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Creating technological advances that improve everyday life and change the world for the better—that’s what drives us in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Our world-class faculty members continually produce groundbreaking research in the areas of power and energy, computer architectures, embedded systems, micro/nano scale devices and materials, signal processing, machine learning and computational electromagnetics. We help students chart lucrative, satisfying career paths in industry, academia and government.

$21 Average hourly co-op salary

100% Job placement three months after graduation

80% Students with degree-relevant job experience before graduation

$77K Average starting salary (NACE Summer 2023) Previous

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ECE Senior Capstone Design

In these courses, teams of 4-6 students work together to integrate their engineering knowledge to design and produce prototypes for real-world projects provided by faculty, industry, non-profit organizations, and other project partners.

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ECE Department News

The SPARK Lab within PEIK Marks its 10th Anniversary

PEIK Institute

Apr 9, 2026

This semester, the SPARK Lab celebrates its 10th anniversary. The group was established by Dan M. Ionel, PhD, IEEE Fellow, shortly after starting at UK as ECE Professor and the inaugural L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and welcomed its first postdoctoral researcher and PhD student in early 2016.

SPARK and PEIK Recently Graduated and Ongoing NSF Graduate Research Fellows

PEIK Institute

Apr 2, 2026

This semester yet another generational transition of electrical engineering (EE) PhD students takes place in the SPARK Lab, which is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) at the University of Kentucky (UK) Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.

21 Pigman College of Engineering researchers among top 2% of world’s most-cited

Mar 3, 2026

The University of Kentucky is well-represented on a list of the most-cited researchers in the world. In a database compiled by Stanford University in a partnership with Elsevier, 125 current UK scientists and scholars appear among the top 2% of the most-cited researchers across 22 disciplines. Of those 125 scientists and scholars, 21 are UK Pigman College of Engineering faculty.

Lau named IEEE Fellow

Jan 15, 2026

Daniel L. Lau, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the UK Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, has been named a 2026 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow, for his contributions to digital printing and 3D imaging.

UK students and faculty gather in Norway to prepare their payload for NASA’s GHOST mission. From left: Alexander Barrera, Eric Adams, Carson Brown, Cannon Shields, Savio Poovathingal and Alexandre Martin. UK students and faculty gather in Norway to prepare their payload for NASA’s GHOST mission. From left: Alexander Barrera, Eric Adams, Carson Brown, Cannon Shields, Savio Poovathingal and Alexandre Martin.

Kentucky dream takes flight: UK joins NASA on Arctic space mission

Jenny Wells-Hosley

Nov 13, 2025

A team of students and faculty from the University of Kentucky Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering will make history in Norway, launching a UK-developed payload as part of NASA’s GHOST spaceflight mission.

2026 Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Scholars announced

Nov 3, 2025

Thanks to the generous support of Stanley and Karen Pigman and Kentucky’s Research Challenge Trust Fund (RCTF), engineering researchers are receiving additional annual funding to enhance the research priorities and programs of the Pigman College of Engineering. Established in 2024, the Lighthouse Beacon Foundation Endowment supports faculty, research, graduate students, facilities and research infrastructure in the Pigman College of Engineering. This year, the endowment made $235,000 in funds available for distribution.

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