ECE graduate student Faith Johnson won the Chancellor's Leadership Award 2024
Faith Johnson will be receiving the Chancellor's Leadership Award at this year's Gala on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, at 6:00pm at the Livingston Student Center. This award is given to a graduate student who exemplifies excellence and truly embodies a commitment to leadership and involvement on campus and/or in the community.
Faith's innovation and impact in research are divided among four projects in her graduate studies, advised by Prof. Kristin Dana. Faith developed a method for steering angle prediction in autonomous driving called Feudal Steering using hierarchical reinforcement learning, to predict steering angles from first-person, dash-cam images. Her second project is in collaboration with the Rutgers Cranberry Research Center in the area of precision agriculture. Faith's work achieves a vision-based cranberry ripening assessment using deep learning segmentation, fine-tuned to the task of segmentation robust to ripening. By characterizing the change in albedo over time, she quantifies and compares the phenotypical ripening traits of multiple cranberry varieties. Faith has also developed a framework to detect pedestrian behavior patterns as an important step towards autonomous agents that can navigate among humans. Faith’s current research in progress is on hierarchical visual navigation with latent topological maps. She is leveraging human-in-the-loop methods for building a visual navigation paradigm for the Clearpath Jackal robot.
Faith has been active and energetic in taking a leadership role in outreach activities in our NRT program. Faith was the first graduate student in our Rutgers National Research Traineeship (NRT) in Socially Cognizant Robotics for a Technology Enhanced Society (SOCRATES). In the summer of 2021, she presented our research program in an in-person plenary talk to US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway. Faith mentored two high school female interns in Prof. Dana's lab, whom she met with every Friday for an entire semester and helped shape their research project for the Rutgers-High Technology High School mentorship program. Faith attended weekly virtual organizational meetings for the SOCRATES NRT along with nine core faculty members as they got the program started at Rutgers during the Covid shutdown in 2020. She took the lead in founding the N2E Robotics club as part of the NRT, which offered online modules for teaching robotics to undergraduates. For three years, Faith has led interactive robot demonstrations at Rutgers Day that inspire the NJ community and especially young students.
Attached is a picture of Faith at Rutgers day and a picture of Faith with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
Please join us in congratulating Faith Johnson on this prestigious award!
ECE Professor Michael Caggiano received EGC Students' Professor of the Year Award
Human-AI Collaboration seminar by Mark Steyvers, UC Irvine
You're invited !
Please join us for Spring 2024 RuCCS Colloquium Talk on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, from 2 pm - 3:30 pm, featuring the research of Dr. Mark Steyvers, Professor and Chancellor's Fellow, University of California, Irvine. The talk location is 152 Frelinghuysen Rd, Psych Bldg, Busch Campus, Room 105.
Rutgers Efficient AI Seminar Talk Tuesday April 30, 10AM
2024 ECE Capstone Expo Award Winners
Dear Students and Colleagues:
We had a very successful ECE Capstone EXPO yesterday with 52 teams presenting their capstone projects. A panel of 50 judges from industry and academia joined us to select the top projects. In addition, three special awards (best in research, best in impact, and best in commercialization) were selected.
I would like to congratulate this year’s senior students who participated in the ECE capstone program and their advisors from inside and outside Rutgers ECE who helped guide their projects. Your help and support of our students are essential to the success of the Capstone Program!
I would like to acknowledge the support of the following industry sponsors: 7x24 Exchange Metro New York Chapter, Novo Nordisk, Lockheed Martin and L3Harris.
