The department is almost done phasing in its Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) curriculum. This is a five-year program, leading to the simultaneous awarding of master's and bachelor's degrees. The Master of Engineering degree is being pursued by a majority of the department's undergraduate students. The five-year curriculum is structured, is seamless across the traditional boundary between undergraduate and graduate study, and is seamless between the traditional disciplines of electrical engineering and computer science. This year for the second time the department's Great Educator Award Program was used by Master of Engineering students to support their fifth year of study.
Undergraduate enrollment in the department continues to be large. Enrollment in computer-science subjects continues to rise. Undergraduates perceive exciting career opportunities in the various fields represented by the department.
It is with deep sorrow that we report that after waging a courageous battle against cancer, our Administrative Officer, Richard J. Caloggero, passed away on September 13, 1995. Dick served the Institute as well as the department with extraordinary loyalty, dedication and effectiveness. In his name, his friends at MIT have established a new award to honor department staff who have demonstrated Dick's special characteristics. The first Richard J. Caloggero Memorial Award was presented to Marilyn A. Pierce in May.
The department is pleased to welcome warmly our new Administrative Officer, Susan Gurlanick. Susan comes to us from the Energy Laboratory, where she served as Administrative Officer.
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM
Enrollment of undergraduates averaged 900 in 1995-1996 with about 30 percent in the Electrical Engineering program., 40 percent in the Computer Science program, and 30 percent in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program. From the Class of 1998, 330 students were enrolled in Course VI, about the same as the preceding year. About 330 students from the Class of 1999 have so far selected Course VI, with only 20 percent choosing 6-1, 45 percent 6-2, and 35 percent 6-3.
The new Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) program entered its third year with 220 students. We expect to have around 250 students in the graduate phase of the program next year, the fourth year of the program.
The following prizes and awards were won by our students:
The Ernst A. Guillemin Thesis Competition for outstanding performance on a Master of Engineering thesis in Electrical Engineering was won by Steve J. Steiner of Cambridge, MA, Jayson D. Strayer of St. Petersburg, FL, and Anant Sahai of Thousand Oaks, CA.
The David Adler Memorial Thesis Prize of outstanding performance on an Undergraduate Thesis in Electrical Engineering was presented to Naimish S. Patel of North Andover, MA.
The Charles and Jennifer Johnson Thesis Prize for outstanding performance on Master of Engineering thesis in computer science were awarded to Daniel K. Hartman of Fond du Lac, WI, and Matthew N. Condell of Argyle, NY.
The Morris Joseph Levin Award for Best MasterWorks Oral Theses Presentations were awarded to Raymond C. Chan of Cambridge, MA, James T. Kao of Playa del Rey, CA, Mohammad J. Khan of Carmel, IN, Edward C.F. Lovelace of Somerville, MA, Thomas E. Murphy of Falls Church, VA, and Su W. Teoh of El Toro, CA.
The William A. Martin Memorial Thesis Prize for outstanding performance on a Master of Engineering thesis in computer science was presented to Russell S. Schwartz of Old Greenwich, CT.
The George C. Newton Prize for the best undergraduate laboratory project as awarded jointly to Amit G. Bagchi of Potomac, MD, Christopher A. Fuchs of Fairfield, NJ and Tan T. Trinh of Lafayette, LA.
The Robert A. Fano UROP Award was given to Daniel L. Rosenband of Cambridge, MA.
The Northern Telecom/BNR Project Awards were made to Steven E. Czerwinski of New Lenox, IL, Stephen J. Schlueter of Olympia, WA, Hsiang C. Chuu of Bayville, NY, Charles J. Cavazos of El Paso, TX, Susan M. Dacy of Hudson, FL and Alice Wang of Melville, NY.
The David A. Chanen Writing Award was given to Debajit Ghosh of Exton, PA.
GRADUATE PROGRAM
In September, 1995 there were 800 graduate students enrolled in the department. About 20 percent of the total were foreign nationals. The department supported 380 Research Assistants and 100 Teaching Assistants. In addition, there were 177 fellowships including 55 National Science Foundation Fellows, 5 Hertz Fellows and 16 Office of Naval Research Fellows. The remaining students had industrial or foreign support or were using their own funds.
