Welcome to the digital newsletter from the University of Florida Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE). Each semester, you will receive an email highlighting department updates and successes. We look forward to connecting with you.
Message from the Chair
We’re excited to share some ECE news and insights from the Fall 2025 semester. >>>
Mark Tehranipoor, Ph.D.
Sachio Semmoto Chair of ECE Department
EEE Fellow | ACM Fellow | NAI Fellow
Intel Charles E. Young Endowed Chair Professor
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UF Engineering teams take top honors at Mission Autonomy Hackathon
Two University of Florida teams earned top honors and a combined $35,000 in awards at the Mission Autonomy Hackathon, a national competition hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Vanderbilt University in Nashville. >>>
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Harley joins forces with 3 other universities to accelerate innovation in AI-augmented health systems
Healthcare systems see significant promise in AI for improving care delivery and controlling costs, yet face significant barriers to safe and effective implementation, including concerns about AI accuracy, patient safety, and integration with health system workflows. Joel Harley, Ph.D., is working to overcome some of these barriers. Harley is set to co-direct the Accessible Healthcare through… >>>
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UF student hackers enter ‘Plato’s Cave’ for first-place win
A student team from the Florida Institute of National Security (FINS) took top honors late last month at Gator Hack, the University of Florida’s 2025 AI Days hackathon. >>>
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Turning up the light: harnessing the potential of silicon carbide in optomechanical devices
Described in a new study published in Photonics Research and selected for inclusion in Spotlight on Optics, researchers at the University of Florida and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have built a chip-sized device that uses forces exerted by photons to “strum” a single-crystal 4H silicon carbide (SiC) microdisk, inducing it to vibrate at frequencies that… >>>
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Ruchkin & Príncipe get visual
Ivan Ruchkin, PhD, and José Príncipe, PhD, are collaborating on an NSF-funded project aiming to create an end-to-end methodology to model, analyze, quantify, detect, and adapt to changes in the visual environment of an autonomous cyber-physical system. >>>
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New Power Electronics Lab Honors ECE Alumnus, Powers Teaching & Research
Monolithic Power Systems, manufacturer of small, highly energy efficient, easy-to-use industrial power management solutions, formally dedicated a named lab space in Benton Hall on Thursday, Oct. 2. The newly renovated lab space is designed to strengthen the department’s research and teaching capabilities in the area of power electronics, while enhancing opportunities for collaboration. >>>
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Kim and Anderson Secure DARPA Grant to Transform Chip Manufacturing Using Atom-to-Wafer Framework
Dennis S. Kim, Ph.D., alongside co-PI Travis Anderson, Ph.D., from UF Chemical Engineering, have received a DARPA CRYSTAL grant to replace costly trial-and-error methods in wafer bonding with predictive modeling. The project tackles a critical manufacturing challenge: even advanced platforms like lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) lack reliable models to predict optimal bonding conditions, limiting… >>>
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New light-based chip boosts power efficiency of AI tasks 100 fold
A team of engineers has developed a new kind of computer chip that uses light instead of electricity to perform one of the most power-intensive parts of artificial intelligence — image recognition and similar pattern-finding tasks. Using light dramatically cuts the power needed to perform these tasks, with efficiency 10 or even 100 times that… >>>
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Gator Africa Promises to Bring Collaboration, Exchange with Sub-Saharan Universities
A new initiative, led by Sachio Semmoto Chair of ECE Mark Tehranipoor and ECE Associate Chair for Academics Christophe Bobda, promises to connect University of Florida (UF) students and faculty with faculty and students from ECE departments and engineering colleges across Sub-Saharan Africa. >>>
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A UF Rising Star, Silva Wins More Teaching Awards
An instructional assistant professor with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), Silva received the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering Undergraduate Teacher of the Year Award earlier this year. >>>