Dear Esteemed Alumni, Donors, Students and Friends,

I hope this message finds you well. It is with great pride and excitement that I share the recent achievements and milestones of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Utah.
In 2023–24, our ECE faculty, staff and students have reached extraordinary heights and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to innovation, research and education. I am incredibly proud to announce that:

• Our department continues to grow and thrive. We are currently training over 1,095 students, the highest ever! This year, ECE graduated 85 BS, 57 MS, and 23 PhDs, another record! I hope you can welcome them in your own region. We now offer over 80 classes per semester and are in the process of creating a freshman Artificial Intelligence (AI) course to keep up with the needs of the engineering world.
• The Utah Asia Campus ECE Department opened its first lectures in Incheon, Korea in January 2021 with 8 students enrolled and 1 faculty member. As of June 2024, our accumulated enrollment exceeded 140 students with 5 faculty members. These students were recruited from across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, including Korea, Mongolia, Japan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Qatar and Tanzania. They will spend 2.5 years at the Asia Campus and complete their studies at the Salt Lake City Campus. This year, our first Utah Asia Campus student graduated with a Bachelor’s degree! Additionally, we have begun sending sophomore students from the Salt Lake City campus to the Utah Asia Campus as part of a study abroad program.
• The ECE department received a total of 35 new research awards, with the total sponsored research awards surpassing $9.0 million: another record. We hold the #1 position within the Price College of Engineering for the total number of research proposals submitted. Our faculty members, including 4 National Academy members, 15 Early State Career Awardees, and 39 tenure-track professors, are dedicated to advancing the frontiers of knowledge and technology. The faculty have received many international recognitions this year, such as Pierre-Emmanuel Gaillardon’s selection as the Under 40 Innovator Awardee by the Design Automation Conference. I am also very proud to report that Florian Solzbacher’s company, Blackrock Neurotech, has received huge attention in the brain-human interface area.

Your continued support and engagement are crucial to our success. Last year we offered 70 scholarships and fellowships to assist our students’ educational journies. We are deeply grateful for your contributions, which enable us to provide a world class education, conduct groundbreaking research and make meaningful impacts in our field. Together, we are shaping the future of electrical and computer engineering.

Thank you for being a valued member of the University of Utah ECE community. I look forward to sharing our successes with you, and hope you take pride in the remarkable progress we have made together.

Warm regards,

Dr. Hanseup Kim
Chair and Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Utah