Electrical and Computer Engineering – Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Return to: USC Viterbi School of Engineering  

Electrical and Computer Engineering
Hughes Aircraft Electrical
Engineering Center 100
(213) 740-4446 or (213) 740-7874
FAX: (213) 740-4449 or FAX: (213) 740-8677
Email: ece.studentservices@usc.edu or eepdept@usc.edu

Chair: Richard M. Leahy, PhD*

Vice Chair: Michelle Povinelli, PhD

Associate Chair (Graduate Programs): Peter Beerel, PhD

Associate Chair (Undergraduate Programs): Mark Redekopp, MS

Presidential Chair: Andrew J. Viterbi, PhD

A.V. “Bal” Balakrishnan Chair: Petros Ioannou, PhD

Kenneth C. Dahlberg Early Career Chair: Rahul Jain, PhD

Solomon Golomb - Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair: Andreas Molisch, PhD

Ming Hsieh Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering Systems: Chung Chieh Jay Kuo, PhD

Ming Hsieh Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering-Electrophysics: Mahta Moghaddam, PhD

Lloyd F. Hunt Chair in Electrical Power Engineering: Murali Annavaram, PhD 

Gordon S. Marshall Chair in Engineering: Urbashi Mitra, PhD

Jack Munushian Early Career Chair: Paul Bogdan, PhD

Niki and Max Nikias Chair in Engineering: Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan, PhD

Robert C. Packard President’s Chair and Malcolm R. Currie Chair in Technology and the Humanities: C. L. Max Nikias, PhD

Colleen and Roberto Padovani Early Career Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Rehan Kapadia, PhD

George Pfleger Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Timothy Pinkston, PhD

Charles Lee Powell Chair in Engineering: Viktor Prasanna, PhD

Charles Lee Powell Chair in Engineering and Computer Science: Massoud Pedram, PhD

Steven and Kathryn Sample Chair in Engineering: Demetrios Christodoulides, PhD

Alexander A. Sawchuk Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Maryam Shanechi, PhD

Arthur G. Settle Trust Endowment for USC Leonard Silverman Chair: Richard M. Leahy, PhD*

Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair: Constantine Sideris, PhD

Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair: Mahdi Soltanolkotabi, PhD

Fred H. Cole Professorship in Engineering: Gianluca Lazzi, PhD

Arthur B. Freeman Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Joshua Yang, PhD

Gabilan Distinguished Professorship in Science and Engineering: Michelle Povinelli, PhD 

William M. Hogue Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Eun Sok Kim, PhD

Stephen and Etta Varra Professor: Leana Golubchik, PhD

Dean’s Professor: Salman Avestimehr, PhD

Dean’s Professor: Krishna Nayak, PhD

Dean’s Professor: Antonio Ortega, PhD

Dean’s Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Urbashi Mitra, PhD

Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science: Chung-Chieh Jay Kuo, PhD

Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Mahta Moghaddam, PhD

Provost Professor of Opthamology and Electrical and Computer Engineering: Gianluca Lazzi, PhD

University Professor: Shri Narayanan, PhD

Gabilan Assistant Professor: Feifei Qian, PhD

Gabilan Assistant Professor: Mengjie Yu, PhD

Ming Hsieh Faculty Fellow in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Hossein Hashemi, PhD

Ming Hsieh Faculty Fellow in Electrical and Computer Engineering: Bhaskar Krishnamachari, PhD