Here is the list of award recipients and their advisors:
Top 15 projects and Awardees of Best in Research, Commercialization and Social Impact:
1st Place and Tie in Best in Research Award
Project S24-48: Radar Based Vital Sign Monitoring with Automated Beam Steering
Team members: Daniel Gore, Gavin Young, Felipe Valencia, Daniel Petronchak, Nithish Warren
Adviser: Dr. Athina Petropulu
Poster
2nd Place and Tie in Best in Research Award
Project S24-41: Levity
Team members: Daniel Maevsky, Yashovardhan Bamalwa
Advisors: Dr. Richard Howard and Dr. Narayan Mandayam
3rd Place
Project S24-02: RailVision: Overgrowth Detection Drone
Team members: Osmin Nolasco, James Sullivan, Steeve Cantave, Dhruv Patel
Advisors: Dr. Daniel Burbano Lombana & Dr. Sasan Haghani
4th Place
Project S24-24: Accessible Video Game Controller for One-Handed Individuals
Team members: Andrew Chacko, Teerth Patel, Mayank Barad, Georgiy Aleksanyan, Marco Ghabrial
Advisor: Dr. Jorge Ortiz
5th Place
Project S24-49: Cloud-Connected Automation and Optimization for Drones
Team members: Ravi Raghavan, Atharva Pandhare, Aryan Patil, Shreyas Ramachandran, Vijay Chandhar
Advisor: Dr. Maria Striki
6th Place Tie and Best in Commercialization
Project S24-32: BlazeGuard : An Automated Fire Prevention Plug for Electronics and Appliances
Team members: Devesh Kaloty, Jason Peake, Taylor Scheuering
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani and Don Bachman
6th Place Tie and Tie in Best in Social Impact
Project S24-07: RINSIGHT - Real-time Interactive Neural Sensory Integration Glasses for Hearing Technology
Team members: William Ching, Jonathan Romero, Aliza Ezrapour, Aman Saxena, Matthew Gravatt
Advisor: Dr. Sheng Wei
6th Place Tie
Project S24-54: HomeBud: Small-Scale Smart Watering System for Indoor Plants
Team members: Kasey Tian, Izabela Bigos, Victoria Chen, Kristina Jokic, Billie Liang
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani
7th Place
Project S24-27: Cascaded-UNet: Medical Image Security Enhancement Through AI-Powered Digital Watermarking and Visual Cryptography
Team members: Fiona Wang, Zachary Asis, Yesmina Hammouda, Irina Mukhametzhanova, Thomas Trieu
Advisor: Dr. Dario Pompili and Tingcong Jiang
8th Place and Tie in Best Social Impact
Project S24-37: Human Motion Estimation for Interactive Rehabilitation
Team members: Ronan John, Daniel Gameiro, Marco Garcia-Palma
Advisor: Dr. Daniel Burbano Lombana
9th Place
Project S24-10: Design and Application of a Battery Management System for a Formula-Style Car
Team members: Mukund Ramakrishnan, Dana Fabiano, Ryan Billings, Thomas Troy Forzani, Daniel McCormack
Advisor: Dr. Michael Caggiano
10th Place
Project S24-31: SensoryNav
Team members: Ramya Ramabhadran, Raveena Gupta, Hima Nukala, Nandana Pai
Advisor: Dr. Jorge Ortiz
11th Place
Project S24-42: Hand ANalyzed Dynamics
Team members: Samuel Marran, James Artuso
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani
12th Place
Project S24-03: Drone-Assisted Replication Training
Team members: Jinam Modasiya, Aaron Yagudaev, Keyur Rana, Ryan Meegan, Sean Maniar
Advisor: Dr. Laleh Najafizadeh and Dr. Laurent Burlion
13th Place
Project S24-29: Autonomous Parking Lot Navigation for Self-Driving Model Car
Team members: Oliver Rzepecki, Vraj Panchal, Isaiah Pajaro, Ryan Elizondo-Fallas
Advisor: Dr. Hang Liu
14th Place
Project S24-08: Ten(Sen)sor
Team members: Gurveer Grewal, Danial Fahim
Advisor: Demetrios Lambropoulos
15th Place
Project S24-46: Mini Busch Car
Team members: Aarushi Vashistha, Abraham Weitzman, Akash Gadicherla, Maanas Gopi, Peter Tran
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani, Demetrios Lambropoulos & Jingang Yi
Congratulations to all the students and their advisors!
Best Regards,
Sasan Haghani
Undergraduate Program Director
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
94 Brett Rd, Piscataway, NJ, 08854
e-mail: sasan.haghani@rutgers.edu
2024 ECE Capstone Awards
Dear Students and Colleagues:
We had a very successful ECE Capstone EXPO yesterday with 52 teams presenting their capstone projects. A panel of 50 judges from industry and academia joined us to select the top projects. In addition, three special awards (best in research, best in impact, and best in commercialization) were selected.
I would like to congratulate this year’s senior students who participated in the ECE capstone program and their advisors from inside and outside Rutgers ECE who helped guide their projects. Your help and support of our students are essential to the success of the Capstone Program!
I would like to acknowledge the support of the following industry sponsors: 7x24 Exchange Metro New York Chapter, Novo Nordisk, Lockheed Martin and L3Harris.
