2020 COE Faculty & TA Awards

The senior class in each undergraduate degree program in UCSB’s College of Engineering selects an outstanding faculty member and teaching assistant (TA) every year

photo of award recipients

COE Outstanding CE Faculty 2020
For the second year in a row, graduating seniors have selected Yogananda Isukapalli for the Outstanding Computer Engineering Faculty Award. Isukapalli joined UCSB’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department as a tenure-track teaching professor in winter 2017, after several years working as a staff scientist in the Wi-Fi division at Broadcom, a semiconductor manufacturing company. At UCSB, his primary role is running the undergraduate capstone program for computer engineering, which focuses on developing students into professionals by pairing them with industry or academic experts to create an engineered solution for real problems. This year, the topics of capstone projects ranged from blood sensors that detected coagulation, to an autonomous drone to keep elephants away from humans, and using cell-tower signal information to improve localization.

Read the full article to see the award Isukapalli's response to the three questions below including words of wisdom the has for the class of 2020:

1. What does it mean to you to receive the outstanding faculty award from the Class of 2020?
2. How do you go about trying to positively impact your undergraduate students?
3. Because of COVID-19, the last quarter at UCSB has been anything but normal for you and the undergraduate Class of 2020. What uplifting message and words of wisdom do you have for them?

COE News – "COE Announces 2020 Outstanding Faculty Award Winners" (full article)

COE Outstanding CE Teaching Assistant 2020
Ryan Kirkpatrick
 is nearing the completion of UCSB’s five-year Bachelor of Science (BS)/Master of Science (BS/MS) Degree Program. After earning his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering (CE) last spring with a 3.93 GPA, he will complete his master’s in electrical and computer engineering (ECE) later this summer. Advised by Professor Li-C Wang, Kirkpatrick is a member of Wang’s Intelligent Engineering Assistant (IEA) Lab. The lab focuses on applying data analytics and machine learning to design and test automation. 

Kirkpatrick began working as a TA in fall 2019, his first quarter as a graduate student. Nine months later, graduating seniors selected Kirkpatrick for the ECE Department’s Outstanding TA Award for 2020. During his time at UCSB, Kirkpatrick says numerous classmates and faculty have influenced and inspired him to succeed and grow. He is proud to have paid it forward to his students.

COE News – "COE Announces 2020 Outstanding Teaching Assistants" (full article)