ESE_Magazine-2024_spreads

2024-2025

Electrical & Systems Engineering ese.washu.edu

WashU ESE The Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering has a long-standing tradition of excellence in advancing scientific discovery and addressing engineering challenges that impact society. Founded in 1891, the department is committed to delivering high-quality education and fostering innovative research. Through a modern curriculum, renovated laboratories, and hands-on research opportunities, the department continually enhances the educational experience for its students.

133

U N D E RG RA DUAT E ST U D E N TS

162

75

M AST E R S ST U D E N TS

100%

P H D ST U D E N TS

ESE undergraduate student outcomes

O F P H D ST U D E N TS A R E F U L LY F U N D E D

Degree programs

fa ll 2 0 24

Undergraduate + BS in electrical engineering

No. 15

74%

+ Second major in electrical engineering

Continuing 21% education

2025 Best Colleges with Electrical Engineering Degrees in America (Niche)

4%

Seeking employment

1%

Not seeking employment

+ Second major in systems science & engineering + Second major in financial engineering Masters + MS in electrical engineering + MS in systems science & mathematics

Undergraduate top employers

No. 2 St. Louis ranked second best large metro to locate for recent college graduates (Porch)

No. 21 Best National University Rankings in U.S. News (2024)

2 McKelvey School of Engineering

+ BS in systems science & engineering

Employed full-time

+ The Boeing Co.

+ Belvedere Trading

+ Capital One

+ Google

+ Deloitte

+ McKinsey & Co.

+ AnheuserBusch Cos.

+ Oracle

+ AT&T

+ Burns & McDonnell

+ Bain & Co.

+ Mastercard

+ MS in engineering data analytics & statistics

+ Booz Allen Hamilton

+ MS in computer engineering

+ Accenture

Graduate Certificates

+ Amazon + Motorola Solutions + Venture for America

+ Graduate certificate in financial engineering

+ Arup

+ Graduate certificate in imaging science & engineering

Undergraduate top universities after graduation + Washington University in St. Louis

+ University of California San Diego

+ Georgia Institute of Technology

+ Stanford University

+ Graduate certificate in controls

+ Graduate certificate in quantum engineering

+ Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine

PhD

+ University of + University of Southern California + University of Illinois California, Berkeley - Champaign + Harvard University + Ohio State University + University of Chicago

+ PhD in electrical engineering + PhD in systems science & mathematics

Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering

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Research news New faculty join Electrical & Systems Engineering for 2024-25

Photo credit: Kamilov lab

Hong Hu joins as an assistant professor from the University of Pennsylvania and will also have an appointment in the Department of Statistics and Data Science in Arts & Sciences.

Photo credit: Whitney Curtis

Research Areas

Research Centers

Preston M. Green Hall

+ Applied physics

The following feature ESE primary and affiliate faculty

+ Named after Preston M. Green. He graduated with a bachelor’s in eletrical engineering in 1936.

Green went on to be the president and chairman of Southwest Steel.

+ Devices & circuits + Signals & imaging + Systems science

$6.8 M an n ual r e s e arch awar ds (f y2 024)

27

fu l l t im e pr im ary faculty

24

affiliat e d faculty

4 McKelvey School of Engineering

+ AI for Health Institute (AIHealth) + Center for Aerosol Science & Engineering (CASE) + Center for Biomolecular Condensates + Center for Collaborative Human-AI Learning and Operation (HALO) + Center for Quantum Leaps + Center for Trustworthy AI in CPS + Center for Women’s Health Engineering + McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences + The Institute of Materials Science & Engineering

+ Green Hall features cutting-edge research labs, classrooms, and collaborative spaces.

Deep learning models can be trained with limited data Deep learning models, such as those used in medical imaging to help detect disease or abnormalities, must be trained with a lot of data.

However, often there isn’t enough data available to train these models, or the data is too diverse.

Ulugbek Kamilov, associate professor of computer science & engineering and of electrical & systems engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, along with Shirin Shoushtari, Jiaming Liu and Edward Chandler, doctoral students in his group, have developed a method to get around this common problem in image reconstruction. The team presented the results of the research at the International Conference on Machine Learning in Vienna, Austria.

