Graduate Introduction

Electrical Engineering

The Department of Electrical Engineering (EE) at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), offers M.S. and Ph.D. degree programs and conducts research in photonics and electronics, focusing on VLSI, electronic and optoelectronic materials, devices, and systems for information transmission, storage, processing, and display, especially for optical fiber communications; communications and signal processing, including wireless and optical communications, coding, digital signal processing, image and video processing; and electromagnetism and remote sensing, including numerical electromagnetics, packaging, wave propagation and scattering radar oceanography, and microwave remote sensing. Future areas include MEMS and nanotechnology.

The EE department faculty members enjoy a close relationship with the faculty members in the Departments of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Computational Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy. Faculty members carry both research and teaching inside and outside their own departments. The EE department also has ties to nearby industry, employing electrical engineering professionals as visiting faculty members and arranging for students to gain practical research experience through work in industrial labs.

Students start the program with both depth and breadth courses and then proceed to do research in their area of specialization. The M.S. degree can be completed in two years. M.S. students must complete a master's thesis. A Ph.D. degree is usually completed in four to six years. Students are required to take a preliminary exam within their first two years of study. After completing the course requirements, students must pass an oral qualifying exam and write a dissertation. Part-time study is possible for students working in industry while going to school.

A brief presentation for incoming graduate class, Fall 2009