Students conduct supervised research and present their results to faculty
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
Click for details
- 2019-2020
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- 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
- 2018-2019
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Efficient Algorithms for Design Automation of Flow-Based Microfluidic Biochips, Aditya Sridhar, with Dr. Krishnendu Chakrabarty
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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
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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
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Analysis of Passivation Techniques for Carbon Nanotube Thin-Film Transistors Aimed at Biosensing Applications, Nathaniel Brooke, with Dr. Aaron Franklin
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- 2016-2017
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- Incorporating Side-Channel Information into Convolutional Neural Networks for Robotic Tasks, Yilun Zhou, with Dr. Kris Hauser
- 2015-2016
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- Controlling and Comparing Directivity Patterns of Omnidirectional Loudspeakers, Spencer Bruno, with Drs. Donald Bliss and Linda Franzoni
- Autism and Beyond: A Machine Learning Approach to Measuring Autism Risk Behaviors in Young Children, Yitaek Hwang, with Dr. Guillermo Sapiro
- High Voltage MEMS Controllers for Use in a Quantum Computing System, Dennis Lynch, with Dr. Jungsang Kim
- DNS Analysis: Detecting Network Trends and Anomalies, Christopher Streiffer, with Dr. Theophilus Benson
- YarnApplicationStatistics: Collecting, Aggregating, and Visualizing Big Data Metrics, Rahul Swaminathan, with Dr. Benjamin Lee
- 2014-2015
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- Making Music with Motion, Brian Bolze, with Drs. Martin Brooke, George Konidaris, and John Supko
- Visual Search Using Event-Related Potentials in a Brain-Computer Interface, Gregory Canal, with Dr. Leslie Collins
- An Autonomously Powered Bicycle Dashboard with Gear Suggestion Capabilities, Minhazul Islam, with Dr. John Board
- Resource Elasticity Fairness in Scale, Paul Kim, with Dr. Benjamin Lee
- Human Machine Interfaces for Audio Control, Thomas Klebanoff, with Drs. Martin Brooke and Thomas DeFrantz
- P300 Brain-Computer Interface Speller Augmentation with Eye Tracking, Kevin Liang, with Dr. Leslie Collins
- Materials and Optical Characterization of Organic Solar Cells Deposited Using Resonant-Infrared Matrix Assisted Pulsed Laser Evaporation, Gift Nyikayaramba, with Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts
- An Autonomously Powered Bicycle Dashboard with Gear Suggestion Capabilities, Anshuman Prasad, with Dr. John Board
- Reduced Precision Checking to Detect Errors in Floating Point Arithmetic, Yaqi Zhang, with Dr. Daniel Sorin
- 2013-2014
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- Writing Cosets of a Convolutional Code to Increase the Lifetime of Flash Memory Amay Jhaveri, with Dr. Daniel Sorin
- Using Photoinduced Electron Transfer to Dynamically Control RET Networks Nathan Li, with Dr. Chris Dwyer
- Virtual Tag: Enabling Indoor Augmented Reality with Marker-Facilitated Localization Anirudh C. Mohan, with Drs. Romit Roy Choudhury and John Board
- Searching for Causes of Poor Classification Performance in a Brain-Computer Interface Speller Michael Motro, with Dr. Leslie Collins
- Network Condition Check Pariya Sithikong, with Dr. John Board
- Mobile Stereo Vision System for Accurate Target Triangulation Alex Z. Zhu, with Dr. Michael Zavlanos
- 2012-2013
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- Radar Signal Processing for Stand-off Life Sign Monitoring Ash-girl Chapfuwa, with Dr. Jeffrey Krolik.
- DirectMe: A Mobile Phone Algorithm for Direction Detection Alex T. Mariakakis, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
- Resonance Energy Transfer Based Physical Unclonable Function Likun (Sam) Xi, with Dr. Chris Dwyer.
- 2011-2012
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- Characterizing the Electro-Optic Properties of a Microfabricated Mass Spectrometer Carlo Giustini, with Dr. Jeffrey Glass.
- Designing Scalable Heterogeneous Memory for High-Performance Computing Tae Jun Ham, with Dr. Benjamin C. Lee.
- C# Implementation of SLAM Using the Microsoft Kinect Richard Marron, with Dr. Jason Janet.
- Novel Electrodes for Deep Brain Implantation Jennifer Molnar, with Drs. Dale Bass & John Board.
- Designing a Physically Realizable Electromagnetic Cloak Heidi Slater, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Monte Carlo Simulation of Charge Transport in Organic Solar Cells Xin Xu, with Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts.
- 2010-2011
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- In-Vehicle Driver Detection Using Mobile Phone Sensors Hon Lung Chu, with Dr. Roy Choudhury.
- Social Network Analysis: Online Anomaly Detection and Graphical Model Selection Corinne Horn, with Dr. Rebecca Willett.
- Application of Transformation Optics and Metamaterials: Enhancing Utilization of Optical Device Gyushik Jang, with Dr. David Smith.
- An Autonomous 'Pinger Tester' to Verify the Operation of Bycatch-Reducing Acoustic Pingers for Marine Mannal-Fishery Interactions Sabrina G. Liao, with Drs. Douglas Nowacek and Matthew Reynolds.
- Argus-G: A Low-Cost Error Detection Scheme for GPGPUs Ralph Nathan, with Dr. Daniel Sorin.