Viterbi Professorship in Engineering: Daniel Lidar, PhD

Professors: Murali Annavaram, PhD (Computer Science); Salman Avestimehr, PhD; Peter Beerel, PhD; Todd Brun, PhD (Computer Science, Physics and Astronomy); Michael Shuo-Wei Chen, PhD; Demetrios Christodoulides, PhD; Keith M. Chugg, PhD; Stephen B. Cronin, PhD (Physics); Leana Golubchik, PhD (Computer Science); Sandeep Gupta, PhD; Hossein Hashemi, PhD; Petros Ioannou, PhD (Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering); Rahul Jain, PhD (Computer Science, Industrial and Systems Engineering); B. Keith Jenkins, PhD; Mihailo Jovanovic, PhD (Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering); Mercedeh Khajavikhan, PhD; Eun Sok Kim, PhD; Bart Kosko, PhD (Law); Bhaskar Krishnamachari, PhD (Computer Science); Chung-Chieh Jay Kuo, PhD (Computer Science); Gianluca Lazzi, PhD (Ophthalmology); Richard Leahy, PhD* (Biomedical Engineering, Radiology); Anthony F. J. Levi, PhD (Physics); Daniel Lidar, PhD (Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy); Urbashi Mitra, PhD (Computer Science); Mahta Moghaddam, PhD; Andreas Molisch, PhD; Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan, PhD (Computer Science, Linguistics, Pediatrics, Psychology, Otolaryngology); Krishna Nayak, PhD (Biomedical Engineering, Radiology); Michael Neely, PhD; C. L. Max Nikias, PhD (Classics); Antonio Ortega, PhD; Massoud Pedram, PhD; Timothy Pinkston, PhD; Michelle Povinelli, PhD; Viktor Prasanna, PhD (Computer Science); Konstantinos Psounis, PhD (Computer Science); C. Raghavendra, PhD (Computer Science); Maryam M. Shanechi, PhD (Biomedical Engineering); Andrew J. Viterbi, PhD; Alan E. Willner, PhD*; Wei Wu, PhD; J. Joshua Yang, PhD; Chongwu Zhou, PhD

Associate Professors: Paul Bogdan, PhD; Justin Haldar, PhD (Biomedical Engineering); Rehan Kapadia, PhD; Christos Kyriakakis, PhD; Ashutosh Nayyar, PhD; Aluizio Prata Jr., PhD*; Paria Rashidinejad, PhD; Benjamin W. Reichardt, PhD (Computer Science); Mahdi Soltanolkotabi, PhD (Computer Science)

Assistant Professors: Corey Baker, PhD; Somil Bansal, PhD; Chia Wei Wade Hsu, PhD; Yasser Khan, PhD; Feifei Qian, PhD (Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering); Constantine Sideris, PhD; Christopher Torng, PhD; Stephen Tu, PhD; Mengjie Yu, PhD; Quntao Zhuang, PhD

Professors of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: Mohammed Beshir, PhD; Gandhi Puvvada, MS*; Mark Redekopp, MS (Computer Science)*

Associate Professors of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: Shahin Nazarian, PhD; Allan Weber, PhD

Senior Lecturers: Brandon Franzke, PhD; Susan Schober, PhD

Lecturer: Ali Zahid, PhD

Research Associate Professors: Wael AbdAlmageed, PhD; Stephen Crago, PhD; Anand Joshi, PhD

Research Assistant Professors: Zaijun Chen, PhD; Jonathan Habif, PhD; Ajitesh Srivastava, PhD

Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: George Papavassilopoulos, PhD

Adjunct Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: Arash Saifhashemi, PhD

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: Moe Tabar, PhD

Adjunct Research Professors: Giuseppe Caire, PhD; Ming Hsieh, PhD (Medicine); Rajgopal Kannan, PhD; Murali Kota, PhD; Willie Ng, PhD

Adjunct Research Associate Professors: Alexandros Potamianos, PhD; P. Thomas Vernier, PhD

Adjunct Research Assistant Professor: Bindu Madhavan, PhD

Emeritus Professors: P. Daniel Dapkus, PhD (Materials Science); Martin Gundersen, PhD (Materials Science, Physics); Edmond Jonckheere, PhD; Hans H. Kuehl, PhD*; William C. Lindsey, PhD; Jerry Mendel, PhD; Alice C. Parker, PhD*; Michael J. Safonov, PhD; Alexander A. Sawchuk, PhD*; Robert A. Scholtz, PhD; Leonard M. Silverman, PhD; John Silvester, PhD; William H. Steier, PhD

Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering Practice: Edward W. Maby, PhD

Emeritus Instructor: Sidney A. Wielin, BS

Research Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Sanjit Mitra, PhD

Joint Faculty

Joint Professors: Andrea M. Armani, PhD (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science); Ramesh Govindan, PhD (Computer Science); Ellis Horowitz, PhD (Computer Science); Behnam Jafarpour, PhD (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science); Gianluca Lazzi, PhD (Keck Ophthamology); Yan Liu, PhD (Computer Science); Jia Grace Lu, PhD (Physics); Anupam Madhukar, PhD (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science); Ellis Meng, PhD (Biomedical Engineering); Ulrich Neumann, PhD (Computer Science); Ramakant Nevatia, PhD (Computer Science); Suvrajeet Sen, PhD (Industrial and Systems Engineering); Cyrus Shahabi, PhD (Computer Science); Gaurav Sukhatme, PhD (Computer Science); Paul Thompson, PhD (Ophthalmology); Arthur Toga, PhD (Ophthalmology); Francisco Valero-Cuevas, PhD (Biomedical Engineering); Curt F. Wittig, PhD (Chemistry, Physics); Stanley M. Yamashiro, PhD (Biomedical Engineering)

Joint Associate Professors: Barath Raghavan, PhD (Computer Science); Ketan Savla, PhD (Civil and Environmental Engineering); Yonggang Shi, PhD (Neurology)

Joint Assistant Professors: Eli Levenson-Falk, PhD; Jayakanth Ravichandran, PhD (Chemical Engineering and Materials Science); Meisam Razaviyayn, PhD (Industrial and Systems Engineering); Jongseung Yoon, PhD (Chemical Engineering, Materials Science)

Joint Research Assistant Professor: Mohammad Rostami, PhD (CS)

Joint Emeritus Professors: Michael Arbib, PhD (Computer Science, Neurobiology, Biomedical Engineering); George A. Bekey, PhD (Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering); Aristides Requicha, PhD (Computer Science)

*Recipient of university-wide or school teaching award.

Electrical Engineering Honor Society: Eta Kappa Nu

Degree Requirements

Undergraduate Program Educational Objectives

The electrical and computer engineering program objectives are designed to promote technical competence, professional development and citizenship in the global community. Graduates of the undergraduate program in electrical and computer engineering are expected to attain the following objectives within a few years of graduation:

Technical Competence

Graduates will apply their technical skills in mathematics, science and engineering to the solution of complex problems encountered in modern electrical and computer engineering practice.

Graduates will model, analyze, design and experimentally evaluate components or systems that achieve desired technical specifications subject to the reality of economic constraints.

Professional Development

Graduates will compete effectively in a world of rapid technological change and assume leadership roles within industrial, entrepreneurial, academic or governmental environments in the broad context of electrical and computer engineering.

Some graduates who choose to redirect their careers will be employed in diverse fields such as healthcare, business, law, computer science, multimedia and music through graduate-level studies and the process of lifelong learning.

Citizenship in the Global Community

Graduates will have established the foundations for critical thinking that are needed to broaden or redirect their careers in diverse disciplines such as business, health care and the arts through graduate-level studies and/or the process of life-long leaning.

Graduates will adhere to highly ethical practices, and they will make exemplary engineering decisions that balance economic, environmental and societal factors for the betterment of the global community.

Undergraduate Program Criteria

The program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering provides both breadth and depth across the range of engineering topics implied by the title. The curriculum includes probability and statistics, including appropriate applications; mathematics through differential and integral calculus, and advanced mathematics, such as differential equations, linear algebra, complex variables and discrete mathematics; sciences (defined as biological, chemical or physical science); and engineering topics (including computing science) necessary to analyze and design complex electrical and electronic devices, software and systems containing hardware and software components.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and Computer Science

See the listing under Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science .

Master of Science in Computer Engineering

See the listing under Computer Engineering Program .

