Binghamton University

01/20/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 01/20/2025 10:57

ECE Department celebrates 2024 successes, looks ahead to 2025

The spring 2025 semester at Binghamton University has just started, and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science is excited to share its achievements in education and research during 2024.

In November, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand stopped at Watson College to encourage Binghamton University students to apply to the DoD Cyber Service Academy scholarship program, which provides full college tuition in return for public service in the Department of Defense (DoD) or the intelligence community. While on campus, Gillibrand received a tour of two ITC lab spaces and talked with Professor Yu Chen about his research into detecting deepfake videos.

Faculty news

Four ECE faculty members were named among the world's top 2 percent of all researchers in their fields for 2023: Professor Yu Chen, Professor Seokheun "Sean" Choi, Distinguished Professor Jessica Fridrich and Associate Professor Ning Zhou. Congratulations to them, and to all of our exceptional faculty!

Research news

Professor Seokheun "Sean" Choi had a prolific year. Among the projects he worked on with Assistant Professor Anwar Elhadad, PhD '24, and PhD students Yang "Lexi" Gao, Maryam Rezaie and Zahra Rafiee are:

Professor Yu Chen and PhD student Han Sun designed the Rapid Response Elderly Safety Monitoring (RESAM) system to leverage the latest advancements in edge computing. It aims to cut reaction times with a human action recognition (HAR) algorithm that uses local computing power to analyze sensor data and detect abnormal movements without transmitting to a processing center offsite.

Chen, PhD student Nihal Poredi, and Deeraj Nagothu MS '16, PhD '23, published research about breaking down images using frequency domain analysis techniques to look for anomalies that could indicate they are generated by AI. It compared real and fake images beyond telltale signs of image manipulation such elongated fingers or gibberish background text.

Assistant Professor Jungwook "Jay" Paek received a $414,191 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how the interaction of Lewy bodies with the brain's diverse cellular environments relates to the development of neurodegenerative diseases. He wants to use electrical engineering principles to study neurological ailments such as Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.

Student news

The Binghamton University Rover Team wants to make a third trip traveled to the University Rover Challenge this spring. Its membership includes many ECE students, and Professor Douglas H. Summerville - chair of the ECE Department - is the team's advisor.

A story in 2024's Watson Review magazine highlighted an ECE senior capstone project to build a portable, handheld power station that can be used on the go or in the home. The device is around 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot and weighs under 40 pounds. The student team was Laura Cunningham '24, Stephen Bauer '24, Ethan Hamlin '24 and Bartosz Obszynski '24. The faculty advisor was Associate Professor Ning Zhou, with AVANGRID industry advisors Joseph Yablonsky and Ryan Cuddy.

Industry news

In December, Binghamton University and BAE Systems signed a Memorandum of Understanding that solidifies their mutual commitment to advancing power electronics and energy storage research and development, workforce development and testing initiatives.