Electrical Engineering
Mike Ranjram
Nicholas Rolston
About this opportunity
The School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering (ECEE) has attracted national and international attention due to our continued strength in providing innovative academic programs, outstanding research performance, and growth in student enrollment to record levels. The electrical engineering industry is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. Electrical and computing devices are used in a vast array of applications, including wireless communications, electric power generation, medicine, energy, space exploration and environmental conservation. The development of the microprocessor also expanded opportunities for electrical engineers to improve the design of familiar products such as automobiles, consumer and office products, entertainment systems, power tools and a variety of test and measurement instruments.
Electrical engineers combine the laws of electricity and principles of engineering to a variety of applications that directly affect the daily lives of most of the world’s population, from the development of satellite communication links to a sophisticated patient monitoring system in a hospital trauma unit. Electrical engineers are concerned with many design and development challenges associated with technology that uses electricity.
Our faculty includes experts in electrical engineering’s many application areas. They are committed to the integration of use-inspired research with locally and globally relevant academic programming and have achieved national recognition by pursuing the best activities in research, training and entrepreneurship.
Thesis
The full details of the thesis can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5t9a0bmm9cn1q0w/Thesis-Student-Guidebook.pdf?raw=1
Many Electrical Engineering students take EEE 488/489 as their capstone design sequence and may use their senior capstone design project as the foundation for the honors thesis. In this case, the capstone project mentor (ASU Faculty) is the Thesis Director. The second committee member can be faculty but can also be a qualified professional inside or outside ASU (e.g., if there are industry members involved in the capstone, they can participate in the committee). The honors thesis must be a distinct and independent addition to the rest of the project, and the advisor makes this judgement. Be sure you and your advisor agree on the scope of your Honors thesis at the start of the project! Please feel free to involve your FHAs if you have any questions about the specific scope of a proposed thesis contribution to a capstone project.
Capstone thesis project credit: Students need to file an honors enrichment contract for both EEE 488 and EEE489 to indicate that they are using their capstone courses for the thesis project. Contracts will include details on their thesis project goals and timeline for completion. A thesis prospectus must be submitted by the end of EEE 488. Students doing this option should let their Barrett Advisor know about their plan.
Independent thesis project credit: Alternatively, students may work on projects outside of the capstone, based on academic preparation completed through research or coursework. Independent thesis project students may enroll in EEE 492 and EEE 493 if they are working with a professor from the EEE department. Thesis projects directed by faculty outside of EEE would be taken under the prefix of the thesis director department. (Ex. MAT 492/493 if the thesis director is from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences).
Both of these options allow up to $1000 in funding from Barrett to support the project. The application for this funding should be started before spending occurs, then students submit receipts for reimbursement at the end. Thesis funds do not allow for any advance payments. Please see more details here: https://students.barretthonors.asu.edu/funding/thesis-project-funding
Academic Preparation
Students should approach their courses with curiosity and brainstorm ideas about future research and thesis work. Electrical Engineering research includes six primary areas of specialization:
- Control systems
- Electric power and energy systems
- Electromagnetics, antennas, and microwaves
- Electronic and mixed-signal circuit design
- Physical electronics and photonics
- Signal processing and communications
Recommended Timeline
In their junior year, students should begin to solidify plans for the thesis and then complete the project in their final year. Many students use research from past semesters with Engineering faculty and Fulton Schools of Engineering Research programs such as Fulton Undergraduate Research Initiative (FURI) and the Grand Challenges Scholars Program (GCSP) for thesis work.
As of Fall 2025, several faculty expressed intereste in having Barrett students join their research groups. If you are interested in any of their research topics, please reach out to them with a subject line "Barrett Student Research Interest" with a brief (2-3 sentence) statement of why you are interested in their work along with attaching a resume. There is the possibility of arranging for a FURI application to receive funding for next semester.
1. Jeff Zhang ([email protected])
Digital Hardware Design. Efficient computer architectures for machine learning. High performance GPU programming and architectures. Machine learning for systems. AI for chip design. Prerequisite skills: Python, C++. 4 positions available.
2. Ying-Chen Chen ([email protected])
Semiconductor-based memory devices and emerging microelectronics for the high density storage and emerging computing. Characterizations and modeling on the emerging memory device and semiconductors. Prerequisite skills: Literature review, Matlab, data analysis, basic physics. 2-3 positions.
3. Jennifer Blain ([email protected])
Create a system that harvests energy from existing power lines. Prerequisite skills: Electromagnetics and wireless communication. 1 position.
