EE major Cameron Philo received “Best Green Innovation” at the 2017 Bob Mark Elevator Pitch Competition held Saturday in the Van Pelt and Opie Library.
Philo was selected for his “3D Windmill,” a unique compact windmill design to bring electricity to underdeveloped regions. Along with the $250 cash prize, Philo will join the other 10 award recipients in Silicon Valley during Spring Break 2018.
For a complete list of prize winners see Tech Today.
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering announced its award recipients for 2016-2017 at the Annual ECE Graduate Student Banquet held on September 25. Aref Majdara received the Jonathan Bara Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant and Navid Gandji received the Matt Wolfe Award for Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant.
Dr. Glen Archer, ECE associate chair and TA supervisor said in his nomination “Aref is one of those rare students who seems to excel at everything you ask him to do. He has worked as a TA for several years in a variety of different courses and received praise from the students in every case.” Archer stated that Aref’s performance in the Circuits lab “revealed a quiet patience that motivates students to perform at their best” and in the more difficult to staff labs such as Microcontroller, Embedded System Engineering, and Signal Processing, “Aref accepted these challenges in the same way he faces everything, with purposeful resolve and a relentless pursuit of excellence”. Mr. Majdara’s PhD advisor is Prof. Saeid Nooshabadi.
Dr. Elena Semouchkina, ECE associate professor and PhD advisor stated in her nomination for outstanding GRA, “Navid Gandji’s research features two important aspects: (1) novelty at the frontiers of engineering physics and (2) addressing vital societal needs. Navid’s work is in a very competitive field of artificial materials, including photonic crystals and metamaterials, which were named by the American Physical Society as one of the top three physics discoveries of the first decade of the new century. His work comprises theoretical studies, full-wave electromagnetic simulations, and experiments on a unique automatic microwave field mapping fixture, which he helped to develop and advance.” Overall, during his PhD studies, Navid has authored and co-authored 4 journal papers, 4 more papers are in preparation. He has also authored and co-authored 5 published refereed conference proceedings and made two presentations at the IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation, the major forum in the field.
The ECE Department congratulates Aref and Navid and appreciates their many contributions to the department, university, and their field.
Welcome to a special double feature edition of FWF. I am playing catch-up this weekend, in my attempts to write one column per week, not always successful. This is the busiest time of the year at Michigan Tech, so there is plenty to write about, but sometimes doing stuff gets in the way of writing about it.
The week of April 10-14 is “Week 13” in the spring academic calendar. In the ECE Department, this is when the students wrap up their Senior Design and Enterprise projects and make their final presentations, on Thursday. Simultaneously, the ECE External Advisory Committee (EAC) is in town, from Wednesday afternoon to Friday noon. The timing of the EAC visit is no coincidence, as their primary mission in the spring meeting is help us judge the student presentations. The entire ECE faculty gets into the act as well, sitting in on the presentations and offering their feedback. For all of Thursday morning, from 8am to 1pm, we listened to student teams of 4-6 describe their various projects. Collectively we watched 26 different presentations spread out over 5 time slots and 6 venues.
My overall impression this year is that the presentations were quite good; there seems to be a gradual improvement in the quality of the oral communication skills and the level of comfort our students have with public speaking. If I were to have a concern, it would be that I wonder if we are doing enough to challenge our students with the electrical and computer engineering technical content. All of our Senior Design projects are industry-sponsored, and many of the Enterprise projects are as well. We are of course very proud of our relationships with our industry partners, and seek to do everything we can to ensure that they get the value they seek from supporting our educational programs. The trick is making sure that those needs include tough, interesting, electrical/computer engineering problems that require a concerted effort for several months on the part of our students to find a viable solution. The EAC echoed these concerns in our debriefing session on Friday, and it is something we will be taking a close look at next year.
As is to be expected there is a range of quality in the student projects, and the best ones are absolutely outstanding. Each year the EAC awards the Larry Kennedy Industry Innovation Award to the project they deem to be the very best. The award is named in honor of our recent EAC chair who was taken from us suddenly by a heart attack, two years ago, at a far too young age. This year’s award goes to the project titled “Surgical High Speed Drill Rotor Position via CAN bus” sponsored by the Stryker Corporation. Stryker is a medical device and equipment company headquartered in SW Michigan; this is their first Senior Design project in the ECE Department. The ECE faculty advisor is Trever Hassell and the Stryker point of contact is Keith Behnke, whom we also welcome to the EAC this year. The students on the team are Dan Bragg, Elliott Meese, Julio Saint-Felix Rodriguez, Hailey Trossen, and Yuguang Wang. My congratulations to everyone involved in the project – in terms of the scope of the project and the quality of the execution this is exactly what we hope for every year.
The award for best capstone project is just one of several awards given out at our Senior Banquet, which occurred the evening of Thursday, April 13, with student, faculty, and EAC members in attendance.
This year for the first time we recognized the many undergraduate students who serve the ECE Department in various capacities, some paid and some volunteer. These include participating in Fall Open House and Spring Preview days, telephone calling campaigns for student recruiting, departmental tours, and our Undergraduate Advisory Board. Some 18 students were presented with certificates. This community service by our students is highly valued and greatly appreciated by the department, and the recognition is long overdue. I plan to continue doing this at the Senior Banquet from here on out.
The Departmental Scholar Award is our departmental nominee for the Provost’s Award for Scholarship, given to a student who will be senior ranked in the following academic year, and who represents the very best in scholarship and leadership at Michigan Tech. The ECE Departmental Scholar for the 2016-2017 academic year is Sarah Wade, a double major in electrical engineering and computer engineering with an outstanding academic record and long list of extracurricular activities including being on the Nordic ski team. Sarah is a member of the Aerospace Enterprise, hosted in the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics and is making significant contributions there as a systems engineering and technical lead. Many of our award-winning students over the years have been associated with the Aerospace Enterprise so they must be doing something right over there. Like all but one of the Departmental Scholars at Michigan Tech, Sarah did not win the Provost’s Award, but the competition was stiff and we were proud to have her represent ECE.
