Graduation with Departmental Distinction

Students conduct supervised research and present their results to faculty

students in commencement regalia toss caps outside Duke Chapel

Students who aspire to Graduate with Departmental Distinction within the Duke Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering conduct supervised research through independent study courses and present the results of individual research and study in written and oral forms to the department’s faculty.

Those candidates who are judged by the faculty to have distinguished themselves through their paper and presentation earn Graduation with Departmental Distinction honors.

This accomplishment is recognized when the BSE degree is awarded. If that time is different from the principal Spring commencement exercises, the student work remains in contention for the Sherrerd Memorial Undergraduate Research Award for that academic year.

Requirements

To be considered for Graduation with Departmental Distinction a student must:

  • Have a 3.5 cumulative GPA
  • Successfully complete in his or her senior year a faculty-supervised Independent Study Project with significant Electrical and Computer Engineering accomplishment
  • Demonstrate the significance of this project in a formal written report and defended in an oral presentation before a committee of faculty members

Submitting the Report

Candidates must submit a 10-20 page written report (single-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, single column) including figures and references.

The entire report must be submitted electronically to the Director of Undergraduate Studies Assistant, Ms. Jaleesa Singleton, at jaleesa.singleton@duke.edu, typically ten days before the oral presentation begins.

The project report essentially constitutes a senior thesis.

Example Projects

    • Invertible Neural Networks for Inverse Kinematics, Jeremy Morgan, with Dr. Mary Cummings
    • BISTLock: Efficient IP Piracy Protection Using BIST, Siyuan Chen, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty
    • Unsupervised Sleep State Detection in Mice Using a Physiologically-Based Clustering Algorithm, Kat Hefter, with Dr. Carlson
    • Variation-Aware Delay Fault Testing, August Ning, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty
    • Detecting and Classifying Short-finned Pilot Whale Acoustics with Deep Learning, Virginia Pan, with Dr. Doug Nowacek
    • Foosball Coding: Improving Error Tolerance in 3D Racetrack Memory, Samantha Archer, with Dr. Daniel Sorin
    • Efficient Algorithms for Design Automation of Flow-Based Microfluidic Biochips, Aditya Sridhar, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty
    • Modeling Human-Autonomy Interaction of Drone Pilots in Disaster Environments, Ben Welton, with Dr. Mary Cummings
    • An Electric Vehicle with Novel Powertrain, Gerry Chen, with Dr. Angel Peterchev
    • Development of an Automated Trading Platform, Madeline Briere, with Dr. John Board
    • Attenuating Cochlear Implant Artifact in EEG Readings, Madhavi Rajiv, with Dr. Leslie Collins
    • Analysis of Passivation Techniques for Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors Aimed at Biosensing Applications, Nathaniel Brooke, with Dr. Aaron Franklin

Undergraduate Contacts

Rabih Younes Profile Photo
Rabih Younes Profile Photo

Rabih Younes

Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies, Assistant Professor of the Practice in the Department of ECE