Welcome to UCLA’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Five decades of history provide the strong foundation from which our family of faculty, staff, students, and alumni stand upon, giving rise to today’s key contributors and innovators in our increasingly technologically interconnected world. The motto of UCLA is fiat lux — “let there be light”. Our mission is to use novel educational methods to foster a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of engineering as well as the ability to innovate in order to illuminate the way for the future.
As a department, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of technology and knowledge. Our faculty’s expertise ranges broadly across numerous fields of focus, from enhanced computing infrastructure and components, THz communications, IoXT — the emerging fusion of Internet of “All” Things, biomedical applications and bioinformatics, machine learning and optimization, robotic control, human-machine interaction, quantum computing, to telemetry and image processing. Deep knowledge in these fields is what enables us to meaningfully contribute to research, industry, and national defense. Furthermore, we help determine the future direction of technological development.
We are committed to inspiring our students. The research specialties of our faculty provide unique perspectives on technology to share and educate. We strongly believe that a university’s education is at its best through hands-on experiences for students. Through engagement with industry, our courses help students solve real-world problems with real-world tools. While students from our department complete their degrees and leave campus to become future leaders of industry, not only in electronics, but aerospace, national security, entrepreneurship, and in law, as well as in medicine. As alumni, they always remain a part of our family.
We are committed to engaging with the community through collaborating with industry on research, building a pipeline of students with local high schools, community colleges and state universities, holding workshops and connecting with our alumni. We seek to discover and improve upon problems facing our community and society with these relationships.
I welcome you to engage with our department, learn about our research and participate in our courses and workshops. A snapshot of our research projects, student activities, and partnerships can be found in our Annual Report. Over the next five decades, we strive to continue cutting-edge research and for our graduates to be the beacons of light that shine forth in our society.
Chih-Kong Ken Yang
Professor and Chair, UCLA ECE Department