UMBC’s Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department offers both M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Computer Engineering. Below you will find information on the Computer Engineering graduate program, research areas in Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as information about the application process.

Research Areas

Signal Processing & Machine Learning — Faculty in this area conduct research developing new platforms and methods to address many of the challenges posed by today’s data-rich applications, especially addressing problems in the complex and big data realm. The application domains are many and include problems in medical image analysis and data fusion, remote sensing, image processing for hyperspectral data, cognitive radio networks and future power systems (smart grids).

• Tülay Adali, PhD., Distinguished University Professor, Specialization Areas: Statistical and adaptive signal processing, machine learning, matrix and tensor factorizations, and their applications in multimodal and multi-set data fusion and medical image analysis. Machine Learning for Signal Processing Lab: http://mlsp.umbc.edu
• Chein-I Chang, Ph.D., Professor, Specialization Areas: Hyperspectral imaging, remote sensing signal and image processing, medical imaging.
• Seung-Jun Kim, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Specialization Areas: Statistical signal processing, optimization, machine learning, and big data techniques with applications to wireless communications/networking, future power systems/smart grids, brain/medical data analysis. Signal Processing and Smart Systems Laboratory: https://www.csee.umbc.edu/~sjkim

Microelectronics/ Microsystems (MEMS) & Photonics — Faculty in this area conduct research in the complementary fields of electronic, bioelectronic, nanotechnology, electromagnetic, and optical devices and circuits, with broad application to the next generation light emitters, power electronics, wearable and implantable biomedical sensors that advance consumer, industrial, national security, and health care outcomes.

• Fow-Sen Choa, PhD., Professor, Specialization Areas: Material growth, nanofabrication, Near and Mid-IR lasers and detectors, RF-photonic components and systems, photoacoustic sensing, EEG brain function analysis and monitoring, transcranial magnetic, direct/alternating current stimulations, dynamic brain network analysis.
• Li Yan, Ph.D., Professor, Specialization Areas: Ultrafast optics, solid-state lasers, optical communications, nonlinear optics, quantum optics, coherent beam combining and mixing.

Optics & Communications — Faculty in this area conduct basic and applied research that relies on the synergy of physics, materials science, numerical modeling, and device applications to understand and develop innovative materials, devices, and algorithms that addresses the demand for higher data transfer rates and bandwidths, and next generation mobile/wireless technologies.

• Gary Carter, Ph.D., Professor, Specialization Areas: Optoelectronics; diode lasers; nonlinear optics; optical communications.
• Anthony Johnson, PhD., Professor, Specialization Areas: Ultrafast photophysics and nonlinear optical properties of bulk, nanostructured, and quantum well semiconductor structures, ultrashort pulse propagation in fibers and high-speed lightwave systems.
• Curtis Menyuk, Ph.D., Professor, Specialization Areas: Lasers, computational modeling of photonic systems, time and frequency generation and transfer, lightwave communications, optical fibers, optical networks, and nonlinear phenomena.
• Mohamed Younis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Specialization Areas: Wireless networks; Cyber-physical systems, internet of things, fault tolerant computing, embedded computer systems, and secure communication. Embedded Systems and Networks Lab (ESNET): http://esnet.cs.umbc.edu/

VLSI Systems/ Hardware Security & Digital design — Faculty in this area are working on advanced computer-aided VLSI chip design, and developing innovations in VLSI hardware testing, security, computational and communication protocols, and sensor-processing integration that protect the security and integrity of hardware systems that meet the challenges for ultrafast and low-power computing, real-time and secure cyber-physical systems, and effective methods for processing complex data and enhancing multicore and cloud computing.

• Riadul Islam, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Specialization Areas:  VLSI CAD tools and low-power digital and mixed-signal IC design, alternative current-mode clock network design to vehicular network security, soft-/hard-error robust, secured IC design to neuromorphic computing and machine learning applications in computing.
• Naghmeh Karimi, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Specialization Areas: Hardware Security & Design-for-Trust, Fault Tolerance & Design-for-Reliability, Hardware Testing & Design-for-Testability, Hardware Design & Synthesis, and VLSI Design.
• Dhananjay Phatak, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Specialization Areas: Computer arithmetic algorithms and implementations, all aspects of computer/cyber security, number theory, computer networks and neural nets.
• Ryan Robucci, PhD., Associate Professor, Specialization Areas: Analog and mixed-signal VLSI; sensors and cyber-physical systems, human-computer systems, and hardware security. ECLIPSE: https://eclipse.umbc.edu/robucci/

https://www.csee.umbc.edu/graduate/computer-engineering-ms-phd/