School of EECS PhD student, Elena Erbiceanu, is one of just two 2009-2010 recipients of the Link Foundation Fellowship. Since 1990, the Link Foundation has provided up to five fellowships to PhD students for support during the completion of their dissertation research.

Approximately $1.3 million in fellowships have been awarded since the inception of the program. Named for Edwin Link, the inventor of the ground-based simulator used for training aircraft pilots, the Fellowship provides a grant of $25,000 for research in applications that embody the objective and characteristics of research aimed at simulation for training purposes.

Elena is a Google intern for this coming summer (2009) in Mountain View, CA, having held an equivalent position last summer at Google's New York headquarters. Her advisor, Dr. Charles Hughes states, “I am very proud of her. She's a great example of the high quality of students in the School's PhD program.”

For more information on the Link Foundation Awards, please visit: http://www.ist.ucf.edu/link_foundation.htm#awards2
 

UCF's EXCEL program students get the feeling of a small college campus while pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This dynamic, two-year program aims to help incoming freshmen increase their success in science and math classes by creating connections with other students, faculty and disciplines. The EXCEL program is led by Program Director Dr. Michael Georgiopoulos of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Program Director Dr. Cynthia Young of the Department of Mathematics.
 

Ms Anamary Leal, a senior majoring in Computer Science in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been awarded the prestigious GEM Ph.D. Science Fellowship. The National GEM Consortium provides full fellowships with paid internships to outstanding students from under-represented backgrounds who wish to continue graduate studies in engineering or science. Anamary studies computer science under the direction of Dr. Joseph LaViola and his Interactive Systems & User Experience Lab. Her Ph.D. Science Fellowship program provides tremendous benefits, including a large stipend for 1 year of Ph.D. program support, GEM Member University support for years 2-5, a minimum of one paid summer internship and full tuition and fees at a GEM Member University.

A team of EECS students were one of only 11 teams selected to participate in the 2009 International Future Energy Challenge, which is an international student competition for innovation, conservation and effective use of electrical energy. The team will compete in the area of Low Cost Wind Turbine Energy Maximizer. Working under Dr. Issa Batarseh in the School's Florida Power Electronics Center, the 2005 IFEC team from EECS won the Innovative Design honors. The Undergraduate Team members are Mike Ramsey, Anthony Wertz, Jonathan Baker and Christopher Hamilton, and the Graduate Advisors are Gustavo Gamboa, John Elms and Michael Pepper. Congratulations!

EECS student Brian Becker, majoring in Computer Engineering, received the prestigious 2008 Honors in the Major Award for outstanding undergraduate thesis at the 2008 UCF Founder's Day Convocation. Brian was named by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation as one of 18 Astronaut Scholars for 2006-2007, and received the College of Engineering and Computer Science 2007 Founders' Day award.

Paul Nelson, who just recently completed his BS in Electrical Engineering in EECS, won the IEEE MTT-S Undergraduate Scholarship and will receive $1,500 for his use plus $1000 in travel funds to attend the 2008 International Microwave Symposium in Atlanta, GA. He will continue his graduate studies as UCF.

Mr. Jian Lu, EECS graduate student, won the 2008 Intelect Fellowship Award in Power Electronics, based on work in the field of on-chip bondwire magnetic. UCF will receive a $15,000 check from IEEE and a plaque at the 2008 Intelect conference.

Ms. Majd Batarseh, EECS graduate student in Electrical Engineering, was selected to attend the 2008 Google Workshop for Women Engineers. Only 200 applicants were selected for the workshop from technical related fields. The workshop included technical talks and career workshops.

Andrew Miller, EESC undergraduate student, won the best poster award for "Most Technically Challenging Project" at an NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates PI meeting in Austin, TX.

EECS students collaborated with MMAE students in the UCF Robotics lab, which placed 3rd in the design portion of the Intelligent Robotics Ground Competition, competing with MIT, CMU and other top programs. The team also won prize money as the Winner of the JAUS Challenge at International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) and 5th place overall and Best Performer at Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition (AUVC).

Philip Marraccini, who studies RF/Microwaves in EECS, received the 2007 IEEE MTT-S Undergraduate/Pre-Graduate Scholarship, a very competitive award.

Enrique Ortiz received the NSF Graduate Fellowship and pursues graduate studies in EECS.

EECS student Anamary Leal, an undergraduate, won a Hispanic Heritage Scholarship.

Two EECS students and Dr. Ken Stanley won the Best Paper award at the Sixth European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Sound Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2008) Best Paper Award - which is the world's largest venue for this research area. Of note is the work by lead author Ms. Amy K. Hoover, along with Michael P. Rosario, both of whom work with Dr. Stanley in his research group. Ms. Hoover was an undergraduate student when the award was received and is based on her undergraduate honors thesis. Part of this the undergraduate thesis work was completed during the 2007 summer Advances of Machine Learning in Theory Applications (AMALTHEA) program at UCF, which was supported by NSF.

Greg Tener, EECS Ph.D. graduate student, has been selected by NSF Central Europe Summer Research Institute (CESRI), and he conducted his doctoral research in summer 2008 with Dr. Ludek Kucera in Prague.

EECS students Sherri Sparks, Ryan Cunningham, Shawn Embleton
and EECS Assistant Professor Dr. Cliff Zou won the Best Student
Paper Award in the 23rd Computer Security Applications Conference
 (ACSAC) in Dec. 2007.

Zhibing Ge and Xianyi Nie, both Ph.D. students working with Dr. Thomas Wu and Dr. Shin-Tson Wu, won prestigious SPIE Educational Scholarships in 2007.

Arun Vijayakumar won 1st prize for his research paper on "Optical Characterization of Sputtered SICBN Thin Films" in the 211th International Meeting of the Electrochemical Society held at Chicago, IL in May, 2007.

At the IEEE Southeastcon 2007, EECS won numerous awards: First in Undergraduate Student Research Paper Competition ( Matthew Erickson), First in Software Programming Competition (Joby Jones and Jason Fienstein), Second in Website Design Competition (Kris Davis and Vani Kamptaprasad), IEEE Region 3 Leadership and Service Award (Ravi Todi), RAB Membership Award for Student Chapter (Tim Young, IEEE UCF Member Chair). The EECS team also qualified in the Robotic Hardware Competition for the first time in 15 years and reached the second ground for an impressive showing.

Jeff Balogh, Greg Dubbin, and Michael Do won the Best Student Video Award in the first ever AAAI-07 AI Video Competition for their "Dance Evolution" Video, which is based on a project supervised by Dr. Ken Stanley in the Spring 2007 undergraduate Machine Learning II class. The competition was organized by the world's premier AI conference to encourage public promotion of AI.