associate department head and senior design coordinator for a number of years.
After the publication of Heteroepitaxy of Semiconductors brought him to the forefront of the field his graduate research group peaked at 10 members. His students were among the most prolific researchers and writers in the department, and one doctoral student had written 30 papers before his thesis defense.
He created three new graduate courses for these students, one at the master’s level and two at the doctoral level. He also enjoyed teaching the fundamentals to undergraduates, and brought in undergraduate researchers as well, but insisted they do graduate-level work to begin building their portfolio of journals and conference papers.
“I focused on trying to bring myself to think in the way of someone seeing it for the first time,” he said. “By bringing the concept to them in multiple ways, I was able to see the concepts in ways they might relate to.”
This work with undergraduates, in part, led to the breakthrough electrical circuit model he and a research student developed for strain and relaxation in semiconductor heterostructures.
Ayers believed the interplay between his research and teaching efforts helped to make him a better professor. He is also credited with developing the first online laboratory course at the University.
He was designated a University Teaching Fellow in 1999, the university’s highest teaching honor.
Later in his career, he began to receive consulting requests from the semiconductor industry. He created Epitax Engineering to serve this corporate need and established a productive relationship with the silicon industry. Epitax Engineering discovered breakthroughs in the modeling of strain and defects in SiGe structures, and eventually the establishment of the industry-standard tool for modeling strain and defects in SiGe.
Ayers credits his achievements to his mentors, including his mother Ruth B. Ayers, his father Professor George H. Ayers, and Professors Sorab Ghandhi and Ronald Gutmann.
“My mother showed me the importance of being meticulous, as I watched her prepare thousands of index cards for her genealogy and history research,” Ayers said. “My father had an infectious love of learning, which I witnessed in his writing and teaching.”
Ayers’ professional achievements are made more remarkable by the fact that he battled a rare, severely crippling, and incurable disease for the final third of his tenure.
The disease caused systemic inflammation in his bones, heart, marrow, and blood.
He became the first person to recover from more than 30 back fractures and run a half marathon in 2018.
He chronicled his battle against the disease in his 2018 memoir Runner, a book Ayers said students found inspirational.
“I will miss working with students, but it is certainly the right time to move on,” Ayers said. “My research will be continued on by others. It is a good feeling to be part of something bigger than myself.”
By Claire Tremont
Author: Eric Donkor (Ph.D. ’89 ENG) Retires from 35-Year Career in ECE
When Eric Donkor began his career at UConn in the late 80s, fiber-optic communication networks operated at speeds ranging from 1 to 10 megabits per second (Mbps). With advancement in fiber optics and fiber lasers, data transfers leaped to 10,000 Mbps by the mid 2000s and 100,000 Mbps by 2010.
While speeds have continued to rise to almost 800,000 Mbps in recent years, Donkor focuses his primary research on the design and development of fiber optics and opto-electronic devices for high-speed optical networks. These range from 40,000 Mbps to 100,000 Mbps and are ideal for transmitting information through laser light and fiber optic cables. Signal loss is minimal, making them ideal and reliable for electronic communications and medical, mechanical, military, automobile, and aerospace applications.
“As a result, today’s internet providers are installing fibers to the home, thereby providing high-speed large bandwidth fiber communication networks to remote and rural towns all across the U.S.,” he explained. “We never would have seen this 35 years ago.”
Donkor, who retired in August after spending his entire career at UConn, is founder of ECE’s High Speed Optical Network and Device Lab. There, he also researched terahertz optical frequency comb generation, optical analog-to-digital conversion, and the investigation of high-speed switching in fiber optics. His most current research, supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), centered on the application of nano-photonics for optical nano-circuits design, and quantum photonics for secure communication over fiber optics.
ALL ABOUT GOOD TIMING
After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cape Coast in Ghana, West Africa, Donkor came to the United States and pursued a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Boston University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at UConn.
In the summer of 1988 as he was finishing his Ph.D. at UConn, the late Professor of Electrical Engineering Clarence Schultz retired. This left a teaching vacancy for the senior design lab course, which is required for all seniors in electrical engineering.
Donkor, who was the teaching assistant for that course and became adept in teaching the course during his Ph.D. program, was approached by ECE Professor Faquir Jain, then head of the EE Department, with an invitation to be hired as a lecturer to teach the Senior Design Laboratory in the interim. While the opportunity sounded enticing, Donkor already had two other job offers at other universities.
“Coincidentally, the EE Department had an open search to hire for the vacant position following Professor Schulz’s retirement,” Donkor recalls.” When I was made aware of this, I considered the opportunity and decided to apply for the position. And I was hired in January 1989.”
Six years later, Donkor was promoted to associate professor, and has retained this position for the past 28 years.
“Dr. Donkor filled a niche in our curriculum, offering courses in the area of nanophotonics and fiber optics,” Jain says. “When fiber optic communication was expanding, he established his lab so undergraduates could have hands-on experience, and later, he oversaw a well-equipped laser laboratory for graduate research. In addition, Dr. Donkor was instrumental in strengthening nanoscience minor in ECE and was always ready to serve as an advisor.”
TEACHINGS
During his tenure, Donkor taught more than a dozen electrical engineering undergraduate and graduate courses including Digital Systems, Nonlinear Optical Devices, Electronic Devices and Circuits, Advanced Semiconductor Devices, Analog Design Laboratory, Micro/Opto-electronic Devices and nanophotonics. He designed and has been teaching the current offering of Optical Engineering lecture and Optical Engineering Laboratory courses for almost a decade.
