Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Two ECpE Students Receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

 

Contact:
Dana Schmidt, communications specialist, (515) 294-3071, schmidtdiastate.edu

Ames, Iowa—The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded two fellowships to students from the Iowa State University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Kristin Pudenz and Mike Steffen. The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program funds three years of study—up to $121,500—in master’s or doctoral degrees focusing on research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This year, 913 students nationwide received fellowship awards.

Pudenz, a senior in computer engineering, will graduate in May 2008. She will use the fellowship to research quantum mechanical systems and principles to create a fundamentally different type of computer. She hopes to explore the field of quantum computing, contributing to efforts to find out how to build computers based on quantum mechanical systems, which will process information in a fundamentally different way than today’s computers. Pudenz, a native of Lincoln, Nebraska, plans to attend the University of Southern California for her graduate degree.

“I feel very honored to be considered worthy of such generous support and am determined to do work that is a credit to the fellowship program,” Pudenz says. “The fellowship will make it possible for me to do the exact research I want to.”

Steffen, from Springfield, Illinois, is currently pursuing his doctorate in computer engineering. He plans to continue his research in computer graphics architecture. His focus is on developing architectures to improve the performance of ray-tracing, which is one rendering method used for photo-realistic rendering. During his time as an undergraduate at Valparaiso University, he aided in the development of a program allowing the user to control remote equipment in a 3-D stereo-vision virtual environment. From his research lab in Valparaiso, Steffen performed basic move commands on a vehicle located in Japan.

“My goal for my research in computer graphics architecture is to make contributions and improve the realism of real-time computer graphics by moving away from current rendering methods,” Steffen says.

The purpose of the NSF fellowship program is to guarantee the capability of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States. NSF identifies and supports exceptional graduate students in the appropriate disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees.

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