Student Groups
Alumni Features Deborah Estrin, SM ’83, PhD ’85
“MIT instilled in me an expectation for passion and impact; one that I certainly had early exposure to in my parents, both EE PhDs (Univ Wisconsin, Madison), but at MIT it was ubiquitous.”
This fall has marked the second year for the Undergraduate Student Advisory Group in EECS (USAGE). Created in 2011-12 as part of the EECS department's strategic planning process, USAGE provides critical student input to the department leadership group to help guide curriculum development and enhancements. One important initiative that came out of last year's USAGE group was the new SuperUROP, a year-long advanced undergraduate research program. USAGE team members thought about what they wanted to see in their department, polled their peers, and developed a program that addressed their desire for developing enhanced research skills. As a result, 86 undergraduate students are participating in SuperUROP this year, performing graduate-level research over a wide range of research areas. USAGE was instrumental in ensuring that the program was structured to meet the needs of students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial, industrial or academic career paths. EECS Department Head Anantha Chandrakasan notes, "The input we received from USAGE members in 2011-12 was invaluable in creating the SuperUROP program. I'm excited to be working with this year's group as we create new programs and reshape current ones."
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www.eecs.mit.edu
The 2012–13 USAGE group is comprised of over thirty students who meet regularly with Prof. Chandrakasan, Prof. Dennis Freeman (EECS Undergraduate Officer) and with Undergraduate Administrator Anne Hunter. Additionally, they meet with the Associate Department Heads - Professors Munther Dahleh and Bill Freeman and other members of the department leadership. They are providing input on a range of issues including curriculum (e.g., a medical EECS program), improving response rates on course evaluations, the role of undergraduate students in faculty search, and IAP activities. USAGE2012-2013 members include Ishwarya Ananthabhotla, Joshua Blum, Moyukh Chatterjee, Deborah L. Chen, Jessica Chen, Stephanie Chen, Cody Coleman, Owen Derby, William Gaviria, Gustavo Goretkin, Bianca S. Homberg, Kevin Hsiue, Alexandra Hsu, Sebastian Leon, Andres H. Lopez-Pineda, Noel Morales, Manushaqe Muco, Santhosh Narayan, Catherine Olsson, Anvisha Pai, Victor Pontis, Devon J. Rosner, Aakanksha Sarda, Denzil Sikka, Nitya Subramanian, Christopher Tam, Jelle van den Hooff, Luis Voloch, Cassandra Xia, Xinyue (Linda) Ye, Yao (Rebecca) Zhang, and Xianzhen Zhu. You can read more about each of them at: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/ announcements/usage-2012-13-undergraduate-student-advisory-group-eecs n
On June 28, 2012, Cornell University announced that Deborah Estrin had accepted the position of professor of computer science — the first hire for Cornell Tech , the new technology center on Roosevelt Island off Manhattan. As the Founding Director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) 2002–2012, and a professor of computer science at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Prof. Estrin is noted as a pioneer in networked sensing, using mobile and wireless systems to collect and analyze real time data about the physical world.
late father Gerald Estrin, a professor in computer science at UCLA, was noted for developing reconfigurable computing while working in the von Neumann group at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Their mother, Thelma Estrin, also a professor of computer science at UCLA, has done pioneering work in the field of biomedical engineering. In familial line, Thelma was inducted into the Women in Technology Iternational (WITI) Hall of Fame in 1999, followed by her daughters Judy in 2002 and Deborah in 2008. Margo Estrin is a medical doctor in California.
“Her forte is building real systems that solve societal and industrial problems,” Charles M. Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering and MIT president emeritus noted for the Cornell Tech press release. Enthusiastic about this new direction, Prof. Estrin says: “The vision articulated by the founders of Cornell Tech is a perfect match for my interests. Their entire campus will focus on technology innovation, application and impact through both commercial and social entrepreneurship. It is an opportunity to build an institution of teaching and research that engages ‘The City’ as co-innovators.”
As a young girl, Deborah Estrin loved taking an experimental six-year math course in middle and high schools. She was so devoted to this class that when her parents took her with them on a sabbatical to Norway, she stuck with these studies. Family photos reveal her buried in her math book strikingly framed by the Norwegian Fjords. She says about herself as a 12 year old: “I think mostly I was just determined. I took myself seriously at a young age. I think that more than anything else is what helped me.”
In 2007, when Deborah Estrin spoke on receiving the Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision Award for Innovation, she credited her family, saying, “I grew up surrounded by the ideals of pursuing science and engineering as a stimulating and creative way to have a positive impact on the world.” Deborah and her two older sisters were raised by two electrical engineers, who she notes were also strong feminists. Their
Deborah Estrin also considers herself very fortunate to have met influential women mentors while she was an undergraduate at Berkeley (BS ’80). Dr. Barbara Simons, noted for her work on electronic voting, was a graduate student there when Estrin was a freshman. Dr. Simons and Sheila Humphreys, then Associate Director of the Women’s Center at UC Berkeley, had convened a group of women in computer science and invited Deborah Estrin to join them. Inspired by this group and the spirit of “Berkeley in the ‘70s”, she notes on graduating: “I left MIT EECS Connector — Spring 2013
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