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Electrical and Computer Engineering 
Eric Rotenberg

About: RA, I/S, TA

This information is for students with inquiries about RA, I/S, and/or TA opportunities.

  • Discussion: If you want to discuss research (my projects, your interests, etc.), come see me in my office hours. My office hours for the Spring 2024 semester are: Monday and Tuesday, 1pm – 2pm, EB2 2004D (I also have a Zoom link, available upon request).
  • RA: I don’t have any open positions at this time for either M.S. or Ph.D. students.
  • Independent Study (I/S) (ECE 633): I welcome talented students who took at least ECE 463/563 to pitch ideas for 3 credits of ECE 633. It is even better if the student took both ECE 463/563 and ECE 721, as my research uses the same infrastructure that you learn in ECE 721. I welcome projects in CPU microarchitecture, machine learning, quantum computing, and topics that bridge these areas. But I’m always interested and capable of discussing/advising any area of interest to you. Whether or not I’m available for ECE 633 depends on how interesting the proposed project is, my ability to devote adequate time to advising the student in a given semester, the student’s skill set and talents, and ease of collaboration.
  • MS thesis research (ECE 695): See “Independent Study (I/S)”, above. The same discussion applies to students interested in MS thesis research.
  • TA: Please see this linked document from ECE Associate Department Head Dr. Byrd on how the TA process works in ECE. Brief summary:
    • Priority goes to Ph.D. students who don’t currently have an RA appointment.
    • Regarding M.S. students: Faculty don’t hire TAs. They can only make recommendations, which are usually based on close interactions in courses, independent studies, and/or research. If I haven’t worked with you closely in any of these capacities, it’s unlikely I can recommend you for a TA position, or at least not with any strong conviction.
    • TA positions are likely tight, but sometimes extra hires are needed to cover courses that are otherwise not covered. You can apply for a TA in GradWatch (see the instructions in the linked document, above).
  • Read this before you ask to TA my upcoming class: I sometimes get requests to TA the course I am teaching in a particular semester. I am constrained by several factors. (1) As mentioned above, I don’t select and hire TAs for my course. It is the ECE administration that selects and hires TAs for my course. I can only make recommendations. (2) My highest priority is to recommend Ph.D. students who I am advising and who are not yet funded by RA appointments. I strive to have them work with me as TAs for my course, but even that is not guaranteed because ECE administration must cover all courses with the given TA pool. That said, if you ask to TA my course, you are generally competing with my Ph.D. advisees who have higher priority. (3) There is a conflict of interest if you ask to TA a graduate course that you plan to enroll in either the same semester or a future semester. Also, you are generally not qualified to be a TA for a graduate course until you have taken it yourself. So before asking, make sure you are eligible (no conflict of interest) and qualified (had the course already). Pure undergraduate courses (e.g., ECE 212) are a different matter.