Electrical & Computer Engineering (Graduate Program)

For information regarding the UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM, click here.   

Program Overview

The Division of Electrical & Computer Engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science offers programs of study leading to the MS and PhD degrees. Areas of study include Automatic Control (system identification, robust, adaptive, fault-tolerant, and networked feedback control); Communications and Signal Processing (digital, computer, and wireless communications, data compression, digital signal processing, and image processing); Computers (computer architectures, computer graphics, parallel and distributed computing, compilers, embedded systems, reconfigurable computing, computer vision, and fault-tolerant computing); Electronics (electronic materials and devices, micro- and nano-technologies, nanophotonics, electro-optics and VLSI circuits/systems design); and Power (power electronics, harmonic analysis, electric machines, variable speed drive, power system stability and control, renewable energies, smart grid and energy conversion). An interdisciplinary concentration in Information Technology is also available.

There are approximately 100 students enrolled in Electrical and Computer Engineering MS and PhD programs. The division graduate faculty is comprised of 10 professors, 10 associate professors, and six assistant professors.

Administration

Minor in Electrical Engineering

• Graduate students from outside the division desiring a minor in electrical engineering must take at least nine credits of the division’s senior/graduate (4xxx) or graduate (7xxx) level courses. For a PhD student, six or more credits must be from 7xxx level courses; for an MS student, a minimum of three credit hours must be from graduate (EE 7xxxx) level courses. The program must be approved by the Graduate Studies Committee.
• The ECE Division does not require a separate examination for students minoring in electrical engineering.

Facilities

The division has ample computing resources including several multiprocessors used for purposes such as design automation, simulations and GPGPU programming. The Visual and Geometric Computing Lab supports research in computer graphics, geometric modeling, visualization and vision, geometric and medical data fusing, and deformation analysis, among others. The Internet Teaching Lab houses routers and switches and is used for studying concepts in internetworking research.

The Electronic Material and Device Lab (with a Class-100 clean room) is utilized for research in semiconductor material growth, characterization, device fabrication, and measurements. The VLSI Systems Design Lab is used to design smart silicon chips and for device modeling. It is equipped with CAD tools and a high-speed data acquisition system for digital, analog/mixed-signal designs.

The McNeil RF/Communications Lab houses a vector network analyzer, spectrum analyzer, signal generators and communication and signal processing boards. The PreSonus Digital Signal Processing Lab houses DSP development boards, code composer, and audio hardware. The Control Lab uses xPC Target for real-time seamless interfacing of Matlab/simulink and physical systems and hardware-in-the-loop designs.

The Power Electronics Lab offers hands-on experience with devices such as AC to DC converters, AC Voltage controllers, and circuit designs capable of handling large amounts of power. The Electric Machines Lab and Variable Speed Drive (VSD) Lab are equipped with conventional machines, as well as motors for special purposes. It also has power electronic inverters, and DSP boards for real-time simulation and control.

In addition, students can utilize the university resources of high-performance computing at the Center for Computation and Technology (CCT) and microfabrication and synchrotron beam-line capabilities at the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices (CAMD).

Admission

Applications and supporting materials for all graduate study must be submitted through the online application site for the LSU Graduate School. Official transcripts, official test scores, and other materials that come from third-party sources must be mailed to: Graduate Student Services, 114 West David Boyd Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803. These paper documents are stored electronically and divisions have access to all materials submitted by and/or on behalf of a student applying to graduate study.

Meeting the minimum admission requirements established by the Graduate School does not necessarily ensure acceptance into the division’s graduate program. The division reviews the record of each applicant to assess promise for success at the graduate level, taking into consideration grade-point average, undergraduate preparation, recommendations, GRE scores, TOEFL, IELTS, or PTE scores (for international applicants), and any other pertinent information. Division recommendations are usually made within a month of the division receiving the complete application.

More details on applying to the division can be found at www.ece.lsu.edu/grad/Instructions.html.

Financial Assistance

The division attempts to provide financial support for all qualified doctoral students and for outstanding MS students.

Teaching Assistantships (TAs): All new applicants are automatically considered for available teaching assistantships in ECE. Nearly all new teaching assistantships are usually awarded in the fall semester. Awards are competitive with usually more applicants than available TA positions. Only completed applications on file are considered when the award decisions are made. Hence, it is helpful to have your application file completed early. Applicants selected to receive assistantships will be notified by the division.