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Engineering

See the listing under Computer Engineering Program .

Minor in Music Recording

A minor in music recording is offered through the USC Thornton School of Music to provide undergraduate students with the background necessary to enter the field of recording engineering and to familiarize them with the design needs of modern recording equipment. The minor is recommended to electrical and computer engineering majors with extensive musical training who would like to combine their technical and musical abilities while learning the engineering applications of physical and mathematical principles to the art of music recording. See the listing under the USC Thornton School of Music .

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (Electric Power)

See listing in the Sustainable Infrastructure Systems Program  section.

Master of Science in Systems Architecting and Engineering

See the listing under Systems Architecting and Engineering Program .

Financial Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering Building 100
(213) 740-4447
FAX: (213) 740-4449
Email: studentinfo@ee.usc.edu
Faculty Contact: Professor Petros Ioannou, ioannou@usc.edu

Second Master’s Degree

A graduate student who already holds a master’s degree from USC may apply up to 4 units toward a second master’s degree with the permission of the chair of the major department. All credit, including the transferred units, must be earned within seven calendar years.

For students who earned their first master’s degree at another institution, no course work may be repeated from the first program of study and no unit credit from the first program of study may be counted toward the second master’s degree.

Engineer in Electrical Engineering

Requirements for the Engineer in Electrical Engineering are the same as those listed under Engineer degree, except that both areas of concentration must be in electrical and computer engineering.

Programs

Bachelor’s Degree

• •  Electrical and Computer Engineering (BS)

Minor

• •  Internet of Things Engineering Minor

Master’s Degree

• •  Applied Physics (MS)
• •  Computer Engineering (MS)
• •  Electrical and Computer Engineering (Analog, Mixed-Signal and Radio-frequency Integrated Circuits) (MS)
• •  Electrical and Computer Engineering (Hardware Systems for Machine Learning) (MS)
• •  Electrical and Computer Engineering (Machine Learning and Data Science) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (Computer Architecture) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (Computer Networks) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (Electric Power) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (VLSI Design) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering (Wireless Networks) (MS)
• •  Electrical Engineering/Engineering Management (MS)
• •  Financial Engineering (MS)
• •  Quantum Information Science (MS)

Graduate Certificate

• •  Technology for National Security Graduate Certificate

Doctoral Degree

• •  Computer Engineering (PhD)
• •  Electrical Engineering (PhD)