During 1995, the department awarded 171 Master of Science degrees, 14 Electrical Engineer degrees and 74 Doctoral degrees.
The department received 1782 applications for the 1995-96 year, a slight decrease from 1994. The applications continue to be generally excellent and 255 were admitted for 1995 (February, June and September), of whom 133 registered in September.
A number of awards were made to graduate students for excellence in teaching. Matthew J. Secor of Cambridge, MA, received the Carlton E. Tucker Award and Cynara C. Wu of Cambridge, MA, received the Harold L. Hazen Award. The Frederick C. Hennie III Awards for excellence in teaching were presented to Brian M. Perreault of Cambridge, MA, Patrick J. LoPresti of Watertown, MA, and Holly A. Yanco of Somerville, MA. Babak Ayazifar of Cambridge, MA, was promoted to Instructor-G in recognition of his demonstrated teaching ability and service to the department.
VI-A INTERNSHIP PROGRAM
In its 79th year, the department's VI-A Internship Program continued its popularity and excellent performance. This year 161 students applied during the annual orientation and selection process and 80 of the applicants were selected as members of the incoming VI-A class. These numbers were comparable to 1994 in which 150 students applied and 84 were selected. Because opportunities within the M.Eng. program are often as attractive as those for completing the VI-A Program with thesis research at the company, about 15 seniors have left the VI-A Program. However, with about 54 VI-A M.Eng. students graduating in June, 1996, the VI-A Program continues to provide an excellent educational program for those who complete it. In addition, about 106 VI-A seniors received their Bachelor's degrees.
A VI-A Fellowship Program initiated by Prof. Markus Zahn in 1995, which offers support for the term away to the VI-A graduate student on work assignment, is working out very well with all new companies and many of the existing ones participating. The Fellowship pays one term MIT tuition, a monthly stipend that is comparable to those available to on-campus assistantship and fellowship recipients, and medical insurance. Of the approximately 24 current VI-A companies, 8 offer their own VI-A graduate students support, 13 have joined the VI-A Fellowship Program, and 3 companies do not offer any VI-A graduate student support.
American International Group in New York, NY and SQA, Inc., in Burlington, MA, are two new companies which joined the VI-A Program in time for the 1996 orientation and selection process. Delco Electronics, Hewlett-Packard Labs., Intel Corp., Schlumberger, and Tektronix did not participate this year. In spite of this factor, many new companies have indicated an interest to participate, so we hope to keep the program size constant.
At the annual Department Awards Reception held in the West Wing of the Museum of Science in Boston, the following VI-A students were honored. Steven E. Szerwinski, Susan M. Dacy, and Alice Wang received the Northern Telecom/BNR Project Award; Amit G. Bagchi and Christopher A. Fuchs received the George C. Newton Undergraduate Laboratory Prize; Debajit Ghosh received the David A. Chanen Writing Award; Naimish S. Patel received the David Adler Memorial Thesis Prize, and Steven J. Steiner was one of the recipients of the Ernst A. Guillemin Thesis Award.
At the 1996 Awards Convocation N. Katherine Merrilees was the recipient of the Betsy Schumacker Award and John L. Wallberg received the Howard W. Johnson Award.
Two VI-A students were recognized for their writing accomplishments. Lawrence K. Chang was awarded First Place in the drama category of the Boit Manuscript and Debajit Ghosh was awarded First Place for his Phase II paper entitled, "IHTFP: An Improved Hypertext Filing Proxy."
There were two VI-A students amongst the 31 sophomores and juniors selected as Burchard Scholars in the School of Humanities and Social Science in 1996. The awards are given to students who demonstrate unusual abilities and academic excellence in the areas embraced by the Institute. Our students so duly honored were Lawrence K. Chang and Grant Y. Smith.
Michelle Y. Eng received a Women in Science and Engineering Scholarship from Intel Corporation.
Mehul A. Shah was the recipient of the Henry Ford II Scholar Award in recognition of his academic record and potential for leadership in the engineering profession and in society.
Ben Y. Reis was one of the winners of a Marshall Scholarship which covers all expenses for two years of study and can be extended for a third year. He plans to pursue studies in computer science, cognitive science, and music at Cambridge, England.