He also teamed with David Jordan, professor of electrical engineering (EE) emeritus and former department head, and Bob Northrop, professor of electrical engineering and biomedical engineering emeritus, to design the Senior Design Course as offered in its current format where “In the first semester, students practice technical writing, and oral presentations skills among others. They form design teams and each team is assigned a design project, as well as faculty advisor,” Donkor explains. “The second semester is dedicated to the design, implementation and completion of the project. The course ends with presentation by students, and a show and tell of the final project.”
In 2000, for his teaching efforts, Donkor received the School of Engineering’s “Outstanding Teaching Faculty” award, and “Excellence in Teaching” award from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
STAYING ACTIVE
Outside the lab and classroom, Donkor took membership in the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) as a Fellow; Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE); Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) as Senior Member; and Life Time Member of the scientific honor society Sigma Xi. In addition, he served as an associate editor of Optical Engineering and an editorial board member for the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and most recently as secretary of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (2020 to 2024) and program chair of the SPIE Quantum Information and Computation Symposium (1999 to 2024).
At UConn, he served as chair of the University Interdisciplinary Courses Committee (UICC); secretary of the formerly named School of Engineering; member of the University Senate; chair of the ECE Department’s Curriculum and Courses Committee; and member of UConn’s Information Technology Building (ITE) building plan committee.
“I stay involved in so many organizations for three basic reasons,” he says. “For one, I like to be on top of developing and emerging trends in my field of the technology. And also, I enjoy networking with other researchers and serving in professional societies.”
WORDS OF WISDOM
As Donkor heads into retirement, he shares a word of advice for students considering the ECE major: network with ECE’s faculty.
“Students should be proactive to tap into the wide range of experience and expertise of the faculty they come in contact with,” he says. “I know many faculty members will be very open to mentoring students to facilitate a smooth and successful climb up the professional ladders. For one, all faculty ‘have been there, done that’ at all stages of academic learning. Therefore, they provide a wealth of information, help, and insights for thick and thin times as a student mazes through academic and professional pathways.”
By Olivia Drake
Author: Dr. Amy Thompson receives funding towards “Smart Schools”
Dr. Amy Thompson is Director of the SmartBuildings CT program, a division of the Pratt & Whitey Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering.
She recently led efforts which resulted in funding from the Department of Energy towards two “Smart Schools”. The two schools, located in Bridgeport, CT will serve as demonstration sites for other schools in the future.
By supporting equipment upgrades, the use of renewables, and implementation of smart control systems, this funding will help modernize school infrastructure, eliminate unnecessary expenditures, and reduce utilities costs.
Read the full story on UConn Today.
Author: Prof. Junbo Zhao chairs a working group to win prestigious IEEE PES Working Group Recognition Award
Prof. Junbo Zhao, who served as the chair of IEEE Task Force on Power System Dynamic State and Parameter Estimation, along with his fellow working group members earned the prestigious IEEE PES Outstanding Working Group for Outstanding Technical Report Award (https://ieee-pes.org/news/just-announced-2023-ieee-power-energy-society-award-recipients/), one of the highest awards from IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES).
This award recognizes the most outstanding working groups from among those nominated by each Technical Committee. Only two working groups are chosen each year to win this award, one for Technical Report and one for Standard or Guide. The committee’s report is titled “Power System Dynamic State and Parameter Estimation-Transition to Power Electronics-Dominated Clean Energy Systems.” This report aims to 1) clearly review its motivations and definitions, demonstrate its values for enhanced power system modeling, monitoring, operation, control, and protection as well as power engineering education; 2) provide recommendations to vendors, national labs, utilities, and ISOs on the use of dynamic state estimator for enhancement of the reliability, security, and resiliency of electric power systems. More information on the report and authors can be found here.
The IEEE PES provides the world’s largest forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry, for developing standards that guide the development and construction of equipment and systems, and for educating members of the industry and the general public. IEEE PES is the second-largest society under IEEE and has nearly 43,000 members across the world.
Author: Peter Willett elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering
Prof. Willett has been elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE). CASE members nominate candidates for induction based on several criteria, including accomplishments in science, engineering, and/or technology. Scientists and engineers can achieve membership through significant original contribution in theory and application or unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of their disciplines. Read more about this prestigious honor on UConn Today.
Author: Prof. Bahram Javidi Named Fellow by AAAS
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals – has named ECE Professor Bahram Javidi as one of it’s newest fellows. Being selected as a fellow recognizes individuals for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements. Read more on UConn Today.
Author: Yaakov Bar-Shalom Earns IEEE Pioneer Award
Professor Yaakov Bar-Shalom has been selected for the 2022 IEEE AESS Pioneer Award. Bar-Shalom has won this award with Henk Blom of the Delft University of Technology, and their award stems from the development of the Interacting Multiple Model (IMM) approach to multi-model estimation and maneuvering target tracking. Read more at UConn Today.
Author: Assoc. Prof. Amy Thompson helps build energy portfolios that enhance sustainability and savings.
Tracking energy use for cities and towns can be more complex than it is for a single homeowner. Assoc. Prof. in Residence Amy Thompson is working with municipalities to helpbuild energy portfolios that lead to improvements in sustainability AND costs savings. Read more on UConn Today.
Author: Prof. Zhao earns IEEE-PES CT chapter Outstanding Engineer award
Congratulations to Prof. Junbo Zhao on earning the 2022 Outstanding Engineer award for the Connecticut chapter of IEEE Power and Energy Society, a division of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). His award citation is: “For outstanding contributions to the research and development of advanced grid modernization technologies for renewable energy integration and electric reliability and resilience”. For more information about the award, please visit the IEEE PES website.
