Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering (MS, PhD)

Telephone: (302) 831-2406
http://www.ece.udel.edu/graduate/index.php
Faculty Listing: http://www.ece.udel.edu/people/faculty.php

Program Overview

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department offers programs leading to the degrees of Master of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Master of Science in Cybersecurity, and Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Active areas of research in electrical and computer engineering include cybersecurity, computer systems, network science, big data sciences, machine learning, computational imaging, bioengineering, clean energy, communications, signal processing and controls, computer and sensor networks, electromagnetics and photonics, and nanoelectronics materials and devices.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is housed in Evans Hall and DuPont Hall. The Department maintains excellent facilities for teaching and research, including the iSuite, which encompasses a Cybersecurity Range, maker space laboratory, and collaboration hub; and supercomputing and distributed computing systems, and class 10 and class 1000 clean rooms equipped for epitaxial crystal growth, semiconductor device fabrication, and nanofabrication. Additional laboratories are well-equipped for electronic, microwave, and optical measurements, signal and image capture and processing, computational imaging, millimeter and terahertz imaging, antenna, electromagnetics, high performance computing, communications studies, and biomedical signal capture and investigations. Complementing these facilities are government-funded major research centers supporting the focus areas, including the Institute for Energy Conversion, Center for Composite Materials, Nanotechnology Center, and the Delaware Biotechnology Institute.

The department and University have extensive computing facilities for research use, primarily based on Linux and some Solaris systems. Jointly with Computer Science, the department maintains approximately 200TB of redundant storage, several systems for rapid deployment of virtual machines, and a few general purpose computational and remote-access systems. The University maintains state of the art computational clusters to which ECE graduate students can gain access. Several computing laboratories are available with workstations, PCs, and a variety of software to support teaching and research with 24x7 access. Many labs contain specialized computing and networking equipment to aid research in specific areas.

Graduate students are expected to actively participate in research, including the development of presentations and publications detailing their research contributions.

Requirements for Admission - Masters and/or Doctoral Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering

The requirements for admission to the master’s and/or doctoral program in electrical and computer engineering are:

• Applicants normally will have a B.S. in electrical or computer engineering. However, admission may be granted to applicants with an undergraduate degree in another engineering or related field, such as math, physics, or computer science.
• All applicants are required to submit Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. The minimum GRE score required is 150 for the quantitative section and 300 for the combined verbal and quantitative sections.
• The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is required for students whose first language is not English and who have not received a degree from a college or university in which English is the sole language of instruction. The ECE department requires the following minimum scores:
  • TOEFL Paper-based test (PBT) the minimum requirement is 550 for admission and 600 to be considered for a teaching assistantship.
  • TOEFL Internet-based test (IBT) the minimum requirement is 79 for admission and 100 to be considered for a teaching assistantship. 
• An alternative to the TOEFL test is IELTS (International English Language Testing System). The minimum requirement is 6.5 for admission and 7.5 for a teaching assistantship.
• Applicants are expected to have an undergraduate grade-point average (GPA) in engineering, science, and mathematics courses of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. International students who have questions about converting their individual course grades to an overall U.S. equivalent GPA should contact the Graduate Admissions Office for further information.

Admission is selective and meeting the minimum requirements of the Department does not guarantee admission. The number and quality of other applicants as well as the availability of faculty supervision and laboratory space affect the number of students offered admission. The Department may find it appropriate to consider admitting an applicant who does not meet all of the admission requirements as stated if it is clear that other strengths identified in the applicant’s admission information outweigh the stated minimum requirements for admission.

Master of Science in Cybersecurity (MS)

The Master of Science in Cybersecurity program is administered through the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The Cybersecurity Master’s program is structured to enable professionals to gain advanced training in this field. Unlike other programs that are solely focused on IT security, this program emphasizes design of secure software and systems, security analytics, and secure business systems. It will train individuals that have a traditional background in engineering, computer science, information systems, or related fields to have strong security skills enabling them to develop new secure systems and/or software, to exploit analytics for security purposes, or to develop and manage secure business systems. Thus, graduates of this program will be skilled in the latest theories and practices required to address the most challenging cybersecurity issues facing the world today.

Requirements for Admission

The requirements for admission to the Master of Science in Cybersecurity are the following:

1. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited four-year college or university with a minimum grade point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 system.
2. Applicants must have undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, or related disciplines. Applicants with degrees in other disciplines may be admitted with provisional status and may be required to complete prerequisite courses that are deemed necessary for appropriate preparation for courses in the program.
3. All applicants must take the Graduate Record Examination. The following GRE scores are competitive:
   Quantitative: 150, Verbal + Quantitative: 300. No GRE subject test is required.
4. International applicants must demonstrate a satisfactory level of proficiency in the English language if English is not their first language. The University requires an official TOEFL score of at least 550 on paper-based, 213 on computer-based, or 79 on Internet-based tests. TOEFL scores more than two years old cannot be considered official. Alternatively, IELTS can be accepted in the place of the TOEFL. The minimum IELTS score is 6.5 overall with no individual speaking sub-score below 6.0.

Applications are accepted according to the standard University of Delaware deadlines. Admission to the graduate program is competitive. Those who meet the stated requirements are not guaranteed admission, and those who fail to meet all requirements are not necessarily precluded from admission if they offer other appropriate strengths.

Programs

• Cybersecurity (MS)
• Electrical and Computer Engineering - Non-Thesis (MS)
• Electrical and Computer Engineering - Thesis (MS)

• Electrical and Computer Engineering (PhD)

• Information Systems and Technology Management/Cybersecurity (MS)

• Cybersecurity Certificate

• Computer Engineering/Business Administration 4+1 (BCpE/MBA)
• Computer Engineering/Cybersecurity 4+1 (BCpE/MS)
• Computer Engineering/Electrical & Computer Engineering 4+1 (BCpE/MSECE)
• Computer Engineering/Materials Science and Engineering 4+1 (BCpE/MMSE)
• Electrical Engineering/Business Administration 4+1 (BEE/MBA)
• Electrical Engineering/Cybersecurity 4+1 (BEE/MS)
• Electrical Engineering/Electrical & Computer Engineering 4+1 (BEE/MSECE)
• Electrical Engineering/Materials Science and Engineering 4+1 (BEE/MMSE)