ECE Students Win "Meeting of the Minds" Awards

 Projects Featured at Undergraduate Research Symposium

May 9, 2007

More than 400 Carnegie Mellon students exhibited their projects at this spring's 12th annual "Meeting of the Minds" undergraduate research symposium, including more than 70 students from the ECE Department.

"The Meeting of the Minds celebrates the true essence of Carnegie Mellon because nothing is more central or more important to the university's mission than encouraging student research," said Stephanie Wallach, director of the Undergraduate Research Office (URO) and Fellowships Resource Advising Center. The symposium is organized by the URO.

Several ECE students won awards at the event's competitions, which were sponsored by corporations, departments, honor societies, and individuals. Read on for the ECE winners.

Seventh Annual Lockheed Martin ECE Undergraduate Project Award

Organized by Carnegie Mellon's chapter of Eta Kappa Nu, the ECE National Honor Society, this competition encourages undergraduates in ECE to present their projects and motivates them to learn from others' work.

• First Place:
  • "A Trajectory Physics Based Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging Fiber Tracking Model" by William Jenkinson
    Advisor: José Moura
• Second Place:
  • "Full Custom On-Chip Huffman Compressor" by Eric Lai, Wei Jie Lee, Howd-Zur Hung, and Yu-Chiang Lee
    Advisor: Andrzej Strojwas
• Third Place:
  • "Sprinkler Buddy" by Kartik Murthy and Panchalam Ramanujan
    Advisor: Andrzej Strojwas
• Judge's Choice:
  • "Control of a Robot Colony" by the Robotics Club
  • From ECE: Felix Duvallet, Kevin Woo, James Kong, Aaron Johnson, Austin Buchan, Justin Scheiner, Aneeb Qureshi, and Christopher Mar
  • From CS: Eugene Marinelli, Suresh Nidhiry, Brian Coltin, and Siyuan Feng
  • From MechE: Ben Berkowitz
  • Undecided Major: Duncan Alexander
    Advisor: George Kantor (Robotics Institute)
• Judge's Choice:
  • "Design of a Studio Microphone Budget" by Eric Boulanger
    Advisor: Tom Sullivan

Sixth Annual Bose Competition

This competition is open to all students with research projects related to audio: technology, signal processing, or education. Returning again as one of the judges was an ECE alumnus: David Breece, III, (B.S. 2002) is an electrical engineer in Home Entertainment Advanced Development at Bose Corporation.

• First place:
  • "Design of a Studio Microphone Budget" by Eric Boulanger
    Advisor: Tom Sullivan

CIT Honors Poster Competition

All students conducting research through the Carnegie Institute of Technology (CIT) Honors Program participate in this competition. The following ECE faculty were among the judges: James Hoe, Jelena Kovacevic, Radu Marculescu, and Tom Sullivan.

• Second place:
  • "A Trajectory Physics Based Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging Fiber Tracking Model" by William Jenkinson
    Advisor: José Moura

Sigma Xi Poster Competition

This independently sponsored competition is open to students presenting posters in the quantitative sciences. A generous grant for the Sigma Xi Competition was provided by the Mellon College of Science. Sigma Xi is a national honor society for those in scientific research.

• Third place:

  • "Sprinkler Buddy" by Kartik Murthy and Panchalam Ramanujan
    Advisor: Andrzej Strojwas

• Runner-up:

  • "Design of a Studio Microphone Budget" by Eric Boulanger
    Advisor: Tom Sullivan

Statistics Department Competition

The purpose of this competition is to encourage undergraduate projects and research in statistics and its applications, to inform faculty and students about these projects, and to encourage cross-departmental interaction.

• First Place:
  • "The Relationship Between Multiple Choice Main Questions and Scaffolding Questions in the Assistments System" by Nora Albert (Statistics) and Daniel Burrows (ECE)
    Advisor: Brian Junker (Statistics)

STUDIO for Creative Inquiry Award

This competition awards a creative project that exemplifies or explores the zone between art and science and impacts the local or global community. The recipients were selected by research fellows and staff of the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.

• "RobOrchestra II"
  • From ECE: Kevin Woo, Justin Scheiner, Aneeb Qureshi, and Amy Donovan
  • From CEE: Jeffrey Miller
  • From CS: Erica Sandbothe, Barkin Aygun, Luis Daniel Ballesteros, and Laura Abbott
  • From MechE: Richard Pantaleo
    Advisor: Roger Dannenberg (CS and Art)

View the photo gallery.

ECE students (from left to right) Joomay Tan, Brett Meyer, and Ken Yu Lim present their research with ECE Professor Don Thomas (second from right).