Impact Report

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Letter from the chair

Dear Alumni, Colleagues, and Friends,

It is with great enthusiasm that I share with you the 2024 Impact Report from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) at Iowa State University. This report is more than a summary of numbers; it’s a celebration of the incredible achievements and transformative impact our ECpE faculty, staff, students and alumni have had on the world this year.

Empowering Our Students to Lead

Our students are the heart of everything we do, and their passion for innovation and discovery inspires us daily. Over 2,100 students chose ECpE as their academic home this year, pursuing degrees in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, and Cybersecurity. Among them, 404 bright graduates walked across the stage, ready to make their mark as leaders, innovators and change-makers. From developing solutions for real-world problems to earning competitive internships and awards, our students continue to exemplify excellence and creativity.

Faculty Driving Innovation

Our faculty members are pioneers in their fields, and their work reflects a relentless commitment to advancing knowledge and solving society’s greatest challenges. This year, we celebrated groundbreaking research in cybersecurity, biomedical engineering and renewable energy integration. Highlights include:

Cheng Huang and Hugo Villegas Pico earned prestigious NSF CAREER awards, fueling innovation in power systems and wireless networks.

Namrata Vaswani was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her outstanding contributions to statistical machine learning.

The creation of a new cybersecurity center was led by Doug Jacobson, dedicated to protecting critical infrastructure, supported by impactful research collaborations and over $25 million in new funding.

Transformative Research with Real-World Impact

Our department continues to push the boundaries of possibility, leading efforts that address critical global needs. Notably, an ISU-led project was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to establish Iowa’s first rural microgrid, a milestone in advancing renewable energy integration. These efforts underscore our mission to pioneer

solutions that empower communities and industries.

Honoring Our Alumni and Community

Our alumni are a testament to the lasting impact of an ECpE education. This year, we proudly inducted the third class into the ECpE Hall of Fame, celebrating the extraordinary accomplishments of six leaders who embody the values of innovation, service and excellence. Through initiatives like CyMath, our faculty, staff and students continue to give back, fostering a culture of outreach and education that inspires future generations.

These accomplishments would not be possible without our dedicated and hardworking staff members whose mission is student and faculty success!

Looking Ahead with Optimism

As you explore the 2024 Impact Report, I hope you feel the pride, excitement and momentum that define ECpE at Iowa State University. From our students to our faculty, staff, and alumni, the collective achievements of this incredible community remind us that The Future Is What We Do – and the future is brighter than ever.

We continue to dream big, achieve more, and make a difference.

With warm regards and gratitude,

Ashfaq Khokar, Palmer Department Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering

ECpE by the numbers 2023-24

Honors and Awards

The U.S. Department of Energy invested $9.5 million into a project led by research professor Anne Kimber, Director of the Electric Power Research Center, and Northrop Grumman Associate Professor Zhaoyu Wang to build rural Iowa’s first microgrid.

The proposal would transform the generation and distribution of electricity in Montezuma, Iowa. The project will create a utility-scale microgrid to provide reliable, resilient and affordable electricity. The new system would feature power generation from solar panels and a battery storage system.

The project would also replace aging substations, load monitoring and control systems and provide the town with its first two electric vehicle chargers. It is expected to drop energy costs in Montezuma by an estimated 18%. It would also reduce costs for Montezuma Municipal Light & Power by an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

“This new microgrid will have immediate benefits for the community because it will provide a resilient power system with new technology that integrates renewable generation, and the project design can be replicated in other rural communities,” Kimber said.

Engineers build zero-trust, real-time cybersecurity tools to protect
the grid

The guardians of cyberinfrastructure call it “zero-trust architecture.”

“Whenever a high level of security is required, zero trust is required,” said Manimaran Govindarasu, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and the Murray J. and Ruth M. Harpole Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Verify all the time. Authenticate all the time, even though it is cumbersome. You can’t assume past authentication. You always need to verify. Every transaction. Every connection needs to be verified.”

Govindarasu is leading a research project that will apply zero-trust ideas to energy infrastructure that includes distributed energy resources such as solar and wind farms or large-scale energy storage systems.

Govindarasu’s team will use a three-year, nearly $2.6 million grant to develop zero-trust based cybersecurity algorithms and tools to reduce cyber exposure, improve real-time situational awareness, and mitigate attacks against grids integrated with renewable energy sources such as solar panels.

Iowa State collaborators on the project include Venkataramana Ajjarapu, Thomas M. Whitney Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering; Hugo Villegas Pico, Harpole-Pentair Assistant Professor of electrical and computer engineering; and research professor Anne Kimber, director of the Electric Power Research Center.