Janet Sorrells joins as an assistant professor from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

For example, MRI data used to train deep learning models could come from different vendors, hospitals, machines, patients or body parts imaged. A model trained on one type of data could introduce errors when applied on other data. To avoid those errors, the team adopted the widely used deep learning approach known as Plug-and-Play Priors, accounted for the shift in the data with which the model was trained and adapted the model to a new incoming set of data.

“With our method, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a lot of training data,” Shoushtari said. “Our method enables to adapt deep learning models using a small set of training data, no matter what hospital, what machine or what body parts the images come from.

+ Located on the northeast corner of Danforth Campus, Preston M. Green Hall is part of the modern Engineering Complex established in 2011.

One proposed use for this method would be in acquiring data from MRI, which requires patients to lie still for long periods of time. Any movement by the patient leads to errors.

Michael Hall joins as a lecturer.

The method is also applicable beyond radiology, and the team is collaborating with other colleagues to adopt the method to scientific imaging, microscopic imaging and other applications in which data can be represented as an image.

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Research news & funding Innovative sensing platform unlocks ultrahigh sensitivity in conventional sensors

Radar technology is essential to detecting and tracking objects with applications ranging from navigation and safety of autonomous vehicles to environmental monitoring and security systems. With an award from the National Science Foundation to develop advanced radar technology to support these and other applications.

Photo credit: Yang Lab

Optical sensors serve as the backbone of numerous scientific and technological endeavors, from detecting gravitational waves to imaging biological tissues for medical diagnostics. These sensors use light to detect changes in properties of the environment they’re monitoring, including chemical biomarkers and physical properties like temperature. A persistent challenge in optical sensing has been enhancing sensitivity to detect faint signals amid noise.

New research from Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, unlocks the power of exceptional points (EPs) for advanced optical sensing. In a study published April 5 in Science Advances, Yang and first author Wenbo Mao, a doctoral student in Yang’s lab, showed that these unique EPs – specific conditions in systems where extraordinary optical phenomena can occur – can be deployed on conventional sensors to achieve a striking sensitivity to environmental perturbaread more tions.

Photo credit: Pappu lab

WashU engineers manage a first: measuring pH in cell condensates In a first for the condensate field, Matthew Lew and colleagues figured out how nucleolar sub-structures are assembled.

Scientists trying to understand the physical and chemical properties that govern biomolecular condensates now have a crucial way to measure pH and other emergent properties of these enigmatic, albeit important cellular compartments.

read more 6 McKelvey School of Engineering

McKelvey Engineering researchers to develop low-power, highperformance radar systems

Image credit: JT Shen using DALL.E and Affinity Designer

Image created by Shantanu Chakrabartty using DALL-E

Shantanu Chakrabartty, the Clifford W. Murphy Professor, in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, along with a team from WashU and Oregon State University, aims to develop a new radar system that dramatically reduces power consumption and computing time compared with conventional radar systems. They also plan to prototype a low-power, high-performance radar system-on-chip to demonstrate the cost-effecread more tiveness and scalability of their approach.

Quantum physics may help lasers see through fog, aid in communications Communications and other laser-based technologies can be hampered by adverse conditions, such as fog, extreme temperatures or long distances.

Jung-Tsung Shen, associate professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, is developing a prototype of a quantum photonic-dimer laser with a two-year, $1 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. With the funding, Shen will implement his lab’s two-color photonic dimer laser technology, in which carefully controlled pairs of light particles, or photonic dimers, are used to generate a powerful and concentrated beam of light, or laser. Quantum photonic-dimer lasers take advantage of quantum effects to bind two photons together, increasing their energy and efficiency.

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Image credit: iStock photo

Communication within an extremely large-scale network system focus of new stochastic model

Photo credit: Yiannis Kantaros

Network systems, whether computer networks, networks of autonomous vehicles, social networks, or the complex network of neurons in the brain, rely on communication between individual agents to run smoothly. Researchers understand what type of communication structure is essential for sustaining a fundamental system property, such as stability and controllability. However, it is not easy to predict whether the required communication structure can be established for agents performing in an uncertain environment.

