ECE Celebrates 2025 Graduate Student Awardees

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has honored seven graduate students with Graduate Student Awards. The awards recognize the outstanding scientific contributions, academic leadership and teaching of students within the department’s graduate-level electrical and computer engineering programs.

Anil Jain Memorial Prize

Established in memory of Professor Anil K. Jain, this award celebrates a graduate student who has made seminal contributions to signal processing and computer vision.

• Sridhar Majety 
  Majety’s advisor, Associate Professor Marina Radulaski, wrote: "His research has had both fundamental and applied impact on the optical quantum nanotechnologies, in particular to fiber-compatible photonic-enhanced quantum emitters explored for quantum networking.”

Richard and Joy Dorf Graduate Student Award

Established by the Dorf Family Foundation, this award recognizes the outstanding research achievements of a graduate student and their promise to produce many more intellectual contributions in the field of electrical and computer engineering.

• Calum Shelden 
  Shelden’s advisor, Professor Jeremy Munday, wrote, "He has made significant contributions to understanding and controlling repulsive Casimir forces, a challenging frontier in quantum nanotechnology. This work has significant potential to impact nanoscale actuation, optomechanics and bio-inspired adhesive technologies."

Khadar B. Shaik Memorial Award

Established in the memory of Khadar B. Shaik, who received a Ph.D. in 2014 from UC Davis, this award recognizes a graduate student who has advanced to candidacy and has shown great promise for intellectual contributions to the field of electrical and computer engineering.

• Achintha Wijesinghe 
  Wijesinghe's advisor, Distinguished Professor Zhi Ding, wrote, "Achintha's academic journey reflects a rare combination of scholarly excellence, intellectual depth and consistent performance. Achintha’s outstanding academic record, combined with his research initiative and teaching contributions, firmly establishes him as a scholar of exceptional caliber."

Northrop Grumman Graduate Fellowship Award

This award recognizes a graduate student conducting research in the field of signal processing and telecommunications.

• Roland Gadbois 
  Distinguished Professor Zhi Ding, Gadbois’ Ph.D. advisor, wrote, "Roland has two major research tasks: one is to explore machine learning in future wireless communication systems, the other is to apply signal processing and deep learning techniques to improve clinical diagnostics from Doppler echocardiography velocity-flow pulse tracing. He has been gaining strong momentum in research on cutting-edge topics.”

Soohoo-Lee Fellowship

Established to honor Professor Soohoo, this award recognizes ECE graduate students who have deep ties to the Chinese American community and show interest in pursuing leadership roles in academia or industry. It is self-nominated.

• Nijo Tan
  In his self-nomination letter, Tan wrote, “Through the Soohoo-Lee Fellowship, I hope to continue bridging academic and industry leadership with my East Bay cultural authenticity. My goal is not just to innovate the next generation of 6G wireless communication, but to lift up the voices of underprivileged, aspiring engineers so that we are no longer overlooked, erased or silenced.”

ECE Best TA Award

This award celebrates a teaching assistant who provided excellent service in teaching and mentoring students.

• Ryan Kim
  Professor Billy Putnam, who taught several of the classes for which Kim was the TA, wrote, “He is thorough and thoughtful in his work, and he would never be satisfied until the students understood the material, whether it was a homework problem, a concept from lecture or a measurement in the lab. His work has been a service to me as an instructor, to our department and, most importantly, to our students.”

College of Engineering Departmental Best Teaching Assistant Award

Every year, the College of Engineering recognizes the Best TA from each department for teaching assistants who demonstrate the teaching mission of the College of Engineering and a commitment to teaching that goes far beyond the typical duties required of a teaching assistant.

• Yui Ishihara
  Ishihara was nominated by Professor Chen-Nee Chuah, who wrote, “Yui has consistently gone above and beyond the typical responsibilities of a teaching assistant. What stands out most about her is her unwavering commitment to creating a positive and inclusive learning experience for every student in the class. She demonstrates remarkable adaptability in meeting individual student needs and is consistently accessible — whether through office hours, Slack channels or additional one-on-one meetings — to support students in their learning.”