Graduation with Departmental Distinction

Students who aspire to Graduate with Departmental Distinction (GDD) within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering conduct supervised research through independent study courses and present the results of individual research and study in both written and oral forms to the department's faculty. Those candidates who are judged by the department's faculty to have distinguished themselves through their paper and presentation earn Graduation with Departmental Distinction honors.

This accomplishment is recognized when the BSE degree is awarded.  If that time is different from the principal Spring commencement exercises, the student work remains in contention for the Charles Seager prize for that academic year awarded each Spring Commencement. 

To be considered for Graduation with Departmental Distinction a student must have a 3.5 Cumulative GPA and must successfully complete in his or her Senior year a faculty supervised Independent Study project with significant Electrical and Computer Engineering accomplishment. The significance of this project must be demonstrated in a formal written report and defended in an oral presentation before a committee of faculty members.

Candidates must submit a 10-20 page written report (single spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, single column) including figures and references. The entire report must be submitted electronically to the Director of Undergraduate Studies Assistant, Ms. Ellen Currin, at ecurrin@ee.duke.edu no later than one week before the oral presentation begins. The project report essentially constitutes a Senior thesis.

Example Graduation with Distinction Projects

Academic Year 2011-2012

• Characterizing the Electro-Optic Properties of a Microfabricated Mass Spectrometer Carlo Giustini, with Dr. Jeffrey Glass.
• Designing Scalable Heterogeneous Memory for High-Performance Computing Tae Jun Ham, with Dr. Benjamin C. Lee.
• C# Implementation of SLAM Using the Microsoft Kinect Richard Marron, with Dr. Jason Janet.
• Novel Electrodes for Deep Brain Implantation Jennifer Molnar, with Drs. Dale Bass & John Board.
• Designing a Physically Realizable Electromagnetic Cloak Heidi Slater, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Monte Carlo Simulation of Charge Transport in Organic Solar Cells Xin Xu, with Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts.

Academic Year 2010-2011

• In-Vehicle Driver Detection Using Mobile Phone Sensors Hon Lung Chu, with Dr. Roy Choudhury.
• Social Network Analysis: Online Anomaly Detection and Graphical Model Selection Corinne Horn, with Dr. Rebecca Willett.
• Application of Transformation Optics and Metamaterials: Enhancing Utilization of Optical Device Gyushik Jang, with Dr. David Smith.
• An Autonomous 'Pinger Tester' to Verify the Operation of Bycatch-Reducing Acoustic Pingers for Marine Mannal-Fishery Interactions  Sabrina G. Liao, with Drs. Douglas Nowacek and Matthew Reynolds.
• Argus-G: A Low-Cost Error Detection Scheme for GPGPUs Ralph Nathan, with Dr. Daniel Sorin.
• Microphone Array Feedback Suppression for Indoor Room Acoustics Tanmay Prakash, with Dr. Jeffrey Krolik.
• Development of a 638.6nm External Cavity Diode Laser for Scalable Ion-Trap Quantum Computing Eunsu Ryu, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
• Conjugated Polymer Superlattices for Enhanced Charge Transport in Organic Solar Cells Karthik Iyengar Seetharam, with Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts.
• In-Vehicle Driver Detection Using Mobile Phone Sensors Jeffrey Shih-kai Shen, with Dr. Choudhury.
• Adaptive Solar Home Systems Eric Thorne, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.

Academic Year 2009-2010

• Phonepoint Pen: Using Mobile Phones to Write in Air Sandip Agrawal, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
• Statistical Methods for Gene Expression Analysis David Carlson, with Dr. Larry Carin.
• MEMS Application in Quantum Computing Mike Feng, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
• Lightning Electromagnetics William Gamerota, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Outlet-Level Power Monitoring and Point-of-Use Feedback to Reduce Power Consumption Benjamin Hamner, with Dr. John Board.
• Study of Chromophore Pair Interaction Using DNA Dong Jin Shin, with Dr. Chris Dwyer.
• Wireless Power Transmission in the SmartHome Yinquan Teo, with Dr. Matt Reynolds.

