Computer engineering research
Computing systems have expanded far beyond desktop machines or mainframes, and today are embedded in nearly everything including smartphones, appliances and medical devices. They now involve not only computation, but multi-modal sensing, signal processing, communications and control—enabling novel applications in domains ranging from homeland security, human-computer interaction, green computing and pervasive healthcare. Moreover, functions that were previously considered to be strictly software or strictly hardware can no longer be distinguished in that way. This is allowing the next generation of adaptive and intelligent computing systems to address emerging complex societal, health, security and sustainability problems.
Computer engineering is concerned with ways that the science of computation is applied to building devices, components and systems that perform the computation. It considers the design, analysis and optimization of systems that span nearly 10 orders of magnitude in scale—from components that are billionths of a meter in size to systems that occupy hundreds of square meters such as data centers.
The future
Students with a graduate degree in computer engineering can reap the financial benefits of the growing job market in that field, as forecasts by the U.S. Labor Department forecasts that the demand for computer engineers will remain strong. Students with a Ph.D. in computer engineering have additional options for high-paying jobs, including academic positions, government and industrial research centers and senior engineering positions in industry.
Computer engineering faculty research interests
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Applied and robust optimization
Ronald Askin
Ronald Askin
Professor
Industrial Engineering
Research Interests
Logistics, manufacturing systems analysis, production planning and scheduling, operations research, applied statistics
Autonomous agents
Chitta Baral
Chitta Baral
Professor, Computer Science and Engineering
Graduate Program Chair, Computer Science
Research Interests
Knowledge representation, temporal logics, logic programming, dynamic systems, text extraction, question answering, natural language semantics, bioinformatics
Automated planning
Subbarao Kambhampati
Subbarao Kambhampati
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Artificial intelligence, automated planning, machine learning, data and information integration
Violet Syrotiuk
Violet Syrotiuk
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Cross-layer design and optimization in changing network conditions, modeling and monitoring, medium access control protocols, multi-hop wireless networks including MANETs, WSNs, WMNs, and cognitive radio networks
Chip generators
John Brunhaver
John Brunhaver
Assistant Professor
Research Interests
VLSI design, computer architecture, procedural hardware generation, computer vision accelerators, computer graphics hardware
Computer graphics
John Brunhaver
John Brunhaver
Assistant Professor
Research Interests
VLSI design, computer architecture, procedural hardware generation, computer vision accelerators, computer graphics hardware
Cyber and network security
Gail-Joon Ahn
Gail-Joon Ahn
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Vulnerability and risk management, authentication and access control, security architecture for distributed systems, identity management, policy analysis and enforcement, formal models for computer security, and cyber crime analysis
Partha Dasgupta
Partha Dasgupta
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Computer security, operating systems, distributed and parallel systems
Dijiang Huang
Dijiang Huang
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Network security, privacy prevention techniques, key management, secure ad hoc network routing, trust management for VANETs
Mojdeh Khorsand
Mojdeh Khorsand
Assistant Professor
Research Interests
Power systems operations and planning, power systems restoration and cascading events, cyber-security for electric power systems, renewable energy, transient stability studies, protection systems, power flow control technologies, stochastic optimization, and electric energy markets
Guoliang Xue
Guoliang Xue
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Survivability and security in smart grid, privacy and security in mobile social networks, economic approaches to network applications
Stephen Yau
Stephen Yau
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Trust management and security, software engineering, distributed systems, service based systems, ubiquitous/pervasive computing
Yanchao Zhang
Yanchao Zhang
Professor
Research Interests
Network and distributed system security, wireless networking, mobile computing
Cyberphysical systems
Georgios Fainekos
Georgios Fainekos
