2022

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Sebastian Fernandez (EE PhD candidate), Arynn Gallegos (EE PhD candidate), Claire Anderson (Environmental Engineering PhD candidate) and Chandler Brown (Environmental Engineering PhD candidate) organized SERI as a means of providing students with the tools they need to successfully complete undergraduate research and apply to graduate school.

"Stanford Engineering Research Introductions (SERI) aims to empower underrepresented underclassmen at Stanford and other institutions to achieve their academic and professional goals both in college and after graduation, state Sebastian and Arynn.

"The program's fundamental objectives are to expose students early in their undergraduate careers to academic research, provide graduate student and faculty mentoring, and cultivate a community of likeminded and diverse scholars."

SERI's inaugural conference kicked off Friday, February 4, 2022. The two-day event included faculty panels, graduate student panels, lab tours, seminars, and research presentations by faculty.

EE professors Dan Congreve and Chelsea Finn gave presentations on their research. Dan's research includes controlling light at the nanoscale. And Chelsea presented on broad robot generalization with broad offline data. Additional engineering faculty participated in panels, lab tours, and workshops.

Conference participants said they learned a lot and are now more clear on the path to becoming a graduate student.

SERI organizers are grateful to the EE department for generously supporting and sponsoring this program, as well as VPGE Diversity and Inclusion Innovation Funds and the ChemE, CEE, and CS departments.

"We look forward to hosting the program in future years to reach and impact the next generation of diverse scientists and engineers."

SERI graduate student directors, from left to right, Sebastian Fernandez, Claire Anderson, Chandler Brown, and Arynn Gallegos

SERI organizers and participants pose for a group photo at the engineering quad. (Photo courtesy of SERI organizers).

Sources: SERI - seri.sites.stanford.edu, The Stanford Daily, "Stanford welcomes students to Engineering Research Introductions Conference," Feb 7, 2022

Professor Dorsa Sadigh joins Professor Russ Altman for a recent The Future of Everything podcast, titled "How do you build a better robot? By understanding people."

EPISODE NOTES
Whether it's autonomous vehicles or assistive technology in healthcare that can do things like help the elderly do core tasks like feeding themselves, some of the most challenging problems in the field of robotics involve how robots interact with humans, with all of our many complexities.

Drawing from fields as varied as cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics, Stanford computer scientist Dorsa Sadigh is exploring how to train robots to better understand humans – and how to give humans the skills to more seamlessly work with robots.

Learn more on this episode of Stanford Engineering's The Future of Everything, with host Professor Russ Altman. Listen and subscribe here.

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• Dorsa Sadigh receives Okawa Foundation Research Grant
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Congratulations to Professor Eric Pop, recognized as an Intel 2021 Outstanding Researcher.

The annual award program recognizes the exceptional contributions made through Intel university-sponsored research. Intel sponsors and works alongside academic researchers around the globe in areas such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovative technologies.

Eric's team focused on improving Moore's Law scaling with two-dimensional (2D) materials by solving some of the important challenges in this field. The team made two discoveries that can influence future research in the field of 2D transistors. One is a predictive optical metrology which correlates with device performance. Another is a prototype of NMOS contact which is on par with silicon technology.

"We are pleased to recognize the important contributions of these carefully -selected researchers in our 2021 Outstanding Researcher Awards. We wish them each sincere congratulations," said Henning Braunisch, co-director of Intel's Corporate Research Council.

View full article Intel's 2021 Outstanding Researcher Awards Recognize 17 Academic Researchers 

Please join us in congratulating Eric on his achievements!

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• Data Storage Is Better When It's Bendy
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Professor Kwabena Boahen shares his journey to electrical engineering and bioengineering.

In this interview, he credits his father, a professor of African history at the University of Ghana, for his interest in academia and his intuition for thinking there must be a more elegant way to bridge neurobiology, medicine, electronics and computer science to design circuits.

Today Kwabena's lab focuses on how cognition arises from neuronal properties. They're using silicon integrated circuits to emulate the way neurons compute, linking the seemingly disparate fields of electronics and computer science with neurobiology and medicine. They're profoundly shifting computing away from a traditional, sequential, step-by-step paradigm toward a parallel, interconnected architecture that works much more like that of the human brain.

Kwabena's group's contributions to the field of neuromorphic engineering include a silicon retina that could be used to give the blind sight, a self-organizing chip that emulates the way the developing brain wires itself up, and a mixed analog-digital hardware platform, Neurogrid, that simulates a million cortical neurons in real time – rivaling a supercomputer while consuming only a few watts.

Excerpted from "Kwabena Boahen: Curiosity is the way forward to new knowledge," School of Engineering, January 25, 2022

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• Kwabena Boahen describes Neuromorphic Computing in 'The Future of Everything' podcast
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Dan's research is centered around nanoscale materials and devices. The Congreve Lab works with several other engineering departments, including chemical engineering, and materials science and engineering, to further their research with nanomaterials. Dan is also a member of Stanford's Q-FARM, Quantum Fundamentals, Architectures and Machines initiative. 

Dan is a featured faculty on EE's "Meet our Faculty!" YouTube playlist. During the next few weeks, more videos about Dan and his research will post. Subscribe to receive notifications about new videos. Watch videos: Meet Assistant Professor Dan Congreve and learn about nanomaterial research in his lab.