Excellence in scholarship continues amongst the students in the program. Of the 100 students from the School of Engineering elected to Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honorary, 22 were VI-As and Eta Kappa Nu, the Course VI Honorary, elected 64 members of whom 27 were VI-As. From 46 seniors and 4 juniors elected to MIT's XI Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, 3 were VI-A students: Marlon E.D.R. Abayan, Mehul A. Shah, and Mario A.M. Yearwood.
FACULTY
Three new members of the faculty joined the department this year:
Dennis M. Freeman, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, was a Research Scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics.
Amos Lapidoth, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, received his Ph.D. at Stanford University.
Paul A. Viola, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, received his Ph.D. at MIT and came to the department following a research position at the Salk Institute for Biological Research.
Associate Professor William J. Dally was promoted to Professor. Assistant Professors M. Frans Kaashoek (who was also named Jamieson Career Development Associate Professor) and Gregory W. Wornell were promoted to Associate Professor.
Honors and awards received by our faculty this year include:
Professor Harold Abelson received the IEEE Taylor L. Booth Education Award, in recognition of his contributions to the teaching of introductory computer science.
Associate Professor James E. Chung received the Institute's Frank E. Perkins Award, which honors excellence as an advisor and mentor to graduate students.
Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus was elected President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Professor James G. Fujimoto received an IEEE Fellow Award for pioneering contributions to ultrafast optics and to optical coherence tomography.
Professor Shafrira Goldwasser was named a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.
Institute Professor Hermann A. Haus received the National Medal of Science, awarded by President Clinton in a White House ceremony.
Professor Richard C. Larson was named Director of the Center for Advanced Educational Services, formerly the Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
Professor Hae-Seung Lee received an IEEE Fellow Award for contributions to CMOS high accuracy data converters.
Professor Barbara H. Liskov was elected a Fellow of the ACM.
Professor Alan V. Oppenheim received the Institute's Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Professor Gerald J. Sussman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Several members of the faculty were away for all or part of the year:
Professor Harold Abelson spent time researching the role of the network in education.
Associate Professor Anant Agarwal helped to provide a smooth transfer of his company to a new CEO.
Professor Michael Athans completed the manuscript for his textbook on multivariable control systems.
Professor William J. Dally spent time doing research and teaching at the University of North Carolina.
Associate Professor Jesus A. del Alamo worked on writing a textbook on integrated microelectronic devices.
Professor James G. Fujimoto worked on new research opportunities related to pulse generation in solid state lasers.
Professor David K. Gifford worked at Open Market, Inc., a company he founded to produce software solutions for Internet based electronic commerce.
Professor Charles E. Leiserson worked on new research in computer languages and began work on a new book.
Professor Jae Lim participated in the Grand Alliance activities and the FCC HDTV standardization process, and also updated his book.
Professor Roger G. Mark pursued new research in bioengineering.
Professor Sanjoy K. Mitter pursued research on learning, adaptation and architectures that support adaptive behavior.
Associate Professor Martin A. Schmidt spent time learning more about the medical and biological applications of microfabricated structures and the modeling tools being developed for such devices.
Associate Professor William E. Weihl worked on research at Digital Equipment Corp. in Palo Alto, CA.
Professor Alan S. Willsky pursued research in remote sensing and computer vision, and also worked on a new textbook.
Professor John L. Wyatt, Jr. finished a textbook and pursued research on thermal noise models for nonlinear elements and on neural network problems.
The department hosted five visiting faculty:
Associate Professor Meir Feder, from Tel Aviv University, worked with Professor Robert G. Gallager and also taught 6.341 Discrete-Time Signal Processing.
Professor James Modestino, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, taught sections of 6.003 and worked on research with Professor Robert G. Gallager.
Assistant Professor Ronitt Rubinfeld, from Cornell University, taught a special graduate subject, Randomness and Computation, and worked on research with Professor Shafrira Goldwasser.
Assistant Professor Nir Shavit, from Tel Aviv University, taught a special graduate subject, Multiprocessor Synchronization, and worked on research with Professor Nancy A. Lynch.
Professors Jerome H. Saltzer and William M. Siebert retired from the faculty this year.
Paul Penfield, Jr.
MIT Reports to the President 1995-96