Research

Collaborative and Interdisciplinary Research

The Electrical and Computer Engineering department nourishes a vibrant research environment motivated by our dedicated faculty and graduate students. Our research programs are funded by many government agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Homeland Security, and numerous local and national industries.

Research activities at the ECE Department can be classified by research areas and by research centers and institutes. The department offers eight research areas of focus and is either the lead or partner of nine research centers and institutes.

Faculty also conduct research in their labs. View faculty profiles to learn about their research, including work being conducted in their laboratories. Also, view our Annual Reports and college-wide research efforts.

Quick Facts

$52M

external research awards (FY2024)

tenured/tenure-track faculty

12+

research centers and institutes (leading or affiliated with)

Research Strengths

Our research strengths encompass the full gamut of cutting-edge ECE technologies: embedded systems and internet-of-things, robotics and cyber-human systems, networking (mobile/wireless as well as the Internet of the future), big data analytics and machine learning. Northeastern’s historic strengths in ECE include communications and digital signal processing, power and control systems, power electronics, RF/microwave magnetic materials, device technologies, and computer engineering.

Biomedical Research and Collaborations

Northeastern ECE faculty are engaged in a range of biomedical projects in collaboration with fellow world-class researchers in the Boston-area medical community. These projects span all disciplinary areas and include MEMS/NEMS sensors for biological detection; applications of wireless technology in biomedical implants; biomedical imaging hardware and signal processing; brain-computer interface technologies; disease detection and tracking; and many more.

Recent News

More News

Faculty

2026 Stanford University Annual Assessment of Author Citations

The following COE professors are among the top scientists worldwide selected by Stanford University representing the top 2% of the most-cited scientists with single-year impact in various disciplines.

Faculty

Leeser Wins Outstanding Paper Award at IEEE HPEC

ECE Professor Miriam Leeser co-authored “LatencyLab: A DPDK-Based P4 Pipeline Latency Measurement Framework for FPGA SmartNICs,” which won the Outstanding Paper Award at the 30th Annual IEEE High Performance Extreme Computing Virtual Conference.

Alumni

Sternad and Krotov Win Best Conference Paper Award at BioRob 2026 for Whip Control Study

COS/ECE University Distinguished Professor Dagmar Sternad and Aleksi Krotov, MS’20, PhD’26, bioengineering, won the Best Conference Paper Award (Second Place) at the IEEE RAS/EMBS 11th International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob 2026) in Edmonton, Canada for their paper “Hitting a target with a whip: The center of mass as a simplified internal model to control the whip,” which will be published in IEEE Transactions in Medical Robotics and Bionics.

Faculty

Northeastern to Host NANOscientific Symposium Americas 2026

Northeastern University will serve as the host site for the NANOscientific Symposium Americas (NSS Americas) 2026, a hybrid event bringing together researchers, instrumentation experts, and industry partners to explore the latest developments in nanoscale discovery. The symposium runs September 29 at EXP, Northeastern University in Boston, with hands-on tool training following on September 30 at Northeastern’s Innovation Campus in Burlington, MA.