The Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has introduced three new fellowships and awards for graduate students, including the INSPIRE Fellowship for interdisciplinary research, the STEER Fellowship for teaching excellence, and the CREATION Award for enhancing graduate-level courses.
The initiatives aim to support the professional development and diverse career aspirations of exceptional graduate students while fostering innovation and collaboration within the ECE community.
“We are committed to exploring innovative ways to enhance the professional development of our doctoral students,” said Matthieu Bloch, associate chair for graduate affairs and professor. “These new opportunities reflect the diverse career aspirations of our students, ranging from technical leadership to entrepreneurship and education.”
Inaugural recipients for the fellowships and awards have recently been announced.
INSPIRE Fellowship
The INSPIRE (INterdiSciPlInary REsearch) Fellowship is a highly competitive one-year fellowship granted to teams of two graduate students with an interest in academia. The selected fellows engage in interdisciplinary research under the guidance of two faculty mentors.
The objective of the fellowship is to offer the students freedom to explore high-risk/high-reward interdisciplinary research without ties to specific sponsored research, strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations within ECE, and contribute to the students’ professional preparation, especially as it relates to planning and leading research.
The 2023 INSPIRE fellowship projects include work on highly efficient portable ultrasound systems by students Xitie Zhang and Wantong Li, and research on power optimization in cryptography and privacy preservation techniques by students Daniel Turizo Arteaga and Yongyu Xie.
“I believe research and education are deeply intertwined, each informing and enriching the other,” said Li. “The INSPIRE Fellowship has already played a pivotal role in my academic journey, bolstering my resolve and resources to push the boundaries of knowledge.”
Zhang and Li are mentored by Shaolan Li and Shimeng Yu, while Arteaga and Xie are mentored by Saman Zonouz and Daniel Molzahn.
Hear from INSPIRE Fellows
I am deeply honored to receive the prestigious INSPIRE Fellowship. As my fellow recipient, Xitie Zhang, and I tread the path to create highly efficient portable ultrasound systems, we are at the same time sparking innovations with far-reaching implications for global healthcare. Our research aims at overcoming these obstacles, to transform the accessibility and utility of ultrasound technology.
This Fellowship serves as a beacon to illuminate our shared commitment to enlightening minds, improving lives, and inspiring the next generation of researchers. WE thank the School of ECE for believing in our vision.
Wantong Li - INSPIRE Fellowship Recipient
I am very fortunate to be a recipient of the INSPIRE Fellowship. The Fellowship has given me the opportunity to engage in new avenues of knowledge through interdisciplinary research. While I mainly conduct research in power system optimization, thanks to the INSPIRE Fellowship, I have gained new experience in cryptography and privacy preservation techniques. These fields have important implications for electricity markets, which are increasingly being defined by end users.
I am sincerely grateful to Georgia Tech for the privilege to broaden my knowledge and enrich my graduate school experience through this fellowship.
Daniel Turizo Arteaga - INSPIRE Fellowship Recipient
It's a great honor for me to receive the INSPIRE Fellowship which supports my current research focusing on the combination of Optimal Power Flow (OPF) in power system and Multiparty Computation (MPC) in cryptography. Our team is trying to apply secure MPC in OPF problem which aims to ensure the security of the power system. I'm glad that our research idea and proposal are recognized by the fellowship committee and super excited to start working on the project.
I would like to thank School of ECE for providing us the research opportunity in this attractive area and our advisors, Prof. Saman Zonouz and Prof. Daniel Molzahn, for guiding us through the research.
Yongyu Xie - INSPIRE Fellowship Recipient
The STEER Fellowship
The STEER (Supporting Teaching ExpERience) Fellowships, offer a unique opportunity for Ph.D. students to nurture their teaching skills while enhancing their career prospects in academia.
Graduate students interested in teaching often must make their own time to gain instructor experiences. The STEER Fellowship offers a pathway integrating teaching certification with ECE instruction, allowing more graduate students to broaden their training and highlight their efforts.
Selected fellows begin the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Tech to Teaching Program during the summer, prepare for teaching in the fall, and teach ECE 2020 IE or ECE 3710 in the spring.
The first STEER cohort includes Daniel Canales, Jeungyoon Lee, and Yen-Pang Lai.
“The STEER Awards look to increase the interest, awareness, and level of pedagogy in our future faculty, while also forming a collaborative cohort of students teaching introductory electrical and computer engineering courses,” said Lakshmi, director of ECE student engagement and well-being.
The CREATION Award
The CREATION (CouRse EnhAncemenTs & ImprOvemeNt) Award recognizes graduate students who have been nominated by faculty to enhance a graduate-level course.
CREATION Awards are utilized by recipients to support a course of one semester through the development of materials, labs, videos, and other educational resources that contribute to the continuous improvement of the curriculum and provide a valuable learning experience for their peers.
The winners for Spring 2023 were:
- Abdulmannan Ajabnoor for ECE 6331
- Ahmad Abuaish for ECE 6554
- Hanqiu Chen for ECE 8893
- Anjan Goswami for ECE 6510
- Seung Yoon Lee for ECE 6360
- Ahmad Mustafa for ECE 8803
- Shuvo Newaz for ECE 6271
For more information about these Fellowships and Awards contact the ECE Graduate Affairs Office.