The Department of Electrical Engineering has 22 regular faculty and 2 Industry Professors. The undergraduate electrical engineering and computer engineering enrollment is more than 30% of the undergraduate student body at Polytechnic. The program leading to the Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering is offered jointly by the electrical engineering and computer and information science departments with electrical engineering having primary responsibility for its administration.

The high quality and prestige of the electrical engineering department is widely recognized. The evidence of this recognition are its Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) and the numerous prizes and awards won by its faculty in recent years, including the IEEE 1984 Education Medal. For the past several years the Gourman report ranked the undergraduate electrical engineering program twelvth in the nation. In the East, this program ranks fourth behind MIT, Cornell, and Princeton.

The electrical engineering department has had a great impact on engineering education over the years through the textbooks written by its faculty. Some of those texts have been translated into several languages. Several professors have edited or contributed to texts or monographs.

The research activities of the faculty are aided by more than .5 million per year in research grants and contracts. Much of this research is coordinated in the Weber Research Institute (formerly Microwave Research Institute), and the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications. Many outstanding students participate in faculty research programs as upperclassmen or qualify for the honors program, which leads to the combined BS/MS degree.