OSU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering reaches pivotal milestones in research

Monday, August 29, 2022

Media Contact: Kristi Wheeler | Manager, CEAT Marketing and Communications | 405-744-5831 | kristi.wheeler@okstate.edu

The Oklahoma State University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has reached two pivotal milestones in the summer of 2022: Record number of new research awards and contracts; and a record in research funding under current management.

During this summer, ECE secured $5.1 million in new research grants from federal agencies including the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and the Department of Energy (DOE). According to Jeffrey Young, head of ECE, this accomplishment is a result of the existing and new talent pool within ECE.

“Over the past seven years, ECE has reinvented itself by hiring outstanding faculty members from highly established research programs across the country. This influx of talent has ramped up our research enterprises and has accelerated our ability to fully execute on our mission of teaching and research,” Young said.

Professor Sabit Ekin is an excellent example of the kind of new expertise that ECE has recently employed. Having significant industrial experience, Ekin has secured numerous grants as a principal investigator (PI) and Co-PI. He is also a strategic partner of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute, a national leader in autonomous aircraft research.

Recently, Ekin was awarded a $790,000 prestigious DOE early CAREER award for communication-based research. By securing that award, he demonstrated his and ECE’s ability to compete and win in a highly competitive national landscape.

Another great example is Dr. Bingzhe Li, who secured two NSF grants totaling $884,000 as sole PI. He is also a co-PI on a $1.2 million NASA grant. His research will have tremendous impact on practical ways to store digital data using advanced biocomputer, DNA technologies.

Research projects secured this past summer include:

• Sabit Ekin, “Towards Communication-Aware Smart Facilities,” DOE Career, $789,000
• James Stine, Bingzhe Li and John Hu: “Rapid Assured Fully Transparent IC Physical Design Capability”, NASA, $1.2 million
• Hamidreza Nazaripouya, “AI-Enabled Proactive Resilience of Electric Infrastructure Against Wildfire”, NSF EPSCoR, $52,000
• James Stine, “Next Generation Space AI/ML: AI Onboard Processing”, NASA, $130,000
• Bingzhe Li, “Efficient Ways to Enlarge Practical DNA Storage Capacity by Integrating Bio-Computer Technologies”, NSF, $300,000
• Bingzhe Li, “Small: Exploring and Enhancing Capabilities of Emerging Hybrid/Convertible Solid-State Drives“, NSF, $584,000
• Hantao Cui, “Hetrogeneous Communication-Delay-Resilient Secondary Frequency Regulation from Aggregated Electric Vehicles,” National Renewable Energy Laboratory, $85,000
• James West and Chuck Bunting, “Elementary Actions Between Cables, Antennas and Their Environment,” Sonelite, Inc, $46,000
• Hantao Cui, “HyperTran: High-Performance Transient Stability Simulation of Power Systems on Modern Parallel Computing Hardware”, NSF, $320,000
• John Hu, James Stine and Wooyeol Choi: “RET Site: Chip Design Experiences for Teachers to Stimulate Semiconductor Education in Oklahoma”, NSF, $600,000
• Jeffrey Young, John O’Hara, Wooyeol Choi and Sabit Ekin, “Versatile Experimental Platform for 6G and Beyond Communications and Sensing Innovations,” NASA, $1 million

This line up of new projects is in addition to the existing projects that ECE is currently managing, including million-dollar grants from the Air Force and NASA as well as a Major Research Instrumentation grant from NSF. All research projects under ECE management total $11.8 million, a record for ECE.

“I am proud of the ECE faculty,” Young said. “They are not only accomplished researchers, with many of them having international acclaim (e.g., four fellows of prestigious international societies) and extensive citation data (e.g., professors Gary Yen and Weili Zhang), they are also dedicated teachers who give passionately to our undergraduate and graduate students.

"It is a great time to be part of the ECE family.”