The strategic plan of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science includes four initiatives, two focused on academics and two that would establish research centers focused on finding solutions to specific issues.

The first initiative, Engineering the Future: Expanding and Balancing Graduate Programs, is designed to bring a balance between foreign and U.S. citizens entering our graduate programs while significantly increasing the number of well-prepared graduates, including U.S. citizens from underrepresented groups, who complete graduate programs, especially doctoral programs, in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science.

The proposed Student-Centered Experience—Enhanced Education Initiative is in line with the current transformation in higher education. There is a paradigm shift from a teacher-centered instruction paradigm to a student-centered learning paradigm. It is also recognized that there is a greater diversity among students today. The initiative will support activities that empower students to achieve self-learning, enable asynchronous education and learning, facilitate guided-discovery knowledge, encourage active learning, and promote problem solving based learning.

Of the two research centers to be established by these initiatives, the mission of the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems (CINS) is to make our world safer, smarter and healthier using intelligent, networked systems. Approach:Integrated system involving the deployment of various types of sensors, collection of sensor data via robust and secure wireless networks, fusion of sensor data with other networked data sources, mining this information for patterns, and using artificial intelligence to predict future behavior, detect anomalies and make decisions about the environment.

The second proposed research center, the Center for Reliable and Renewable Electricity (CeRRE), would develop an efficient, reliable and environmentally responsible electric power grid. The approach includes development and incorporation of new transmission and distribution technologies aimed at bulk introduction of unconventional power generation facilities such as wind generation into the electric power grid; techniques for intelligent monitoring and control of the power grid using wide-area communication networks for uninterrupted servicing of the system in spite of adverse operating environments.