This section of our Web site contains some information about the field of electrical engineering, the history of our department, and the facilities we have.
Our department currently consists of:
- 22 regular faculty members
- 9 full-time staff members
- About 100 juniors and seniors
- About 200 master's degree candidates
- About 15 professional degree candidates
- About 100 Ph.D. and D.E.S. candidates
- Many adjunct faculty, affiliates, postdocs, research scientists, visitors, and colleagues
The active members of our department have been recognized by many major awards for specific technical achievements or for their activities in the various fields of electrical engineering. These awards come from our key national societies and from international organizations in science and engineering.
We are particularly pleased that two of our faculty are members of the National Academy of Engineering:
Cyril Harris
Mischa Schwartz
Our awards also include the 2006 IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) Computer and Communications Society Koji Kobayashi Award, the 2005 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award, the 2007 IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award, the 1991 Optical Society of America R.W. Wood Prize, the 1984 IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award, the 1996 Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship Award of the Federal Republic of Germany, and
Academician in the Taiwan Academia Sinica. But the above is only a partial list of the distinctions our faculty has received. The complete list is too long to include here; for example, our faculty has in addition received designation for high technical achievement at major industrial research institutions like IBM and Bell Laboratories, and many professional best paper awards from the most prestigious national and international conferences.Our department is particularly strong in interdisciplinary research and engineering - whether this be in developing new integrated biosensors on Si chips, or probing the optical response of nanotubes or collaborating on developing the new field of systems biology. Thus a student or faculty member joins Columbia EE, he/she is not just joining an excellent department (or school); but he/she becomes very much part of a vibrant, multi-faceted institution with spectacular achievements, as evidenced by the number of Nobel prizes Columbians have received. In fact Columbia is no. 1 in the number of Nobel awards worldwide. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_laureates_by_university_affiliation .