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Cyber-physical systems: hybrid dynamical systems, real-time and embedded systems, formal methods with applications to automation & control: system testing and verification, formal languages and logic, motion planning in robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)
Sandeep Gupta
Sandeep Gupta
Professor, School Director
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Wireless networks, mobile and ubiquitous/pervasive computing, embedded sensor networks for biomedical applications, parallel and distributed computing
Database systems
Kasim Candan
Kasim Candan
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Database systems, storage/querying/retrieval of multimedia and web data, heterogeneous information integration and retrieval, assistive technologies for information and data access, data clouds, ambient media systems
Yu Cao
Yu Cao
Professor
Research Interests
Physical modeling of nanoscale technologies, design solutions for variability and reliability, and neural-inspired hardware and algorithms for learning
Hari Sundaram
Hari Sundaram
Associate Professor
Digital signal processing
Andreas Spanias
Andreas Spanias
Professor, Director, SenSIP Center
Research Interests
Digital signal processing (DSP), speech and audio coding, adaptive filters, real-time processing of sensor data, DSP for arts and media applications
Embedded systems, ubiquitous computing
Robert LiKamWa
Robert LiKamWa
Assistant Professor
Joint appointment with the School of Arts, Media and Engineering
Research Interests
Mobile operating systems; mobile computer architecture; low-power mobile systems; computational imaging systems; computer vision systems; augmented reality systems; virtual reality systems; holographic computing
Sethuraman Panchanathan
Sethuraman Panchanathan
Professor, ASU Senior Vice President for Knowledge Enterprise Development
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Human-centered multimedia computing, ubiquitous computing environments for enhancing qualify of life for individuals with Disabilities, and haptic user interfaces.
Fengbo Ren
Fengbo Ren
Assistant Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Hardware acceleration, embedded, reconfigurable, and parallel computing solutions for data analytics and information processing, energy-efficient computing, data-driven compressive sensing, hardware-friendly machine learning
Learning, data mining
George Runger
George Runger
Professor
Industrial Engineering
Research Interests
Statistical learning, process control, data mining for massive, multivariate data sets
Jennie Si
Jennie Si
Professor
Research Interests
Learning and approximate dynamic programming, estimation and filtering of stochastic processes, neural networks, neurophysiological basis for learning and cognitive processing, cortical neural information processing
Low power electronics
Chaitali Chakrabarti
Chaitali Chakrabarti
Professor
Research Interests
VLSI architectures for media processing and wireless communications, algorithm-architecture co-design of signal processing systems including medical imaging, low-power embedded systems, reliable memory system design
Lawrence Clark
Lawrence Clark
Professor Emeritus
Research Interests
Circuits and architectures for low power and high performance VLSI for harsh environments, CAD for VLSI
Microelectrical systems
Stephen Phillips
Stephen Phillips
Professor, Director, School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering
Research Interests
Applications and integration of microsystems including microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microelectronics, microactuators, neural recording and neural stimulation; applications of systems and control including adaptive control, control of microsystems, prosthetics, feedback control over nondeterministic networks
Multicore architecture
John Brunhaver
John Brunhaver
Assistant Professor
Research Interests
VLSI design, computer architecture, procedural hardware generation, computer vision accelerators, computer graphics hardware
Aviral Shrivastava
Aviral Shrivastava
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Compilers and micro architectures for embedded systems, including techniques for power, performance reliability, temperature and code size improvement
Multimedia, signal and image processing
Baoxin Li
Baoxin Li
Professor, Program Chair
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Computer vision and pattern recognition, image/video processing, statistical methods in visual computing, machine learning
Andreas Spanias
Andreas Spanias
Professor, Director, SenSIP Center
Research Interests
Digital signal processing (DSP), speech and audio coding, adaptive filters, real-time processing of sensor data, DSP for arts and media applications
Hari Sundaram
Hari Sundaram
Associate Professor
Network optimization, QoS routing
Martin Reisslein
Martin Reisslein
Professor and Graduate Program Chair, Computer Engineering
Research Interests
Metro and access fiber/wireless networks, multimedia streaming, multimedia traffic characteristics, software defined networking, engineering education
