Attendees: I. T. Abraham, U. Bhowmik, V. Chandrasekaran, Z. ChengZ. Cheng, P. Dragic, E. Gunter (CS representative), S. Gupta, B. Hu, Y-C Hu, J. Huang, R. Iyer, E. Kudeki, O. Mironenko, U. Ravaioli, C. Schmitz, C. Shultz, CE. Snyder, A. Umrawal, Y-L Wei, C. Yu.
The committee discussed the course ECE 498 JD “Semiconductor Innovations: Leap Ahead Technologies” submitted by John Dallesasse ECE 398 YZ “Bioinspired Photonics“ submitted by Yang Zhao for first time offering in Spring 2025. This course is intended to be an introduction to integrated photonics, as a bridge between the introductory semiconductor offerings and the existing ECE 536, which is more advanced and only opened to graduate students. The course was approved by unanimous consent. There was also a discussion on the offerings in the photonics devices area. This course is in many ways complementary to ECE 443 “LEDs and Solar Cells” taught bay Can Bayram, also Spring semester course. Erhan Kudeki observed that enrollment may not be very high and it could be useful to alternate the two courses in different semester for better synergy. The chair indicated that he will discuss with the two instructor to explore possible options. One hope is that as the interest in the semiconductor minor grows, enrollment from students in ECE and in other department may increase in the near future.ECE 398 MA “Introduction to Modern Communication with Python and SDR“ submitted by Thomas Moon and Juan Alvarez Generally, the idea of the course was well received, but there were questions the technical content of the course which prompted a robust discussion. Since there are no stated prerequisites, several committee members expressed the need to understand how in-depth the topics would be covered. Many of the listed topics would probably require some level of sophistication in order to treat the theoretical background. Would this course be suitable at all as a technical elective? Should it be rather at the 298-level? Jian Huang asked whether the material will cover in some detail aspects of semiconductor photonics and the impression was that semiconductor examples are not specifically included and that biological and electromagnetic aspects are the main focus. The chair will communicate with Yang Zhao to clarify these aspects of the submission and report back to the committee.
The second course reviewed was ECE 498 BH “Large Language Model Reasoning for Engineering” submitted by Bin Hu for first time offering in Spring 2025, was discussed next. There was general agreement that it is a good time to refresh the portfolio of courses in the communications area and that is opportune to have a new course to introduce this topic earlier in the curriculum. In particular, Chris Schmitz provided his assessment of the proposed course, as expert in the field. It is likely that this would open up the opportunity to restructure high level communications courses, in particular ECE 459. There was also a brief discussion on the possibility to create direct synergy with existing laboratory courses. One further comment was that it would be nice to have a more detailed syllabus with more definition of topics covered in individual lectures. It will be expected to have this in a future request and the chair will relay the feedback to the instructors. The course was approved for offering in Spring 2025 with unanimous content.
The last course discussed was ECE 398 GG “Electric Vehicles (EVs)” submitted by Olga Mironenko for third time offering in Spring 2025. This course was approved for Spring 2024 but if was cancelled because the instructor had to take on other assignments. Therefore, it was agreed that the earlier approval could simply be deferred to Spring 2025 since there were already robust discussions at prior meetings. The chair indicated that preparation of a proposal for permanent number is in progress, as required in the case of a third time offering. It is expected that it will be ready in a couple of weeks.
In the last few minutes remaining, there was a discussion on the request to consider CEE 409 “Railroad Track Engineering” as an approved non-ECE Technical Elective. There are several courses in the railroad engineering sequence and there was some discussion on whether it would be better in alternative to classify these as free electives or to simply grant a curriculum modification on an individual basis, as suggested by Erhan Kudeki. Chris Schmitz thought that the course is solid and has sufficiently deep technical content. The chair was of the opinion that CEE 409 is the most suitable in the rail road engineering sequence to have in the official list of tech elective since is more foundational. It is not expected demand will be high but from time to time it would encourage students with focused interest in transportation to pursue this topic. In the end the course was approved for inclusion in the tech elective list, with unanimous consent. Bin Hu was present to introduce the course and aswer questions. The discussion was very positive about the content an timeliness of this course, given that Large Language Model (LLM) is a rapidly emerging approach. There were several suggestions regarding the proposal. The title could be shortened by replacing “Large Language Model” with “LLM” which is perhaps more readily recognizable by students. The course description is long and very detailed. Eran Kudeki suggested to develop a brief course description following the campus requirement of 75 maximum words for new permanent course submission, which would be handy when the course evolces to that point, and stll keep the present course description as explanatory material in class documents. The were also a few suggestion on shortening the prerequisites section by replacing “the students are also recommended to have some background in one of the engineering domains (such as electrical, computer, mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical, material,etc) and Python programming“ with “Junior standing in an engineering major“. Python programming is already implicit in requiring Math 257 which is based on computations with Python. The course was approved by the committee with unanimous consent.
UPDATE
After discussion, Yang Zhao resubmitted her course as ECE 298 “Bioinspired Optics and Photonics” and was in agreement with the assessment of the committee that the course would be suitable as a free electric. The revised material was shared electronically and the course was approved via email polling.