Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

The past year has again been a busy one for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) faculty, staff and students. In addition to new faculty and education and research initiatives, the department developed an all-encompassing strategic plan. This plan has now been discussed within EECS and presented to the MIT administration and the EECS Visiting Committee.

Most importantly, the strategic plan reaffirms the department's commitment to residential education and to doctoral student-centered research as the department's primary missions.

There are two important assumptions that lie at the heart of our strategic plan:

If one were to use a single noun phrase to describe the intellectual core of our strategic plan, that word would be "multi-disciplinary." Three technologies will permeate much of engineering research in the 21st century: the manipulation and communication of information; the manipulation of molecular and atomic structures; and the manipulation of biology. This will lead to a convergence of the activities across many of the departments and other units that currently comprise MIT's Schools of Engineering and Science.

This convergence is not a problem, but rather a wonderful opportunity. The challenge will be to make sure that existing boundaries between units don't become barriers to joint educational and research endeavors.

In addition to working to increase the size of the teaching staff, we plan to aggressively pursue ways to exploit technology in our educational activities with the aim of improving opportunities for students at MIT. If some of the tools and materials developed should prove useful in MIT's various distance education initiatives, it would be a useful side effect. We reiterate our position that technology should be used not to depersonalize education but rather to personalize it, and not to reduce meaningful faculty/student contact but to increase it.

Our plan will be neither easy nor fast to implement. We have a lot of work to do and there will inevitably be bumps in the road. But it is hard to imagine a more exciting time to be working in EECS. We will do our best to live up to the challenge of educating the world's best students in the world's most exciting disciplines.

Undergraduate Program

Enrollment of undergraduates averaged 1,000 in 2000-2001, close to that of 1999-2000, with 15 percent in the Electrical Engineering Program (6-1), 40 percent in the Computer Science Program (6-3), and 45 percent in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Program (6-2). From the Class of 2003, 350 students were enrolled in Course VI. About 320 students from the Class of 2004 have so far selected Course VI, with 11percent choosing 6-1, 59 percent choosing 6-2, and 30 percent choosing 6-3.

The Master of Engineering (M.Eng.) program entered its seventh year with 227 students.

The following prizes and awards were won by our students.

The Ernest A. Guillemin Thesis Competition for outstanding performances on a Master of Engineering thesis in Electrical Engineering were won by Ozge Gozum and Colin Balthaup.

The David Adler Memorial Thesis Prizes for outstanding performance on an undergraduate thesis in Electrical Engineering were presented to Kevin O'Connor and Stanley Hong.

The Charles and Jennifer Johnson Theses Prizes for outstanding performance on Master of Engineering thesis in Computer Science were awarded to Allison Waingold and Aaron Ucko.

The Morris Joseph Levin Awards for Best MasterWorks Oral Theses Presentations were awarded Alvar Saena-Otero, Jorge R. Nogueras, David Andersen, Sidney Chang, Shelby Savage, Colin Balthaup, Samuel Schaevitz, Maya Rida Said and Deepak Bansal.

The William A. Martin Memorial Thesis Prize for outstanding performance on a Master of Engineering thesis in Computer Science was presented to Nicholas Feamster.

The George C. Newton Prize for the best undergraduate laboratory projects was awarded to Nikolai Aeldovich

The Ann Pogosyants Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Award was given to William Thies.

The Northern Telecom/BNR Project Awards were made to Felix Klock, Roderick Ferguson, Garrett Barter and Nathaniel Sattler.

A Departmental Special Recognition Award was presented to Warit Wichakool.

Graduate Program

In September 2000, there were 796 graduate students enrolled in the department. About 26 percent of the total were foreign nationals. The Department supported 465 Research Assistants and 101 Teaching Assistants. In addition, there were 178 fellowships including 42 National Science Foundation Fellows and 20 Department of Defense Fellows. The remaining students had industrial or foreign support or were using their own funds.

During 2000, the department awarded 87 Master of Science degrees, 2 Electrical Engineer degrees and 84 Doctoral degrees.

The department received 2335 applications for the 2000-2001 year, a significant increase from 1999. The applications continue to be generally excellent and 314 were admitted for 2000 (February, June and September), of whom 153 registered in September.

A number of awards were made to graduate students for excellence in teaching. Stark Draper received the Carlton E. Tucker Award and Nicholas Laneman received the Harold L. Hazen Award. The Frederick C. Hennie III Awards for excellence in teaching were presented to Eric Lehman and Jeremy Nimmer. The George M. Sprowls Awards for outstanding research contributions in the field of electronic computer and investigation research were presented to Cynthia Breazeal, David Mazieres and Salil Vadhan. Department Special Recongition Awards went to Robert Cox and David Robison.

