ECE Announces 2025 Annual Awards with Ceremony and Reception

On Tuesday, September 9th, the ECE Department held its annual Fall Awards Ceremony and Reception. Awards were presented to students, staff and faculty by ECE Chair Sennur Ulukus. The following awards were presented:

The George Corcoran Memorial Award for Faculty, presented annually to a young faculty member who has shown exemplary contributions to teaching and educations leadership: Professor Kaiqing Zhang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Staff Service Award in recognition of a staff member for outstanding service to faculty, staff and students: Chris Boyle, Academic Advisor, Undergraduate Studies

The David Bader Graduate Student Service Award in recognition of exceptional service to the department: Sydney Overton and Emma Griffith

George Corcoran Memorial Award for a Graduate Student presented to a graduate teaching assistant in recognition of excellence in teaching: Pasan Dissanayake

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Distinguished Dissertation Award, in recognition of recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields. This year’s recipients are:

Subhankar Banerjee, advised by Professor Sennur Ulukus

Dissertation: Optimal Control in Status Update Systems

Faisal Hamman, advised by Professor Sanghamitra Dutta

Dissertation: Trustworthy and Explainable Machine Learning Using Information Theoretic Methods

Zachary Lazri, advised by Professor Min Wu

Dissertation: Analyzing and Enhancing Algorithmic Fairness in Social Systems

and Data-Restricted Applications

Kasun Weerakoon Kulathun Mudiyanselage, advised by Professor Dinesh Manocha

Dissertation: Towards Fully Autonomous Robot Navigation: A Multi-Modal Perception and Learning-Based Approach

Published September 16, 2025