Here is the list of award recipients and their advisors:
Top 15 projects and Awardees of Best in Research, Commercialization and Social Impact:
1st Place and Tie in Best in Research Award
Project S24-48: Radar Based Vital Sign Monitoring with Automated Beam Steering
Team members: Daniel Gore, Gavin Young, Felipe Valencia, Daniel Petronchak, Nithish Warren
Adviser: Dr. Athina Petropulu
2nd Place and Tie in Best in Research Award
Project S24-41: Levity
Team members: Daniel Maevsky, Yashovardhan Bamalwa
Advisors: Dr. Richard Howard and Dr. Narayan Mandayam
3rd Place
Project S24-02: RailVision: Overgrowth Detection Drone
Team members: Osmin Nolasco, James Sullivan, Steeve Cantave, Dhruv Patel
Advisors: Dr. Daniel Burbano Lombana & Dr. Sasan Haghani
4th Place
Project S24-24: Accessible Video Game Controller for One-Handed Individuals
Team members: Andrew Chacko, Teerth Patel, Mayank Barad, Georgiy Aleksanyan, Marco Ghabrial
Advisor: Dr. Jorge Ortiz
5th Place
Project S24-49: Cloud-Connected Automation and Optimization for Drones
Team members: Ravi Raghavan, Atharva Pandhare, Aryan Patil, Shreyas Ramachandran, Vijay Chandhar
Advisor: Dr. Maria Striki
6th Place Tie and Best in Commercialization
Project S24-32: BlazeGuard : An Automated Fire Prevention Plug for Electronics and Appliances
Team members: Devesh Kaloty, Jason Peake, Taylor Scheuering
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani and Don Bachman
6th Place Tie and Tie in Best in Social Impact
Project S24-07: RINSIGHT - Real-time Interactive Neural Sensory Integration Glasses for Hearing Technology
Team members: William Ching, Jonathan Romero, Aliza Ezrapour, Aman Saxena, Matthew Gravatt
Advisor: Dr. Sheng Wei
6th Place Tie
Project S24-54: HomeBud: Small-Scale Smart Watering System for Indoor Plants
Team members: Kasey Tian, Izabela Bigos, Victoria Chen, Kristina Jokic, Billie Liang
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani
7th Place
Project S24-27: Cascaded-UNet: Medical Image Security Enhancement Through AI-Powered Digital Watermarking and Visual Cryptography
Team members: Fiona Wang, Zachary Asis, Yesmina Hammouda, Irina Mukhametzhanova, Thomas Trieu
Advisor: Dr. Dario Pompili and Tingcong Jiang
8th Place and Tie in Best Social Impact
Project S24-37: Human Motion Estimation for Interactive Rehabilitation
Team members: Ronan John, Daniel Gameiro, Marco Garcia-Palma
Advisor: Dr. Daniel Burbano Lombana
9th Place
Project S24-10: Design and Application of a Battery Management System for a Formula-Style Car
Team members: Mukund Ramakrishnan, Dana Fabiano, Ryan Billings, Thomas Troy Forzani, Daniel McCormack
Advisor: Dr. Michael Caggiano
10th Place
Project S24-31: SensoryNav
Team members: Ramya Ramabhadran, Raveena Gupta, Hima Nukala, Nandana Pai
Advisor: Dr. Jorge Ortiz
11th Place
Project S24-42: Hand ANalyzed Dynamics
Team members: Samuel Marran, James Artuso
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani
12th Place
Project S24-03: Drone-Assisted Replication Training
Team members: Jinam Modasiya, Aaron Yagudaev, Keyur Rana, Ryan Meegan, Sean Maniar
Advisor: Dr. Laleh Najafizadeh and Dr. Laurent Burlion
13th Place
Project S24-29: Autonomous Parking Lot Navigation for Self-Driving Model Car
Team members: Oliver Rzepecki, Vraj Panchal, Isaiah Pajaro, Ryan Elizondo-Fallas
Advisor: Dr. Hang Liu
14th Place
Project S24-08: Ten(Sen)sor
Team members: Gurveer Grewal, Danial Fahim
Advisor: Demetrios Lambropoulos
15th Place
Project S24-46: Mini Busch Car
Team members: Aarushi Vashistha, Abraham Weitzman, Akash Gadicherla, Maanas Gopi, Peter Tran
Advisor: Dr. Sasan Haghani, Demetrios Lambropoulos & Jingang Yi
Congratulations to all the students and their advisors!
Best Regards,
Sasan Haghani
Undergraduate Program Director
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
94 Brett Rd, Piscataway, NJ, 08854
e-mail: sasan.haghani@rutgers.edu
ECE faculty Bo Yuan awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence for the academic year 2023-2024
The Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs (EVPAA) awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence for the academic year 2023-2024 to Bo Yuan as one of the university's most distinguished young faculty members. This award is bestowed in recognition of his outstanding scholarly accomplishments in his years at Rutgers, as documented in the evaluation that has led to his recent recommendation for promotion to Associate Professor, subject to approval by the Board of Governors. The award will be presented to him at a reception to be held at the University President's house in early May.
We are very proud of Bo for his achievements and high recognition. Congratulations!
ECE faculty Umer Hassan awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence for the academic year 2023-2024
The Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs (EVPAA) awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence for the academic year 2023-2024 to Umer Hassan as one of the university's most distinguished young faculty members. This award is bestowed in recognition of his outstanding teaching accomplishments in his years at Rutgers, as documented in the evaluation that has led to his recent recommendation for promotion to Associate Professor, subject to approval by the Board of Governors. The award will be presented to him at a reception to be held at the University President's house in early May.