VI-A Internship Program

The department's VI-A Internship Program is in its 84th year. This year, we made substantial changes to the VI-A requirements to maximize flexibility for VI-A students by allowing easy entrance and exit at any time. There will be a new fall VI-A recruitment for seniors who wish to do an industry-based Master of Engineering thesis. We hope that these changes will make VI-A more attractive to students and companies. This year, 108 students applied during the annual Orientation and Selection process and 42 were selected as members of the incoming VI-A class. To compare, in 2000, 73 students applied and 41 were selected. Since the last report, approximately 21 students have withdrawn from the VI-A Internship Program as they felt their needs were better matched with opportunities available on-campus. However, most VI-A students find this program professionally rewarding and a source of great satisfaction as indicated by their Mid-Term and Final Reports and by the quality of their M.Eng. theses. Every effort is made to ensure that VI-A companies continue to offer challenging and well supervised assignments to VI-A students, enabling them to gain valuable industrial experience.

Two new companies joined VI-A this year-Apple Computer Corporation in Cupertino, CA and Mobilian Corporation in San Diego, CA. Many companies did not take new VI-A students this year because of the downturn in the economy, but most will continue with those students selected in previous years. Other companies continue to express an interest in participating in the program.

In June, 22 VI-A students received the M.Eng. degree having completed all their company assignments and Institute degree requirements. There were 32 VI-A students who were awarded their Bachelor's degree and most of them will continue into the graduate phase of the program.

Many honors and awards continue to be bestowed on VI-A students. Michael H. Vogel (Draper) was one of the 26 sophomores and juniors who were selected as 2001 Burchard Scholars. These awards are given to students who have demonstrated excellence in some aspect of the humanities, arts, and social sciences.

Hau Hwan (AT&T) was selected as one of the Siebel Scholars at MIT. The Siebel Scholars program was established to recognize the most talented students at leading graduate schools of business and computer science.

At the 2001 Institute Awards Convocation, Edward A. Keehr (QUALCOMM) received the Admiral Edward L. Cochrane Award, which is presented to a male senior who has shown the highest qualities of humility, leadership, and inspiration in intercollegiate athletics.

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Faculty Notes

Five new faculty joined the Department this year:

There were six promotions in the department. Assistant Professors Saman Amarasinghe and Leonard McMillan were promoted to Associate Professor. Associate Professors David R. Karger, Daniel Jackson and Alexandre Megretski received tenure. Associate Professor Frans Kaashoek was promoted to Professor.

Professor Arvind, Professor Barbara Liskov, Professor Alan Oppenheim, Professor Ronald Rivest, Professor Jacob White, Professor Peter Hagelstein, and Professor Bernard Lesieutre were on sabbatical for all or part of the year.

Professors Thomas Weiss, Abraham Bers, Amar Bose, Robert Gallager, and Hermann Haus retired from the faculty.

The department hosted seven visiting faculty. Professor Sherra Kerns, from Vanderbilt University, was hosted by Paul Penfield. Professor Katrin Kneipp, from Technische Universitat Berlin, was hosted by Mildred Dresselhaus. Professor Jose Moura, from Carnegie Mellon University, was hosted by Sanjoy Mitter. Associate Professor Peter Druschel, from Rice University, was hosted by Frans Kaashoek. Associate Professor D.N.C. Tse, from University of California at Berkeley, was hosted by Vincent Chan. Associate Professor Manuela Veloso, from Carnegie Mellon Univeristy, was hosted by Professor Rodney Brooks. Assistant Professor Hava Siegelmann, from Technion University, was hosted by John Tsitsiklis.

Faculty Awards and Honors

Professor Krste Asanovic received a 2001 National Science Foundation Career Award.

Professor Hari Balakrishnan received the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Professor Dimitri Bertsekas was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He also received the ACC John R. Ragazzini Education Award and the Greek National Award on Operations Research.

Professor Jesus del Alamo received the Louis D. Sullivan Award.

Professor Michael Dertouzos received an honorary Doctorate from Aristotelian University, in Thessaloniki, Greece in November 2000. He also was appointed to TIBCO Founder's Chair.

Professor Mildred Dresselhaus was elected as an Honorary Member of the Loffe Institute, at the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia. She also was awarded the 2001 Karl T. Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics and 2000 National Materials Advancement Award from the Federation of Materials Societies. In addition, Professor Dresselhaus was awarded the 2000 Weizmann Women and Science Millennial Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor Dave Forney was elected to Massachusetts Telecom Council Hall of Fame.

Professor Jim Fujimoto was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Professor Shafi Goldwasser was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also received a 2001 Godel Award.

Professor Eric Grimson received the Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor Hermann Haus was awarded the 2001 Willis E. Lamb Medal.

Professor Erich Ippen received the Killian Award.

Professor Butler Lampson was awarded the 2001 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) von Neumann Medal.

Professor Nancy Lynch was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Professor Roger Mark was awarded the Frank Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising.

Professor Leonard McMillian received the Junior Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor Muriel Medard received a 2001 National Science Foundation Career Award.

Professor David Perreault received the IEEE Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award.

Professor Madhu Sudan received a 2001 Godel Award and the 2000 IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award.

Professor Vahid Tarokh received the 2001 Alan T. Waterman Award.

Senior Lecturer Christopher Terman received the Departmental Special Award.

Professor Greg Wornell was elected as a Senior Member of the IEEE.

Professor Markus Zahn was appointed to the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professorship of Electrical Engineering.

John V. Guttag

More information about the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science can be found online at http://www-eecs.mit.edu/.

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