Courses

Electrical Engineering

• •  EE 549 Nanotechnology for Materials, Electronics, and Circuits
• •  EE 550 Data Networks: Design and Analysis
• •  EE 551 Principles of Radar
• •  EE 552 Asynchronous VLSI Design
• •  EE 553 Computational Solution of Optimization Problems
• •  EE 554 Cyber-Physical Systems: A Computing Perspective
• •  EE 555 Broadband Network Architectures
• •  EE 556 Stochastic Systems and Reinforcement Learning
• •  EE 557 Computer Systems Architecture
• •  EE 558 Optical Fiber Communication Systems
• •  EE 559 Machine Learning I: Supervised Methods
• •  EE 560L Digital System Design
• •  EE 561 Foundations of Artificial Intelligence
• •  EE 562 Random Processes in Engineering
• •  EE 563 Inference and Estimation: Theory and Algorithms
• •  EE 564 Digital Communication and Coding Systems
• •  EE 565 Information Theory and Its Application to (Big) Data Sciences
• •  EE 566 Optical Information Processing
• •  EE 567 Communication Systems
• •  EE 568 Parallel Programming
• •  EE 569 Introduction to Digital Image Processing
• •  EE 570a Advanced Electromagnetic Theory
• •  EE 570b Advanced Electromagnetic Theory
• •  EE 571 Wave Interactions with Random and Inhomogeneous Media
• •  EE 572L Electromagnetic Wave Engineering
• •  EE 573a Antenna Systems Engineering
• •  EE 573b Antenna Systems Engineering
• •  EE 574 Computer Vision
• •  EE 575 Computational Differential Geometry for Engineers
• •  EE 576 Integrated Memory Devices and Technologies
• •  EE 577a VLSI System Design
• •  EE 577b VLSI System Design
• •  EE 578 Computational Electromagnetics for Engineers
• •  EE 580 System Verification
• •  EE 581 Mathematical Foundations for System Design: Modeling, Analysis, and Synthesis
• •  EE 582 CMOS:Nano Neuromorphic Circuits
• •  EE 583 Statistical Signal Processing
• •  EE 584 Chaotic Systems
• •  EE 585 Linear System Theory
• •  EE 586L Advanced DSP Design Laboratory
• •  EE 587 Nonlinear Control Systems
• •  EE 588 Optimization for the Information and Data Sciences
• •  EE 589 Quantum Information Theory
• •  EE 590 Directed Research
• •  EE 591 Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Reconstruction
• •  EE 592 Computational Methods for Inverse Problems
• •  EE 593 Robust Multivariable Control
• •  EE 594a Master’s Thesis
• •  EE 594b Master’s Thesis
• •  EE 594z Master’s Thesis
• •  EE 595 Software Design and Optimization
• •  EE 596 Wavelets and Graphs for Signal Processing and Machine Learning
• •  EE 597 Wireless Networks
• •  EE 598 Electrical Engineering Research Seminar
• •  EE 599 Special Topics
• •  EE 601 Advanced Semiconductor Device Physics
• •  EE 603 System Identification
• •  EE 604 Computational Methods in Applied Physics
• •  EE 607 Microelectromechanical Systems
• •  EE 608 Wearable Technology
• •  EE 610 Learning and Control of Safety-Critical Robotic Systems
• •  EE 612 Science and Practice of Nanotechnology
• •  EE 613 Quantum Optimization Algorithms
• •  EE 619 Advanced Topics in Automatic Speech Recognition
• •  EE 626 Survey of Energy and Power for a Sustainable Future
• •  EE 631 Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits
• •  EE 632a Integrated Communication Systems
• •  EE 632b Integrated Communication Systems
• •  EE 635 Advanced Wireless Communications: Towards 6G
• •  EE 637L Current and Future Computing Devices and Technology
• •  EE 638 Application of Machine Learning in the Real World
• •  EE 641 Deep Learning Systems
• •  EE 642 Advanced Geometrical Optics
• •  EE 645 Uncertainty Modeling and Stochastic Optimization
• •  EE 648 Game Theory with Engineering Applications
• •  EE 649 Stochastic Network Optimization and Adaptive Learning
• •  EE 650 Advanced Topics in Computer Networks
• •  EE 653 Advanced Topics in Microarchitecture
• •  EE 657 Parallel and Distributed Computing
• •  EE 658 Diagnosis and Design of Reliable Digital Systems
• •  EE 659 Advanced Topics in Interconnection Network Design and Analysis
• •  EE 660 Machine Learning II: Mathematical Foundations and Methods
• •  EE 664 Advanced Topics in Communication Theory
• •  EE 665 Advanced Topics in Information Theory
• •  EE 669 Multimedia Data Compression
• •  EE 674a Advanced Topics in Computer Vision
• •  EE 674b Advanced Topics in Computer Vision
• •  EE 675 Data Analysis and Control Techniques for Neurotechnology Design
• •  EE 676 Advanced Computer Vision
• •  EE 677 Accelerated Computing using Field Programmable Gate Arrays
• •  EE 680 Computer-Aided Design of Digital Systems
• •  EE 682 Law and Intellectual Property for Engineers
• •  EE 689 Computational Intelligence and Neural Learning
• •  EE 690 Directed Research
• •  EE 698 Doctoral Seminar Series
• •  EE 790 Research
• •  EE 794a Doctoral Dissertation
• •  EE 794b Doctoral Dissertation
• •  EE 794c Doctoral Dissertation
• •  EE 794d Doctoral Dissertation