Four ECEE students earn major National Science Foundation research fellowships
Four students from the Department of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering at Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder have been recognized with 2026 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) awards.Ìý
Jacob Stewart, Zoe Worrall, Camille Williams and Raymond Anchordoquy are recipients of the 2026 research fellowships, which supports outstanding graduate students from across the country in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields who are pursuing research-based graduate degrees.
Each will receive three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $37,000, as well as professional development and research opportunities.Ìý
Learn more about their research belowÌýÌý
Jacob Stewart
1st Year PhD Student
Advisor:Yide Zhang
Lab:
Undergraduate Institution/Major: Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder, Electrical Engineering
My research focuses on pushing quantum imaging out of the lab towards real-world applications. Quantum imaging (QI) uses quantum-entangled photons to image objects. QI methods have demonstrated imaging at classically impossible noise levels, transferred images from one wavelength to another, and achieved resolutions beyond the diffraction limit. While these methods have shown unique and powerful imaging properties, they can be impractically slow, sometimes taking days to achieve high-quality images. My research aims to make QI faster, ideally real-time. This speed will allow us to use QI as a practical tool in biomedical imaging, enabling us to capture enhanced images of delicate living samples.
Zoe Worrall
1st Year PhD Student
Advisor: Nicole Bienert
Lab: Ìý
Undergraduate Institution/Major: Harvey Mudd College, Engineering
My research is focused on understanding the water content of trees using radio waves. Water stress in trees is a common indicator of fire risk. Increasing temperatures across the Western United States and increased frequency of wildfire requires the development of more accurate wildfire predictions. My research, which will improve tree hydrologic models, will provide key insights into wildfire behavior. Current tree hydrology studies use probes or satellite data, but these techniques place time or spatial constraints on data.ÌýIÌýplan to mitigate these constraints by collecting data using drone-mounted field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Similar to how light changes its color and intensity when it reflects off surfaces of varying materials and roughness, radio waves scatter and propagate depending on tree geometry and volumetric water content. By aggregating radio wave scattering data from multiple angles, we can construct a more accurate hydrologic model of tree water. My work extends the capabilities of the platform, which will provide fields ranging from civil engineering to ecology to geophysics, with a simple multi-static radar. This project is possible in part because of the multidisciplinary swathe of experts in radio engineering and earth sciences offered at Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder.
Camille Williams
1st Year PhD Student
Advisor:Zoya Popovic
Lab:Microwave and RF Research GroupÌý
Undergraduate Institution/Majors: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Physics & Mathematical Sciences
My research will address techniques for design and multiphysics modeling of efficient multi-mode kW-level cavities for microwave heating of various materials to high temperatures above a couple hundred to thousand degrees Celsius. Microwave heating has been demonstrated to be significantly faster and more energy efficient than traditional processing methods, providing an electrical route to decarbonization of industrial heating. Applications of microwave heating include sintering of ceramics, waste-to-fuel conversion, processing of food and cement, and more. As an extension of the design, I will investigate diagnostics techniques including IR imaging for measuring surface temperatures and microwave thermometry to reconstruct internal temperatures of the heated objects.
Raymond Anchordoquy
Incoming PhD student
Advisors: Michael Schneider (NIST)
Labs: Spin electronics group (NIST)
Undergraduate Institution/Major: Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder, Physics
My research will focus on the application of high-speed superconducting electronics to neuromorphic computing. While classical computers based on the von Neumann architecture face scaling difficulties due to their physical separation of computation from memory, a neuromorphic computer takes inspiration from biological brains in the hope of achieving much higher throughput, scalability, and efficiency. Superconducting electronics are a near-ideal platform for neuromorphic computing, as superconducting circuits can operate nonlinearly at high speeds while consuming very little energy. By working towards a scalable spiking neuromorphic architecture mimicking the rich dynamics of biological brains, this research aims to ultimately support the development of the next generation of computers for machine learning and other resource-intensive tasks.