Xudong Chen, associate professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, plans to develop a framework that would predict how fundamental system properties of large-scale networks behave in uncertain environments. With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Chen plans to integrate several ideas and mathematical tools, including a new random graph model known as the graphon model. The project sits at the intersection of structural system theory and random graph theory.

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Advancing robot autonomy in unpredictable environments Yiannis Kantaros has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation.

Kantaros aims to advance robot intelligence and enable teams of robots to interact collaboratively with their perceived environment to overcome unanticipated obstacles and events.

read more Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering

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Awards & honors

Student news and community

Li named IEEE Fellow

Engineering students take on social choice

Jr-Shin Li, the Newton R. and Sarah Louisa Glasgow Wilson Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering at WashU, has been named an IEEE Fellow in the Class of 2025. This prestigious honor recognizes senior members who have significantly advanced technology. Only 0.1% of IEEE members achieve this distinction annually.

Li was honored for his contributions to ensemble control systems Photo credit: Ron Klein theory and applications to quantum and biological systems. His research spans systems, computational, learning, and data sciences, with a focus on complex systems in quantum physics, biology, neuroscience, and public health.

Li earned his doctorate at Harvard in 2006 and joined WashU, where he also holds appointments in Computational & Systems Biology and the Division of Computational & Data Sciences. Among his accolades are the NSF CAREER Award and the Air Force Young Investigator Award.

He also co-chairs the IEEE Technical Committee on Quantum Computing, Systems, and Control.

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Clockwise from top left: Bai, Jiao, Martin, Yang, Wu and Pappu

Six McKelvey Engineering faculty among world’s highly cited researchers The Institute for Scientific Information has named Lan Yang, the Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering, and five other McKelvey Engineering faculty among the most highly cited researchers in the sciences in 2024.

The faculty rank among the top 1% by citations for their field in the past decade.

8 McKelvey School of Engineering

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Two days after the U.S. presidential election, students in Ben Wormleighton’s “ESE 3090 Modeling & Design in Social Choice Systems” class tackled redistricting in a fictional nation, Gridlandia. Their task?

Analyze voter distributions on 3x3 grids to explore how district maps impact election outcomes.

This inquiry-based class blends math and software tools to address challenges in social choice systems, from splitting checks to electing leaders. “There’s a hunger for learning that’s both rigorous and socially relevant,” said Wormleighton, a lecturer in systems engineering.

Students generate thousands of district maps, use algorithms to detect gerrymandering, and explore ethics in engineering. “It’s about connecting computational skills with real-world impact,” said senior Michaela Sewall. Guest speakers from law and math further broaden perspectives. Wormleighton’s goal? Equip students to interrogate projects through fairness and equity, preparing them for socially conscious engineering read more careers.

Photo credit: Ron Klein

Kamilov receives Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award Ulugbek Kamilov, an associate professor of electrical & systems engineering and computer science & engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received the 2024 IEEE Signal Processing Society Pierre-Simon Laplace Early Career Technical Achievement Award. The award honors his significant contributions to computational imaging, including advancements in MRI, CT, optical microscopy and computational photography.

As director of the Computational Imaging Group at WashU, Kamilov leads groundbreaking research in AI and signal processing. He joined the university in 2017 after earning his doctorate at EPFL, Switzerland, and working as a research scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. Kamilov will accept the award at the ICASSP 2025 ceremony in Hyderabad, India.

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Photo credit: Sid Hastings

Zhao selected for CAS Future Leaders program Junyi Zhao, a doctoral student in the lab of Chuan Wang, was one of 35 graduate students and postdocs selected for the 2024 CAS Future Leaders program. Known as one of the best leadership learning experiences in science, the program honors comprehensive research achievements, visions and leadership in broad scientific communities.

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(Image: Aimee Felter/Washington University)

Engineering the Future: Women in Engineering On this episode of Engineering the Future, Addison Schwamb and BethAnna Jones, graduate students in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, describe their systems-based approaches to brain dynamics and dispel some science-fiction inspired misconceptions. With their adviser ShiNung Ching, associate professor of electrical & systems engineering in McKelvey Engineering, Schwamb and Jones use mathematics to understand how the brain works and apply that knowledge to address questions at the intersection of engineering, brain science and human health.