- Microphone Array Feedback Suppression for Indoor Room Acoustics Tanmay Prakash, with Dr. Jeffrey Krolik.
- Development of a 638.6nm External Cavity Diode Laser for Scalable Ion-Trap Quantum Computing Eunsu Ryu, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
- Conjugated Polymer Superlattices for Enhanced Charge Transport in Organic Solar Cells Karthik Iyengar Seetharam, with Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts.
- In-Vehicle Driver Detection Using Mobile Phone Sensors Jeffrey Shih-kai Shen, with Dr. Choudhury.
- Adaptive Solar Home Systems Eric Thorne, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.
- 2009-2010
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- Phonepoint Pen: Using Mobile Phones to Write in Air Sandip Agrawal, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
- Statistical Methods for Gene Expression Analysis David Carlson, with Dr. Larry Carin.
- MEMS Application in Quantum Computing Mike Feng, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
- Lightning Electromagnetics William Gamerota, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Outlet-Level Power Monitoring and Point-of-Use Feedback to Reduce Power Consumption Benjamin Hamner, with Dr. John Board.
- Study of Chromophore Pair Interaction Using DNA Dong Jin Shin, with Dr. Chris Dwyer.
- Wireless Power Transmission in the SmartHome Yinquan Teo, with Dr. Matt Reynolds.
- 2008-2009
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- The Use of a Discrete Transistor Amplifier to Produce Active Metamaterials Douglas Bycoff, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Active Microwave Imaging System for Breast Cancer Screening: RF MEMS Switching Matrix System Design Tawanda Chaunzwa, with Dr. Gary Ybarra.
- An Electrically Engineered Metamaterial Absorber Mark Gu, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Enabling Realtime Location Privacy with Predictive Anonymization Joseph Meyerowitz, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
- Microphone Array Beamforming with Near-Field Correlated Sources Jonathan Odom, with Dr. Jeff Krolik.
- Designs and Simulations in Transformation Optics Daniel Roberts, with Dr. David Smith.
- Current-Injection Two-Dimensional Photonic Crystal Slab Microcavity Pantana Tor-ngern, with Dr. Tomo Yoshie.
- 2007-2008
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- Proving the Correctness of Error Detection Mechanisms in Simple Core Multiprocessors Michael Bauer, with Dr. Daniel Sorin.
- A Performance Simulato of Quantitative Analysis of the Implications of Fault Tolerance in Distributed Quantum Computer Architectures Jeffrey Hussmann, with Dr. Jungsang Kim.
- Surface Relief Optical Gratings Integrated with Waveguide Bio/Chemical Sensors Melissa Levy, with Dr. Nan Jokerst.
- Development of a Compact and Multifunctional Sensor Array Serge Reshetnikov, with Drs. Jeffrey Glass and Scott Wolter.
- Simulating Mobililty Data Precision Requirements for Human Behavior Inferemce David Wagner, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
- 2006-2007
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- Mingle: A Percolative Routing Framework for Mobile Delay Tolerant Networks Deepak Bastakoty, with Dr. Romit Roy Choudhury.
- Computation on Self-Organized Networks Curtis Harting, with Drs. Chris Dwyer & Alvin Lebeck.
- DNA Self-Assembly of Nanoelectronic Devices - The Nanodynamics Simulator Ben Macadangdang, with Dr. Chris Dwyer.
- AC Electrowetting Actuation of Droplets on a Digital Microfluidic Platform Isaac Nagiel, with Dr. Richard Fair
- 2005-2006
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- Ordered Chaos: Imposing Logical Structure in Nanotechnology Substrates Derek Hower, with Drs. Daniel Sorin & Chris Dwyer.
- Design Automation and Test Techniques for Microfluidic Biochips William Hwang, with Drs. Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Richard Fair, & Fei Su.
- Improved Breast Cancer Diagnosis through Decision Fusion Anna Rack-Gomer, with Dr. Loren Nolte.
- Quantification of semiconductor crystal surface features at the submicron level Katie Ness, with Dr. Rebecca Willett.
- Microwave Imaging: Research in Alternative Medical Imaging Modalities Vinh Nguyen, with Drs. Gary Ybarra, Qing Liu, William Joines, & Rhett George.
- Clustering Spikes in Multi-unit Neural Signals into Dominant and Remainder Classes David Rodriguez, with Dr. Patrick Wolf.
- 2004-2005
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- Cochlear Implants: Spectral Cues and Pitch Reversals on Music Perception Patrick Crosby, with Dr. Leslie Collins.
- Furthering Development of a Digital Microfluidic Platform Andrew Dreher, with Dr. Richard Fair.
- Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis of Process Variations in Deep Sub-Micron Devices Jacob Flomenberg, with Dr. Sule Ozev.
- Data Analysis for Lightning Electromagnetics Thai Wing Darwin Goei, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Modeling 3-Gene Regulation Networks Trina Kok, with Dr. Paul Wang.
- Characterization and Testing of CMOS Subcircuits in a Mixed Signal IC Jessica Smith, with Drs. Jeff Derby & James Morizio.
- Matching and Locating of Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Discharges Charles Wang, with Dr. Steven Cummer.
- Application of Magnetic Microspheres to Pyrosequencing on a Digital Microfluidic Platform Nicole Weaver, with Dr. Richard Fair.
- Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis of Process Variations: The First Step towards Robust Deep Sub-Micron Devices Devaka Yasaratne, with Dr. Sule Ozev.