Undergraduates.

Independent Study and Undergraduate Research

The opportunity for independent study with faculty members conducting research at the frontiers of engineering knowledge is an important consideration for engineering students at Duke. Most students who undertake Independent Study do so in their Senior year, but qualified students can undertake Independent Study after Sophomore year. Students who anticipate Independent Study are encouraged to complete their foundation courses in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and engineering as early as possible, so that they will have the background to address challenging engineering problems in collaboration with their faculty study mentor.

One Independent Study ECE course may be used as the EE Elective in the EE Program and up to two Independent Study couses may be used as the ECE Electives in the ECE Program, but Independent Study courses may not be used in place of the other required courses in the EE or ECE Programs, except for the Free Electives. Students may take Independent Study courses as Free Electives, and all successfully completed Independent Study courses count toward the total of 34 courses required for a Duke degree. Many students find that Independent Study is a rewarding educational experience.

Independent Study courses are listed in the Bulletin of Undergraduate Instruction under the Electrical and Computer Engineering department name with the title "Undergraduate Research in Electrical Engineering" (course numbers ECE 191-ECE 194) and for graduation with departmental distinction with the title "Projects in Electrical Engineering" (course numbers ECE 197-ECE 198). These courses are designed to allow Juniors and Seniors to work individually with a faculty member on a project or topic of mutual interest. Courses are arranged on an individual basis at the instigation of the student or faculty member. All students taking the ECE independent-study courses, including Pratt Fellows, must participate in a poster session scheduled by the ECE Department late in each semester presenting research results and answering questions from faculty and other students. (Photos of students and their posters from the April 19, 2007, session.) A formal written report and an oral presentation is also required for candidates for Graduation with Departmental Distinction (representative recent GwDD projects are described below) and may be required for other independent-study students at the discretion of the faculty member supervising the independent study. The faculty member's permission must be obtained before a student can register for an Independent Study Course.

Descriptions of representative undergraduate Independent Study projects undertaken pursuant to Graduation with Departmental Distinction are listed below.

A Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellows Program is available to provide intensive undergraduate research experience for those students who want to go on into advanced research and graduate study in engineering. The program is under the direction of Martha Absher, Assistant Dean, Education and Outreach Programs, for the Pratt School. Engineering majors in the first semester of their junior year may apply to be Pratt Fellows. Those individuals accepted as Fellows perform three semesters of focused research for class credit, plus a paid summer, with a faculty member of the School of Engineering. All four Engineering Departments participate in the program, and each department has three fellows assigned to it in each Fellows class. The undergraduate Pratt Fellows produce publications, participate in conferences, and gain laboratory research experience, features which greatly strengthen resumes for application to graduate programs in Engineering. All Duke first-semester-junior engineering students are eligible for the program. Project descriptions are available with program applications from the Program Director in room B-233 LSRC during the normal Fall-semester "application season" The Pratt Fellows Program is modeled after the very successful NSF/ERC CECT Undergraduate Fellows Program (above) which has been in existence for more than 10 years.

There are other opportunities for Undergraduate Research open to qualified Sophomores and above at Duke and elsewhere. See the site for Undergraduate Research Support (URS) for an extensive set of programs and links.

Also note the Outreach Program of the Center for Emerging Cardiovascular Technologies here at Duke. Through this program you can find opportunities for research not only at Duke but a number of other NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) nationwide. Typical summer positions are full-time for 10 to 12 weeks between May and September. All Duke engineering students may participate in CECT programs. REU participants must be citizens or permanent residents of the United States.

An informal Summer Opportunity Bulletin Board summarizing information received by ECE faculty may also provide useful leads.

Summer and academic-year opportunities, including undergraduate laboratory and homework-grading TA positions, can also be uncovered by "direct advertising" to the ECE faculty. To pursue this route, prepare a short email-type paragraph stating your technical qualifications, and discuss your interests and qualifications with the ECE DUS. The DUS will help you get your message to the correct people.

Recent Undergraduate Research Projects

Following are representative undergraduate research projects pursuant to Graduation with ECE Departmental Distinction.

• Academic Year 2006-2007
  • Mingle: A Percolative Routing Framework for Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks
    Deepak Bastakoty, with Dr. Choudhury.
  • Computation on Self-Organized Networks
    Curtis Harting, with Drs. Dwyer and Lebeck.
  • DNA Self-Assembly of Nanoelectronic Devices - The Nanodynamics Simulator
    Ben Macadangdang, with Dr. Dwyer.
  • AC Electrowetting Actuation of Droplets on a Digital Microfluidic Platform
    Isaac Nagiel, with Dr. Fair.

• Academic Year 2005-2006
  • Ordered Chaos: Imposing Logical Structure in Nanotechnology Substrates
    Derek Hower, with Drs. Daniel Sorin and Chris Dwyer.
  • Design Automation and Test Techniques for Microfluidic Biochips
    William Hwang, with Drs. Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Richard Fair, and 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, and Rhett George.
  • Clustering Spikes in Multi-unit Neural Signals into Dominant and Remainder Classes
    David Rodriguez, with Dr. Patrick Wolf.

• Academic Year 2004-2005
  • Cocklear 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.

• Academic Year 2003-2004
  • Parameterized Likelihood Ratio Method for EMI Unexploded Ordnance Detection
    Bo Marr, Jr, with Dr. Leslie Collins.

• Academic Year 2002-2003
  • Violin Acoustic Signal Analysis
    David Logan, with Dr. Jeff Krolik.
  • Towards Negative Index Material: Magnetic Response
    Colin Scott, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
  • Physics-Model-Based Signal Processing of Ground Penetrating Radar for Subsurface Object Detection and Discrimination
    Vivek Munshi, with Dr. Leslie Collins.
  • System-on-Chip Testing Using Hierarchical and Virtual Test Access Mechanisms (TAMs)
    Mark Krasniewski, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty.
  • Perimeter Security Using an RF-Coupled Leaky Coax System
    Simon Wong, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.
  • Using Bimetallics to Create a Low-Cost Braille Display
    Max Cohen, with Dr. Bob Guenther.

• Academic Year 2001-2002
  • Cost Effective Ethernet Passive Optical Network
    Aaron Patzer, with Drs. David Brady and Rick Jones.
  • Duke Ubiquitous Multimedia Engine (DUME) Project
    Tan Gao, with Dr. John A. Board.
  • Integrated Optical Microfluidic Systems
    Ray Woo, with Dr. Richard Fair.
  • Investigation of Energy-Efficient Task Scheduling for Real-Time Systems
    Amil Patel, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty.
  • Exploring Different Models of Speech Production: Applications in Speech Coding and Speaker Recognition
    Peter Brende and William Chan, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.