ECHO at Duke

History of the field:
Similarly to electrical engineering, before computers were ever physically constructed, the applied mathematics of computer science had been investigated by mathematicians such as Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage as far back as the early 1800s. Then, through the genius of Alan Turing, the first half of the 20th century saw the development of machines of monstrous size that could be fed instructions via patterns of holes on rolls of paper tape and performed calculations by shooting electrons through vacuum tubes. However, the invention of the transistor in 1947 allowed for the miniaturization of computer technology such that today most people walk around with more computing power in their pocket (smartphones) than NASA had when they put men on the moon. Computers not only changed the way scientists perform research, engineers design technologies, and entrepreneurs do business, but through inventions such as laptops, the internet, and machine learning techniques, computers have fundamentally and dramatically altered human society forever and are continuing to do so in novel and unpredictable ways.

Meet the ECHO executive board:
Natalie Rozman is the first president and one of three co-founders of the ECE College High school Opportunity at Duke! Natalie got her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from George Washington University where she discovered a love for applying the lessons she learned in the classroom to cutting edge research. Now, she's a second year ECE PhD student in Dr. Willie Padilla's lab where she performs research in the development metamaterial biosensors that can detect diseases such as Ebola. She decided to pursue this field of research for her PhD because it combines her passions for global health, medicine, and electromagnetic theory into one fascinating project.

ECHO at Duke is an exciting new program organized by graduate students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) to showcase this field of STEM to North Carolina high school students currently gearing up to apply to college! Applications to this FREE, week long summer day camp are open now! Contact us or visit our website for more information: https://sites.google.com/view/echoatduke/home?authuser=0