Electrical and Systems Engineering
The Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering (ESE) at the University of Pennsylvania conducts a broad spectrum of cutting-edge research that spans both foundational science and transformative technologies. Faculty and students work at the intersection of atoms and bits, exploring advanced nanodevices and nanosystems including metamaterials, photonics, MEMS, and integrated circuits with applications from communications to biomedical interfaces; information and decision systems that address data representation, secure networking, distributed coordination, robotics, and interdisciplinary societal challenges; and systems-level innovations such as autonomous systems, intelligent networks, and cyber-physical integration. Researchers also advance knowledge in robotics and control, signal processing and machine learning, quantum engineering and computing, wireless and optical communications, and sustainable energy and sensor systems, with an emphasis on forging connections among hardware, software, and complex real-world systems. Through collaborative labs and interdisciplinary projects, Penn ESE pushes boundaries in both theoretical and applied engineering to tackle next-generation technological challenges.
Nanoscale physical devices involves applying the principles and methods of electromagnetics and solid state physics and electronics to the design, fabrication, characterization, and modeling of devices from macroscale to nanoscale dimensions. Faculty harness novel physical phenomena to realize unique behaviors that are exploited in devices and circuits. Research directions within physical devices span a broad range of topics from metamaterials, plasmonic optics, nanoscale photonics, fractal electrodynamics, and electromagnetics to macro- and nano-scale electronics, optoelectronics, polymer-carbons composites, super-capacitors, MEMS, and integrated systems at the nanoscale.
Affiliated faculty: Mark Allen, Lee Bassett, Nader Engheta, Liang Feng, Deep Jariwala, Charlie Johnson, Cherie Kagan, Marc Miskin, Troy Olsson, Anthony Sigillito, Bo Zhen.
The modern world in which we live is enabled by highly capable electronic circuits for sensing and controlling the world and transforming, processing, and communicating data. These circuits power global communication networks and data centers, mobile phones, smart homes, medical instruments, autonomous vehicles, and inexpensive, smart sensors. Faculty in circuits and computer engineering design the hardware and software that harnesses the raw nanoscale physical devices to provide these sensing, actuation, processing, and communication capabilities. This includes developing analog and radio-frequency circuits for high-speed and low-energy wired, wireless, and optical communication as well as biological and neurological interfacing, sensing, and control. It also include designing software-configurable computational substrates, from ENIAC and EDVAC to processors, FPGAs, and heterogeneous, programmable SoCs, that can rapidly deliver highly customized computations and support the advance of algorithms and capabilities. Working across the hardware-software boundary, we design computations that are low energy, reliable, and trustworthy despite imperfections in device manufacture, interactions with the unpredictable real world, and attacks from determined adversaries.
Affiliated Faculty: Firooz Aflatouni, Andre DeHon, Thomas Farmer, Lei Gu, David Issadore, Tania Khanna, Benjamin Lee, Insup Lee, Jing Li, Boon Thau Loo, Rahul Mangharam, Robert Radway, Jan Van der Spiegel.
Within the Information and Decision Systems (IDS) research area, researchers advance the science and engineering of how information is acquired, represented, learned, and acted upon in an increasingly connected world. This work spans data, audio, video, and sensor streams, and focuses on transforming information into insight through artificial intelligence and machine learning, signal processing, optimization, and control. Researchers study the principles that govern modern communication and networked systems and develop intelligent decision-making frameworks for complex, distributed environments. IDS research also explores the coordination of autonomous and robotic systems, trustworthy and privacy-preserving information exchange, and AI-driven approaches to inference and learning under uncertainty. Strongly interdisciplinary in nature, the area connects engineering with economics, social and biological systems, and public policy, addressing problems such as technology adoption, epidemic modeling and control, and the dynamics of trust and information propagation in social networks.
Affiliated faculty: Gad Allon, Danielle Bassett, Pratik Chaudhari, Christos Davatzikos, Kostas Daniilidis, Eva L. Dyer., Nadia Figueroa, Robert Ghrist, Hamed Hassani, M. Ani Hsieh,Rachel Holladay, Zhi Huang, Dinesh Jayaraman, Daniel Koditschek, Vijay Kumar, Antonio Loquercio, Manfred Morari, Nikolai Matni, George Pappas, Michael Posa, Victor Preciado, Alejandro Ribeiro, Rahim Rizi, Megan Ryerson, Shirin Saeedi Bidokhti, Saswati Sarkar, Tony Smith, Cynthia Sung, Santosh Venkatesh, Rakesh Vohra, Cynthia Sung, Rene Vidal, Mark Yim, Mingmin Zhao.
Engineering Research Policies
Penn Center for Innovation (Technology Transfer)
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