Professor Subhasish Mitra has been selected to receive the 2022 IEEE Computer Society Harry H. Goode Memorial Award.

Mitra directs the Stanford Robust Systems Group, leads the Computation Focus Area of the Stanford SystemX Alliance, and is a member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. His research ranges across Robust Computing, NanoSystems, Electronic Design Automation (EDA), and Neurosciences. Results from his research group have influenced almost every contemporary electronic system, and have inspired significant government and research initiatives in multiple countries. He has held several international academic appointments — the Carnot Chair of Excellence in NanoSystems at CEA-LETI in France, Invited Professor at EPFL in Switzerland, and Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan.

The Goode Award is given to individuals for their achievements in the information processing field which are considered either a single contribution of theory, design, or technique of outstanding significance, or the accumulation of important contributions on theory or practice over an extended time period.

Join us in celebrating Mitra's contributions!

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• EE Webinar, Semiconductor Technology and Manufacturing in the US for the 21st Century: Back to the Future for Lessons from the Past
• EE News, Mitra Receives A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award
• EE News, Subhasish Mitra awarded 2021 SIA-SRC University Researcher Award
• EE News, Subhasish Mitra, H.S. Philip Wong, and Mary Wootters' system can run AI tasks faster and with less energy

Congratulations to Professor John Hennessy on being selected as one of the winners of the 2022 Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering by the National Academy of Engineering.

Recognized as one of the world's preeminent awards for engineering achievement, the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering honors an engineer whose accomplishment has significantly impacted society by improving the quality of life, providing the ability to live freely and comfortably, and/or permitting the access to information. The Draper Prize is awarded biennially, and recognizes achievements in all engineering disciplines.

Please join us in congratulating John on another more-than-well-deserved honor!

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Co-lead authors Koosha Nassiri Nazif and Alwin Daus, both EE postdoctoral scholars, describe their tungsten diselenide solar cells that boast a power-per-weight ratio on par with established thin-film solar cell technologies in their recently published paper. Their prototype achieves 5.1 percent power conversion efficiency, and the team projects they could practically reach 27 percent efficiency upon optical and electrical optimizations. That figure would be on par with the best solar panels on the market today, silicon included.

Their prototype realized a 100-times greater power-to-weight ratio of any transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) yet developed. That ratio is important for mobile applications, like drones, electric vehicles and the ability to charge expeditionary equipment on the move. When looking at the specific power – a measure of electrical power output per unit weight of the solar cell – the prototype produced 4.4 watts per gram, a figure competitive with other current-day thin-film solar cells, including other experimental prototypes.

"We think we can increase this crucial ratio another ten times through optimization," states Krishna, adding that they estimate the practical limit of their TMD cells to be a remarkable 46 watts per gram.

Pictured below are Professor Krishna Saraswat (left) and Dr. Koosha Nassiri Nazif (right), and a photograph of WSe₂ solar cells on a flexible polyimide substrate held up with a pair of tweezers. Photo credit: Dr. Koosha Nassiri Nazif.

"Imagine an autonomous drone that powers itself with a solar array atop its wing that is 15 times thinner than a piece of paper," said Koosha Nassiri Nazif, a doctoral scholar in EE. "That is the promise of TMDs."

This is collaborative work between the research groups of Professor Krishna Saraswat and Professor Eric Pop.
Additional authors include

• Department of Electrical Engineering: Koosha Nassiri Nazif, Alwin Daus, Sam Vaziri, Aravindh Kumar, Frederick Nitta, Siavash Kananian, Raisul Islam, Prof. Ada S. Y. Poon, Prof. Eric Pop & Prof. Krishna C. Saraswat
• Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM): Jiho Hong, Nayeun Lee & Prof. Mark L. Brongersma
• Department of Materials Science and Engineering: Jiho Hong, Nayeun Lee, Michelle E. Chen, Prof. Mark L. Brongersma, Prof. Eric Pop & Prof. Krishna C. Saraswat
• Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University: Kwan-Ho Kim & Jin-Hong Park
• Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania: Kwan-Ho Kim
• SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology (SAINT), Sungkyunkwan University: Jin-Hong Park
• Department of Applied Physics: Prof. Mark L. Brongersma

Related Sources

• IEEE Spectrum, "Record Power Boost for New Flexible Solar Tech Prototype bendable cells now match power/weight ratio of best commercial thin-film devices"
• SciTechDaily.com, "New Photovoltaic Materials Developed by Stanford Scientists for Ultrathin, Lightweight Solar Panels"
• Stanford News, "New solar materials developed by Stanford scientists could usher in ultrathin, lightweight solar panel"

Congratulations to Professor Dorsa Sadigh! She is a recipient of the 2021 Okawa Foundation Research Grant. Her research theme is Adaptive Human-Robot Interaction.

Please join us in congratulating Dorsa on her well-deserved recognition!

Dorsa's research interests lie at the intersection of robotics, machine learning, and control theory. She is interested in developing efficient algorithms for safe, reliable, and adaptive human-robot and generally multi-agent interactions.

The mission of the Okawa Foundation is the promotion and development in the field of information and telecommunications through awards and research grants as well as efforts to nurture researchers, engineers, and providers. It also seeks to promote diversity and ubiquitousness of human communication and thereby contribute to the peace and prosperity of humankind.

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