Research Assistantships (RAs): Research assistantships are selected individually by ECE faculty members. It is not uncommon for a prospective student to contact one or more faculty members whose research interest matches his/her own to determine if they have any open RA position. Information on research interests of faculty members is given on the division web page at www.ece.lsu.edu.

The division also offers scholarships and fellowships funded through alumni and donors. More information on these awards can be found on our webpage www.ece.lsu.edu.

Graduate Faculty

(check current faculty listings by department here)

Pratul K. Ajmera (EM) • Semiconductor materials and devices, device physics, material growth and characterization, device fabrication, MEMS and integrated microsystems
LaVonda Brown (6A) • Robotics platforms for physical therapy; biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease
Jin-Woo Choi (M) • MEMS & BioMEMS, biosensors and bioelectronic devices, microfluidic devices and systems, lab-on-a-chip systems, nanomagnetic particle separators for biomedical applications, nanoscale transducers
Leszek S. Czarnecki (M) • Power electronics, nonsinusoidal systems, network analysis and synthesis
Theda Daniels-Race (M) • Characterization of hybrid electronic materials, novel optoelectronic device fabrication, growth of band-gap engineered III-V nanostructures
Mehdi Farasat (6A) • Design and control of power electronics converters, electric drives, plug-in/hybrid/fuel-cell electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, AC/DC/hybrid microgrids
Martin Feldman (M) • Applied optics, x-ray lithography, micromachining
Guoxiang Gu (M) • Modeling and control of networked feedback systems, statistical signal processing with applications, and cooperative estimation and control
Amin Kargarian Marvasti (6A) • Power systems operation and planning, decision-making in smart grids, renewable energy and energy storage integration, infrastructure interdependency analyses
David M. Koppelman (M) • Computer architecture and microarchitecture, specialized processors
Xin Li (M) • Visual computing, computer graphics, vision, geometric data modeling, processing, analysis and simulation
Xuebin Liang (M) • Wireless communications, information theory, signal and image processing, neural networks, computation and complexity
Michael L McAnelly (3P) • Power system protection, operation and control
Shahab Mehraeen (M) • power systems stability and control, renewable energies, smart grid, energy conversion
Morteza Naraghi-Pour (M) • Wireless communication, wireless sensor and ad hoc networks, communication theory, telecommunication networks, neural networks, signal processing
Kidong Park (6A) • BioMEMS and microfluidic devices, single cell analysis, cellular biomechanics, resonant MEMS devices, bioanalytic instrumentation
Lu Peng (M) • Computer architecture, microarchitecture, system performance analysis, network processor
Suresh Rai (M) • Evolable computing, network traffic engineering, wavelets, fault tolerant computing, digital logic testing and neural modeling, reliability evaluation of multiprocessor and distributed networks
Jagannathan Ramanujam (M) • Optimizing compilers, high performance computing, embedded systems, low power computing, computer architecture
Ashok Srivastava (M) • Low power VLSI design, nanoelectronics, RF MEMS/NEMS, microsystems
Jerry L. Trahan (M) • Theory of computation, models of parallel computation, reconfigurable meshes, run-time reconfiguration, reliability, algorithm design and analysis
Ramachandran Vaidyanathan (M) • Parallel and distributed computing, algorithms, reconfigurable systems, interconnection networks, optical interconnects
Georgios Veronis (M) • Theory and simulation of photonic materials and devices, nanoscale photonic devices, plasmonics, computational electromagnetics
Shuangqing Wei (M) • Physical layer security, cognitive radio networks, wireless sensor networks and multiuser information theory
Jian Xu (6A) • Biomedical instrumentation, bio-nano, image guided surgery, biomedical imaging
Hsiao-Chun Wu (M) • Statistical signal processing for telecommunication, ultrasonics, speech, image and biomedical applications, wireless communications, detection and estimation, theoretical studies of systems and filters
Kemin Zhou (M) • Robust and optimal control, system theory, signal processing, fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control, applications of advanced control theory
Xiangwei Zhou (6A) • Wireless communications, statistical signal processing, cross-layer optimization, and cognitive radio and spectrum coexistence

Programs

• Electrical Engineering, Ph.D.

• Electrical Engineering, M.S.EE