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A Quarterly Newsletter for the Friends and Alumni of the UC San Diego Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

September 2, 2026

Continuing the theme of ECE’s 60th anniversary, here’s an irreverent examination of ECE’s historical names.

We started in 1965 as Applied Electrophysics, an innocent-sounding name which hid major tensions and compromises.  On the one hand, UC San Diego was founded in 1960 with an eye towards pure-science prestige, hence physics.  On the other, California industry wanted engineers.  But engineering schools were costly, which might spook the legislature, and the two pre-existing UC engineering schools weren’t keen on competition.  Hence: avoid Engineering but use Applied and prefix Electro, a wink and nod that industry would understand. 

For the first time, two teleoperated humanoid robots have been used to complete two surgeries during a preclinical trial, researchers report in the July 8 issue of the journal Nature. The work is the result of a collaboration between a team of engineers and a team of surgeons at the University of California San Diego. Learn More.

A new telescope technology — measuring just six millimeters in diameter — could improve how future space missions study and monitor the Sun while simplifying onboard hardware and reducing costs. The technology is built from a metasurface, which is a device engineered with nanoscale structures that manipulate light in unusual ways. In tests at the Dunn Solar Telescope in New Mexico, the metasurface captured scientifically meaningful data of the Sun's magnetic fields and sunspots. Learn more.

Researchers in obstetrics and engineering at UC San Diego were awarded up to $10.4 million from ARPA-H to enable more accurate identification of fetuses who are at risk of low oxygen during labor, as part of a larger effort to make birth safer in the U.S. Learn More.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded University of California San Diego researchers a six-year $18M grant to fund a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) focused on making new kinds of quantum materials. Learn More.

The UC San Diego ECE Alumni Advisory Board and ECE Department are AMPED to invite our alumni to participate in the Alumni Mentorship Program (ECE AMP). In this 5-month long program from January to June, you get paired up with eager ECE undergraduate and graduate students who are looking for guidance on their personal. academic, and professional goals. 

Think about a time when you received guidance from others--whether it was how to build a great resume, achieve a healthy work-life balance, communicate effectively, or ace an interview--and how much of an impact it had on you. The benefits of being a mentor include:

> Expanding your network.

> Staying involved with the ECE community.

> Personal growth and a sense of fulfillment.

> Improving your communication and leadership skills.

The expected minimum time commitment is about 1-2 hours per month, and both in-person and virtual participation options are available. If you're interested in participating, please sign up here before 12/11/2026. If you have questions, email ece-amp@ucsd.edu.  Please help mentor the next generation of engineers and help our ECE community continue to thrive and grow!

Help us recognize UC San Diego ECE alumni who are making a meaningful impact in industry, academia, society, or their communities. 

Nominate yourself or a deserving alumnus for the 2027 ECE Distinguished Alumni Award by Monday, November 2, 2026. 

 Submit a nomination here

You can read about our past award recipients here.  Awards will be presented at the 2027 ECE Day Celebration in April.  Stay tuned for event details and RSVP information for the 2027 ECE Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner in an upcoming newsletter.

Chelsea Largoza has been the Special Events and Outreach Coordinator for ECE since October 2019, after previously working at the Department of Music and Thurgood Marshall College. Bringing her trademark creativity and energy, she coordinates department events of all sizes, from our quarterly Coffee & Cookies, to annual holiday parties and awards ceremonies, Triton Days, to our recent ECE 60th Anniversary Celebration, and more. "It has been incredible to learn about the field of Electrical and Computer Engineering through the groundbreaking work done by our students and faculty. In particular, I was very impacted by the 2019 Design Competition, which focused on patients and caregivers of Parkinson's Disease. My late uncle had PD, and he and my entire family attended the final showcase event. Every day I see more and more how ECE truly is in everything!"  Chelsea has also just finished her term as co-chair of the campus-wide Pacific Islander and Asian American Staff Association (PASA) and the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Celebration (APIAHC). 

Chelsea was recently featured in an issue of UC San Diego Today; learn more about her here, and please say hello to Chelsea at the next ECE event!

This Summer, twenty talented high school students in UC San Diego's COSMOS Photonics Cluster, PhotonQuest: From Everyday Devices to Quantum Frontiers, spent four weeks exploring light-enabled technologies. Students combined classroom learning with hands-on lab experiments and collaborative projects covering light polarization, interference, imaging, lasers, optical communication and biophotonics. Through hands-on activities and custom interactive simulations, the program also introduced students to quantum optics, where they explored quantum key distribution, the quantum eraser and interaction-free measurement. The program was led by Prof. Saharnaz Baghdadchi, with Prof. Zhaowei Liu and Dr. Peter IIinykh as co-instructors. 

The COSMOS quantum optics workshop was presented at the SPIE Optics + Photonics 2026 conference; learn more here.

ECE Assistant Prof. Rahul Parhi was awarded the 2026 Vasil A. Popov Prize. This award is given only once every 3 years, to an early-career mathematician, to recognize accomplishments in approximation theory and related areas of math.  Learn More

Computer engineering graduate Emma Dunmire was honored at the Graduation Ring Ceremony with a Jacobs School Award of Excellence.  An academic star with a cumulative GPA of 3.983, Emma also competes on the NCAA Division 1 Track and Field team and holds the UC San Diego record for steeplechase. Learn more

Congratulations to Professor Bhaskar Rao on being selected to receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award (DAA) from IIT Kharagpur during the Institute's Platinum Jubilee Year 2026. The Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest honor bestowed upon IIT Kharagpur alumni, recognizing exceptional professional achievements and contributions that bring distinction to the Institute.

Ava Fascetti, a PhD student in Prof. Ed Wang's lab, was awarded a three-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) F31 Predoctoral Fellowship to support her research using signal processing, machine learning, and photoplethysmography(PPG) to improve screening for peripheral artery disease. Ava was also awarded $10,000 through the 2026-27 Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Fellowship.

On June 9, 2026, eighty students, faculty, staff, family, and alumni from across campus came together to celebrate the retirement and 50-year career of Professor Larry Milstein.  Larry joined UC San Diego EECS in 1976, and served as department Chair from 1984 to 1988, shepherding the department in 1987 as it became ECE.  In 1994, he served as Founding Director of the Center for Wireless Communications.

His scholarship was recognized with the IEEE Third Millenium Medal (2000) and the Ericsson Endowed Chair in Wireless Communications Access Techniques (2005). His teaching was recognized by the UC San Diego Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award (1999), and by the “Outstanding ECE Teacher Award” so many times that it forced a departmental rule change (after you win it 5 times, you can’t win it anymore). 

Former students came from near and far to remember Larry’s patience, attention to detail, and kindness, along with his infamous red pen markings.  While it is hard to find the right words to encompass Larry’s remarkable legacy, his former students came closest: “Beyond research, what stays with me is his integrity and grace.”  “It wasn't just teaching; it was a way of thinking you instilled in us.”

Electrical and Computer Engineering Fellowship Fund

Our Ph.D. students are at the heart of the research enterprise in ECE.  Many Ph.D. students begin in ECE with a departmental fellowship, full funding from the department that covers tuition, fees, and a stipend for living expenses.  The fellowships give students the freedom to work with any ECE faculty member, so they can explore different labs and find the best fit.  Please consider supporting our first-year doctoral students with a donation to the Electrical and Computer Engineering Fellowship Fund.  This fund supports outstanding ECE graduate students, enabling them to pursue advanced research, drive innovation, and become the next generation of leaders in technology.