The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science offers two graduate degree programs in Electrical Engineering: the Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Electrical Engineering.
All graduate students must take the following courses or their equivalent: EECE 501, EECE 502, EECE 503, EECE 604 and EECE 541.
See Graduate Handbook for more information.
A detailed description of the graduate degree programs follows.
The Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering involves (i) 24 credit hours of study and 6 credit hours for the thesis option or (ii) 33 credit hours of study and comprehensive examinations in at least two graduate courses taken in the student's area of concentration for the non-thesis option. On the master's level, major areas of study and research are solid-state electronics, control engineering, power systems, antennas, microwaves and communications, and signal processing. These credit hours must include the courses listed below or their equivalent.
The remaining courses must be selected from the elective options of the various areas of specialization.
Students choosing to write a thesis must complete a minimum of 30 credit hours, of which 24 credit hours must be in graduate or approved undergraduate courses in electrical and computer engineering or related fields and 6 credit hours in thesis research.
For the non-thesis option, students must complete a minimum of 33 credit hours of course work and comprehensive examinations in at least two graduate courses taken in the student's area of concentration for the non-thesis option. These students must pass a comprehensive examination after successfully completing 24 credit hours of course work with a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0.
Candidates for the Ph.D. degree must complete a minimum of 72 credit hours beyond the baccalaureate, of which a minimum of 60 credit hours must be spent in course work and 12 credit hours in dissertation work. The 60 credit hours must include the following courses or their equivalent:
The remaining credit hours are to be selected from the elective options for the various areas of specialization, in consultation with the student’s advisor and in accordance with individual needs and interests.
Candidates must receive a passing grade on a comprehensive examination and also demonstrate communication skills in English via Expository Writing.
Students with no previous graduate work experience may be required to complete the academic requirements for the master’s program during the first 30 semester hours in the doctoral program.
Each doctoral candidate must pass a written and oral qualifying or comprehensive examination, administered and supervised by the department. This examination must be taken at any time during the student’s first 48 semester hours of relevant course work beyond the bachelor’s degree credited towards the Ph.D. with the permission of the Graduate Program Committee. This examination is given only once each semester.
The Graduate Committee may pass one of the following resolutions regarding the student’s performance on the qualifying exam:
Pass: The student may proceed to complete the other requirement for the Ph.D.
Pass with Stipulations: The student has passed a majority of the areas covered in the examination but in lieu of reexamination in certain area(s), the student will be required to complete additional specified course(s) (at the earliest opportunity) with a required minimum grade.
Reexamination: The student must take a reexamination to be given the following semester. The Committee may request the student to strengthen their knowledge in a specific area and then
take a reexamination in that area, or the student may be asked to take the entire examination again. Any student who fails the qualifying examination twice will be automatically dropped from the Ph.D. program.
Termination: The student is not eligible to work towards the Ph.D. but may complete work for a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering. If the candidate already holds a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, it will be recommended that the student terminate graduate studies in the department.
For specialization in electrical engineering in different areas, elective options include the following courses, upon approval of one’s advisor:
Recent Computer Science Ph.D. graduates Abdulhamid Adebayo (far right) and Ronald Doku (second to the right) joined tech giants IBM Research and Oracle as researchers in cybersecurity and data science. Dr. Adebayo joined IBM Research as Hybrid Cloud Security Researcher and Dr. Doku joined Oracle, Inc. as Data Scientist. Both were graduate research assistants and advisees of Danda B. Rawat, Ph.D., Computer Science Professor and Director of Howard University’s Data Science & Cybersecurity Center (DSC2). Read More >>
Electrical Engineering Lecturer Fadel Lashhab, Ph.D. recently received the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International IoT, Electronics and Mechatronics (IEMTRONICS) Best Paper Award in the Mechatronics track for his paper titled “Estimation of Dynamic Laplacian Eigenvalues in Dynamic Consensus Networks”. Read More >>
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