Academic Year 2008-2009

• The Use of a Discrete Transistor Amplifier to Produce Active Metamaterials Douglas Bycoff, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Active Microwave Imaging System for Breast Cancer Screening: RF MEMS Switching Matrix System Design Tawanda Chaunzwa, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.
• An Electrically Engineered Metamaterial Absorber Mark Gu, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Enabling Realtime Location Privacy with Predictive Anonymization Joseph Meyerowitz, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
• Microphone Array Beamforming with Near-Field Correlated Sources Jonathan Odom, with Dr. Jeff Krolik.
• Designs and Simulations in Transformation Optics Daniel Roberts, with Dr. David Smith.
• Current-Injection Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Slab Microcavity Pantana Tor-ngern, with Dr. Tomo Yoshie.

Academic Year 2007-2008

• Proving the Correctness of  Error Detection Mechanisms in Simple Core  Multiprocessors Michael Bauer, with Dr. Daniel Sorin.
• A Performance Simulato of Quantitative Analysis of the Implications of Fault Tolerance in Distributed Quantum Computer Architectures Jeffrey Hussmann, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
• Surface Relief Optical Gratings Integrated with Waveguide Bio/Chemical Sensors Melissa Levy, with Dr. Nan Jokerst.
• Development of a Compact and Multifunctional Sensor Array Serge Reshetnikov, with Drs. Jeffrey Glass and Scott Wolter.
• Simulating Mobililty Data Precision Requirements for Human Behavior Inferemce David Wagner, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.

Academic Year 2006-2007

• Mingle: A Percolative Routing Framework for Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks Deepak Bastakoty, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
• Computation on Self-Organized Networks Curtis Harting, with Drs. Chris Dwyer & Alvin Lebeck.
• DNA Self-Assembly of Nanoelectronic Devices - The Nanodynamics Simulator Ben Macadangdang, with Dr. Chris Dwyer.
• AC Electrowetting Actuation of Droplets on a Digital Microfluidic Platform Isaac Nagiel, with Dr. Richard Fair

Academic Year 2005-2006

• Ordered Chaos: Imposing Logical Structure in Nanotechnology Substrates Derek Hower, with Drs. Daniel Sorin & Chris Dwyer.
• Design Automation and Test Techniques for Microfluidic Biochips William Hwang, with Drs. Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Richard Fair, & Fei Su.
• Improved Breast Cancer Diagnosis through Decision Fusion Anna Rack-Gomer, with Dr. Loren Nolte.
• Quantification of semiconductor crystal surface features at the submicron level Katie Ness, with Dr. Rebecca Willett.
• Microwave Imaging: Research in Alternative Medical Imaging Modalities Vinh Nguyen, with Drs. Gary Ybarra, Qing Liu, William Joines, & Rhett George.
• Clustering Spikes in Multi-unit Neural Signals into Dominant and Remainder Classes David Rodriguez, with Dr. Patrick Wolf.

Academic Year 2004-2005

• Cochlear Implants: Spectral Cues and Pitch Reversals on Music Perception Patrick Crosby, with Dr. Leslie Collins.
• Cochlear Implants: Effects of Multiple Carrier Frequencies and Noise on Speech Danielle Davidian, with Dr. Leslie Collins.
• Furthering Development of a Digital Microfluidic Platform Andrew Dreher, with Dr. Richard Fair.
• Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis of Process Variations in Deep Sub-Micron Devices Jacob Flomenberg, with Dr. Sule Ozev.
• Data Analysis for Lightning Electromagnetics Thai Wing Darwin Goei, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Modeling 3-Gene Regulation Networks Trina Kok, with Dr. Paul Wang.
• Characterization and Testing of CMOS Subcircuits in a Mixed Signal IC Jessica Smith, with Drs. Jeff Derby & James Morizio.
• Matching and Locating of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Discharges Charles Wang, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
• Application of Magnetic Microspheres to Pyrosequencing on a Digital Microfluidic Platform Nicole Weaver, with Dr. Richard Fair.
• Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis of Process Variations: The First Step towards Robust Deep Sub-Micron Devices Devaka Yasaratne, with Dr. Sule Ozev.