Andrea Richa
Andrea Richa
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Self-organizing particle systems, programmable matter, bio-inspired algorithms, distributed computing and algorithms, theory of wireless communication, graph, randomized, and approximation algorithms, self-stabilizing overlay networks, combinatorial optimization, distributed resource allocation
Arunabha Sen
Arunabha Sen
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Resource optimization in optical, wireless and sensor networks, video transmission over mobile ad-hoc networks, network processors, system/network on chip design, combinatorial optimization, algorithm design and analysis
Guoliang Xue
Guoliang Xue
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Survivability and security in smart grid, privacy and security in mobile social networks, economic approaches to network applications
Network reliability
Charles J. Colbourn
Charles Colbourn
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Combinatorial design theory, network algorithms and network design
Operating systems
Partha Dasgupta
Partha Dasgupta
Associate Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Computer security, operating systems, distributed and parallel systems
Robert LiKamWa
Robert LiKamWa
Assistant Professor
Joint appointment with the School of Arts, Media and Engineering
Research Interests
Mobile operating systems; mobile computer architecture; low-power mobile systems; computational imaging systems; computer vision systems; augmented reality systems; virtual reality systems; holographic computing
Real-time control
Pitu Mirchandani
Pitu Mirchandani
Professor, The Avnet Chair in Supply Chain Networks
Industrial Engineering
Research Interests
Optimization, decision-making under uncertainty, real-time control and logistics, application interests in urban service systems, transportation, and homeland security
Real-time systems
Yann-Hang Lee
Yann-Hang Lee
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Real-time computing, internet of things (IoT), embedded system and software, fault-tolerant computing, distributed computing, service-oriented computing, performance evaluation
Scheduling theory
John Fowler
John Fowler
Motorola Professor of International Business
Research Interests
Discrete event simulation, deterministic scheduling, multi-criteria decision making
Arunabha Sen
Arunabha Sen
Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Resource optimization in optical, wireless and sensor networks, video transmission over mobile ad-hoc networks, network processors, system/network on chip design, combinatorial optimization, algorithm design and analysis
Semiconductor devices
Dragica Vasileska
Dragica Vasileska
Professor
Research Interests
Semiconductor device physics, semiconductor transport, 1-D to 3-D device modeling, quantum field theory and its application to real nanoscale device structures, heating effects in nano-scale devices, current collapse in GaN HEMTs, optoelectronics including modeling of solar cells and photodetectors
Software engineering
Wei-Tek Tsai
Wei-Tek Tsai
Emeritus Professor
System optimization
Konstantinos Tsakalis
Konstantinos Tsakalis
Professor and Undergraduate Program Chair, Electrical Engineering
Research Interests
Applications of control, optimization and system identification theory to semiconductor manufacturing, chemical process control and prediction and control of epileptic seizures
VLSI architecture & circuit design
John Brunhaver
John Brunhaver
Assistant Professor
Research Interests
VLSI design, computer architecture, procedural hardware generation, computer vision accelerators, computer graphics hardware
Chaitali Chakrabarti
Chaitali Chakrabarti
Professor
Research Interests
VLSI architectures for media processing and wireless communications, algorithm-architecture co-design of signal processing systems including medical imaging, low-power embedded systems, reliable memory system design
Fengbo Ren
Fengbo Ren
Assistant Professor
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
Hardware acceleration, embedded, reconfigurable, and parallel computing solutions for data analytics and information processing, energy-efficient computing, data-driven compressive sensing, hardware-friendly machine learning
Sarma Vrudhula
Sarma Vrudhula
Professor/Director of Center for Embedded Systems
Computer Science and Engineering
Research Interests
CAD for VLSI circuits, logic synthesis and verification, low-power design, power, energy and thermal management in processors performance, power and yield optimization of VLSI circuits, novel logic structures and applications to biology
Wireless mobile and ad-hoc networks
Joseph Hui
Joseph Hui
Emeritus Professor
Martin Reisslein
Martin Reisslein
Professor and Graduate Program Chair, Computer Engineering
Research Interests
Metro and access fiber/wireless networks, multimedia streaming, multimedia traffic characteristics, software defined networking, engineering education