Staff and Location

Faculty Director Prof. Christopher Batten, 323 Rhodes Hall (cb535)
Admin. Assistant Daniel Richter, 314 Rhodes Hall (tdr27)
Teaching
Assistants
Patrick Cao, ECE Sophomore (pxc2)
Olivia Gustafson, ECE Senior (org5)
Victoria Hu, BEE Sophomore (vh66)
Laura Johnson, ECE Ph.D. (laj64)
Christopher Torng, ECE Ph.D. (clt67)
Jon Tse, ECE Ph.D. (jdt76)
Staff Email curie2014-staff csl cornell edu
Lab Space 237/239 Phillips Hall
Lecture Room 219 Phillips Hall (used for short introductory lectures)

Faculty Director Bio

The director for the CURIE Academy in 2014 was Prof. Christopher Batten. Prof. Batten is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and a graduate field member of computer science at Cornell University. His research and teaching is in the field of computer architecture: the principle and practice of improving the performance, efficiency, reliability, and programmability of future computer systems. This highly interdisciplinary field stretches from circuits to operating systems with a focus at the hardware/software interface. Prof. Batten's research has been recognized with several awards including an Intel Early Career Faculty Honor Program award (2013), an NSF CAREER award (2012), a DARPA Young Faculty Award (2012), and an IEEE Micro Top Picks selection (2004). His teaching has been recognized with a Michael Tien '72 Excellence in Teaching Award (2013) and a James M. and Marsha D. McCormick Award for Outstanding Advising of First-Year Engineering Students (2013).

Objectives

The CURIE Academy is a one-week summer residential program for high school. CURIE scholars spend their mornings learning about the various fields within engineering, and spend their afternoons working on a design project. The morning sessions are meant to provide breadth across engineering disciplines while the afternoon design project is meant to provide depth in a single engineering discipline. The design project can help scholars evaluate whether or not they are interested in pursuing a career in engineering. By the end of this course, students should be able to:

Preqrequisites

Scholars were expected to have a strong background in math and science, enjoy solving problems, and want to learn more about careers in engineering. Scholars were not expected to have any prior experience with computer engineering; we taught scholars everything they needed to know to succeed in their design project!

Format and Procedures

The week-long design experience included a combination of assigned readings, short introductory lectures, structured lab sessions, an open-ended design project, and a final presentation.