4. Vidya Chhabria ([email protected])
Chip design even digital chip design is extremely manual and requires tremendous amount of expertise. The goal is this project is to LLMs as agents to perform push button chip design to lower barriers of entry. The project will involve the development of scripts that use OpenAI ChatGPT APIs to iterate with open source EDA tools and design chips. The success would be if the agent is able to generate multiple designs from an input specification. Prerequisite skills: Scripting in Python. Knowledge of Verilog. 1 position.
5. Meng Tao ([email protected])
We are developing a new solar system to charge electric vehicles through direct-current coupling. It involves the development of control electronics and algorithm. The job of undergraduate students will be part of the project, either on the hardware or algorithm side depending on student's skills and interest. Prerequisite skills: Students intending to major in power or control. 2 positions.
6. Nick Rolston ([email protected])
Design of semiconductor materials for next-generation photovoltaics, batteries, and ionic devices. Learn how to make thin-film materials and devices from solution using printing processes and characterize them with electronic and ionic conductivity measurements. Prerequisite skills: Interest in renewable energy and/or semiconductor materials and devices. 3 positions.
7. Yu Yao ([email protected])
Advanced microscopic imaging technology for biomedical applications. Our in-house built metasurface-based polarimetric imaging microscope has been used in Mayo Clinic for tissue study and cancer detection. We will continue with working on device/system improvement, characterization of tissue samples and imaging analysis, including advanced algorithm development and machine learning method. Prerequisite skills: Optical/imaging devices, microscope technology, imbedded system programing and hardware solutions, imaging analysis and AI. 3 positions.
8. Meng Wu ([email protected])
As lots of AI data centers, which are large electricity consumers, are interconnected into electric power systems, utilities start to see them causing many negative impacts on power system stability, reliability, economics. Students may 1) analyze open-source data on data center energy use, electricity demand, and wholesale prices to assess and address the impact of data centers on reliable power system operations; 2) run simulations to study how protective controls can mitigate frequency instability from large-scale data center outages; or 3) use simulations and historical data to evaluate how data centers affect electricity bills for consumers of various sizes. Prerequisite skills: Matlab, Python for data analysis, preferred experience in power system simulation software and power-area courses (471, 470, 360) and preferred experience in ASU Research Computing services. 3 positions.
9. Visar Berisha ([email protected])
This project focuses on using AI to analyze the speech and language of individuals for detecting early signs of neurological impairment. We have already developed computational models for assessing cognition, and now aim to integrate them into an interactive system. In this project, you will design and build a proof-of-concept AI agent that can: (1) initiate a call with a participant, (2) engage in a structured conversation, and (3) analyze the speech to extract cognitive-linguistic outcomes. Through this work, you will gain experience in conversational AI design, speech processing, and applied health technologies. Prerequisite skills: Computer programming (Python, JS) and interest in improving the human condition. 2 positions.
10. Visar Berisha ([email protected])
This project focuses on mitigating risks from speech-based deepfakes, which make it increasingly difficult to distinguish what is real from what is fabricated online. In this project, you will gain hands-on experience with state-of-the-art deepfake detection tools and evaluate their performance to understand their inherent limitations. Building on this analysis, you will also explore alternative solutions, including methods for verifying the human origin of speech. A special focus will be placed on security in AI agents: ensuring that only humans, not synthetic voices, can prompt or interact with these systems. Prerequisite skills: Computer programming (Python in particular). 2 positions.
11. Lina Karam ([email protected])
Various projects related to media processing, AI/Machine Learning and applications, image and video processing, computer vision, UI/UX design, backend and frontend, R&D projects based on the students' interests and skills. Note: mentoring, collaboration and advising but no funding will be provided. Prerequisite skills: Software development, math, written and oral communication. 6 positions.
12. Chao Wang ([email protected])
Build a tiny machine learning model to detect snoring sound using techniques such as Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT), and/or Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Deploy the model to a microcontroller to detect if someone is snoring in his/her sleep in real time. Collect training data, build/tune the TinyML model, deploy and test the accuracy of the model on a microcontroller. Prerequisite skills: Proficient in Python and C/C++ programming language. Basic knowledge of machine learning and DSP techniques and algorithms, and ideally have taken EEE404 Real-Time DSP Systems. 1 position.
Other Honors Opportunities
ECEE offers honors students enrolled in the Electrical Engineering (EE) Undergraduate Program several opportunities to help them to fulfill requirements for graduation from Barrett, the Honors College (BHC). Opportunities include:
- Turning EE program courses into honors courses through Honors Enrichment Contracts. Most honors contracts involve either a project that extends the ideas and techniques covered in the course or outside research on topics relevant to the course work. The instructions for how to submit an honors contract can be found here: https://students.barretthonors.asu.edu/academics/honors-enrichment-contracts
- Performing research towards an independent thesis or a thesis based on the senior design capstone project.
College
Ira A. Fulton Schools of EngineeringCampus
Tempe, Online