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Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering

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ESE Engineering Faculty

Bruno Sinopoli Department Chair and Das Family Distinguished Professor bsinopoli@wustl.edu

Designs safe and secure networked embedded control systems

Shantanu Chakrabartty Clifford W. Murphy Professor Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Education shantanu@wustl.edu Explores frontiers in analog and neuromorphic integrated circuits

Xudong Chen Associate Professor cxudong@wustl.edu

ShiNung Ching Associate Professor shinung@wustl.edu

Andrew Clark Associate Professor andrewclark@wustl.edu

Tsitsi Nussinov Senior Lecturer tsitsi@wustl.edu

Develops revolutionary methods for analysis and control of large-scale multi-agent systems

Focused on engineering neuroscience, dynamics, control

Focused on control and security of networked and cyberphysical systems

Teaches Introduction to Electrical and Electronic Circuits

Joseph O’Sullivan Professor & Dean of the UMSL/WashU Joint Undergraduate Engineering Program, The Samuel C. Sachs Professor of Electrical Engineering jao@wustl.edu

Ed Richter Professor of Practice ed@ese.wustl.edu

Jung-Tsung Shen Associate Professor jushen@wustl.edu

Janet Sorrells Assistant Professor sjanet@wustl.edu

Designs and develops bio-medical signal processing systems and teaches electrical and computer engineering lab courses

Exploits the unique properties of quantum nano-photonics for applications in quantum communication, computation and biomedical imaging

Developes new technologies in label-free nonlinear optical microscopy to enable new applications in biology and medicine

Lan Yang Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor lyang25@wustl.edu

Discovers ways to improve CT imaging & optical imaging

James Feher Teaching Professor jdfeher@wustl.edu

Martha Hasting Senior Lecturer hasting@wustl.edu

Hong Hu Assistant Professor hu.h@wustl.edu

Ulugbek Kamilov Associate Professor kamilov@wustl.edu

Ioannis (Yiannis) Kantaros Assistant Professor ioannisk@wustl.edu

Jason Trobaugh Professor of Practice jasont@wustl.edu

Yunjing (Dorothy) Wang Lecturer dorothyw@wustl.edu

Chuan Wang Associate Professor chuanwang@wustl.edu

Ben Wormleighton Lecturer Benw@wustl.edu

Interested in the use and implementation of open source hardware and software as it is applied to engineering education

Teaches mathematics education

Developes theoretical foundations for high-dimensional information processing

Advances imaging technology through research on computational imaging, computer vision, machine learning and optimization

Designs safe and distributed autonomy algorithms for AI-enabled multi-robot systems

Focused on ultrasound imaging, diffuse optical tomography, image-guided therapy, and ultrasonic temperature imaging

Focused on fiber optic sensing, electro-optical sensors

Develops large-scale and cost-effective materials for flexible and stretchable electronic systems

Seeks to cultivate formative learning spaces and practices that develop creative and communal thinkers.

Vladimir Kurenok Senior Lecturer kurenokv@ese.wustl.edu

Mark Lawrence Assistant Professor markl@wustl.edu

Matthew Lew Associate Professor mdlew@wustl.edu

Dennis Mell Professor of Practice dennismell@seas.wustl.edu

Shen Zeng Assistant Professor s.zeng@wustl.edu

Jinsong Zhang Senior Lecturer jinsong.zhang@wustl.edu

Focuses on studying and applications of random models under low regularity assumptions

Builds novel systems and devices for applications in telecommunications, computing and quantum information

Builds new nanoscale imaging technologies

Jr-Shin Li Newton R. and Sarah Louisa Glasgow Wilson Professor of Engineering jsli@wustl.edu

Focuses on cross-disciplinary applications of robotics and automation systems

Develops data-integrated computational approaches for controlling complex dynamic systems

Focused on signal, data and information processing with applications to engineering systems

Studies complex large-scale systems arising from emerging physical, biological and medical applications

Focuses on advanced nano/ micro photonic devices with outstanding optical properties

Image courtesy of Chuan Wang

10 McKelvey School of Engineering

Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering

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