School of Engineering

Past Spotlights on Electrical and Computer Engineering

Wenxin Zeng and Sameer Sonkusale sitting on the Memorial Steps together and talking

2023
Student highlight

Name: Wenxin Zeng
Degree: PhD in Electrical Engineering
Faculty lab: Professor Sameer Sonkusale
Hometown: Chengdu, China

Why Tufts?
We have a diverse multidisciplinary team in the lab. I love how a problem can be analyzed from different aspects, and how the fruit of research comes from the effort of different areas.

Favorite thing about living in the Medford/Somerville and Boston area?
I love how quiet yet convenient the neighborhood is in Medford, the stunning scenery in the fall, and the cycling atmosphere in the Boston area. 

Any advice you’d give to prospective students or new graduate students?
Graduate study is a long journey and sometimes can be exhausting. So don't get too stressed to forget your life outside research. Do your best at work, then make time for what you love in life. Enjoy the fleeting but beautiful leaves in the fall. 

Wenxin Zeng and Sameer Sonkusale walking on a campus path

Faculty highlight

Name: Professor Sameer Sonkusale
Research interests:  Flexible bioelectronics, biomedical microdevices, biomedical circuits and systems, micro and nano fabrication, lab-on-chip microsystems, global health and precision medicine, CMOS image sensors for scientific imaging, analog to information converters, active metamaterial devices, circuits, and systems, and terahertz devices and circuits.

About Professor Sonkusale: Sameer Sonkusale directs the Tufts Nano Lab, an interdisciplinary research group with a focus on flexible bioelectronics, biomedical device circuits and systems, nanoscale sensors, lab-on-chip micro systems, point of care diagnostics, analog computing, and brain-inspired machine learning.

He has received several awards including the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010, National Academy of Engineering U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Fellowship in 2015, the National Academy of Sciences Arab-America Frontiers fellowship in 2014 and 2016, and several best paper awards at international conferences and meetings, including the best paper award and highest-cited paper award from the journal Microsystems and Nanoengineering (a Nature journal).

2022

Panetta's Lab at Tufts University

Student highlight

Name: Qianwen Wan
Degree: Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering
Faculty lab: Professor and School of Engineering Dean of Graduate Education Karen Panetta

About Qianwen: Qianwen Wan completed her doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University in 2019. She was the principal researcher in Dean Panetta's Vision and Sensing Systems Laboratory. Her research interests include designing automated tools for cognitive scientists, analyzing mobile eye tracking data, facial recognition, image and video processing, and machine-learning applications. She is now employed by the Volkswagen Group working on augmented reality.

Panetta with student at Tufts University

Faculty highlight

Name: Professor and Dean of Graduate Education Karen Panetta
Research interests: Image and signal processing for security and medical applications, modeling and simulation, multimedia, machine learning, and recognition systems.

About Dean Panetta: Karen Panetta develops signal and imaging processing algorithms, simulation tools and embedded systems for applications for robot vision, and biomedical imaging applications. She is the Dean of Graduate Education for the School of Engineering at Tufts University. She has received several NASA and National Science Foundation research grants, including the NSF Career Award. In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Award for Science and Engineering Education and Mentoring.