The Woman of Promise Award was created by the Presidential Council of Alumnae, an advisory group to President Mroz. It is intended to recognize those women at Michigan Tech who go “above and beyond” what is expected in terms of being a well-rounded student, with considerations of academic achievement, campus leadership, citizenship, and creativity. This year the ECE Department had such outstanding nominees that we decided to give two Woman of Promise Awards. The first went to Jenna Burns, a high-achieving electrical engineering major with a minor in Spanish, who also is a percussion section leader in the Pep Band, and who has really distinguished herself in service to the ECE Department. Our second Woman of Promise is Elizabeth “Libbey” Held, a double major in electrical and computer engineering, a minor in Spanish (is there a theme here?), and a near-perfect GPA. Libby was cited by several faculty members as someone who asks the most insightful questions in class and during office hours. My congratulations to both Jenna and Libbey. Both have a year to go, so I say keep up the good work!
Our top student achievement award is the Carl S. Schjonberg Award for the Outstanding Undergraduate Student in the ECE Department. This year’s award choice was in my opinion a slam-dunk and I made that opinion known during our faculty deliberations, which I usually stay out of. Casey Strom is a truly remarkable individual. He is what we would call a “non-traditional” student, meaning that he comes to our program with a fair amount of life experience already under his belt. He lives and works on a family farm in Calumet, has a large family already, and had his own surveying business at the time of his coming into the department. In spite of all these demands on his time, he completes all of his coursework in the ECE Department with near-perfect attendance, all homeworks completed on time, and many exams close to 100%. This guy is motivated like you wouldn’t believe, and on top of that he has the most cheerful can-do demeanor of any student I have ever met. Casey, you represent the best of everything we try to do in the ECE Department and I couldn’t be prouder to call you a Michigan Tech graduate.
The final award of the evening at the Senior Banquet is presented by the students in Eta Kappa Nu to their selection for the Professor of the Year. This year’s award goes to Duane Bucheger. Duane is our Professor of Practice who runs the Senior Design program and teaches courses in design fundamentals, electric circuits, and electronics. He has been in this position for six years, and during that time he has done an outstanding job of building up our space and equipment devoted to Senior Design on the 7th floor of the EERC. As anyone in the ECE Department can tell you, Duane is a strong and vocal advocate for making sure students are aware of what will be expected of them in industry, and for preparing them to enter that world. I am delighted to see the Eta Kappa Nu students recognize Prof. Bucheger for his efforts on their behalf; I think it is a fitting tribute for all his hard work. For a variety of reasons and by mutual agreement, Duane will be stepping down from this position at the end of the academic year. We wish him all the best and thank him for his many contributions to the ECE Department.
All of that was almost two weeks ago! One more post and I will be caught up – and maybe the snow will be gone.
– Dan
Daniel R. Fuhrmann
Dave House Professor and Chair
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Michigan Technological University
Brian Flanagan, a computer engineering major, was among the winners of the 2017 Undergraduate Research Symposium held on Friday, March 17 in the lobby of the Rozsa Center.
A record number of abstracts and posters were submitted this year – an astonishing 71 – representing every school or college on campus. Flanagan was awarded Second Place for his research on “The Effects of Uncertain Labels on Damage Assessment in Remotely Sensed Images”. Faculty advisor was Tim Havens, ECE and CS William and Gloria Jackson Associate Professor.
The annual Symposium is conducted by the Pavlis Honors College and highlights the amazing cutting-edge research being conducted on Michigan Tech’s campus by some of our best and brightest undergraduate students.
The Enterprise Governing Board and the School of Business Scholarship Committee has recently selected Olivia Burek to receive the Spring 2017 Carnahan Enterprise Scholarship. Burek is a double major in management and marketing. The selection was based on her strong application and essay communicating her role in Blue Marble Security Enterprise.
Burek will receive a $500 scholarship for the fall 2017 semester.
Natalie McGrath will be spending her summer in Narva, Estonia this year to further her studies in Russian language and culture.
Natalie was recently awarded a Project Global Officer (Project GO) scholarship through the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Russian and East European Studies. Project GO is a collaborative initiative with the Department of Defense aimed at improving the language skills, regional expertise, and intercultural communication skills of future military officers within all of the U.S. Armed Forces.
In just eight weeks, students cover the equivalent of one academic year of training in a designated critical language, as well as weekend excursions and cultural activities. Scholarship awardees receive full tuition for the 8-credit University of Pittsburgh language course, coverage of travel, lodging, and textbook costs, and a living stipend for meals.
Natalie is a second year computer engineering major in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at Michigan Technological University. She received a domestic Project GO scholarship in the summer of 2015 and studied first-year Russian at Indiana University in Bloomington.
This week the Deans’ Teaching Showcase returns to the College of Engineering. Dean Wayne Pennington has chosen Glen Archer, principal lecturer and associate chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Dan Fuhrmann (ECE chair), recommended Archer because of his long history of teaching EE3010, a service course primarily populated by other engineering majors.
Besides being very large (enrollment was 193 last fall), students tend to find the material difficult and perceive it as not directly related to their major. Despite these challenges, Archer earned an “Excellent Teacher” rating of 4.36 on a 5 point scale.
Fuhrmann wrote, “In addition to this traditional teaching assignment, Glen also teaches students in a wide variety of less formal venues. Glen serves as a mentor to two Enterprise groups. He has been a long-time advisor of Blue Marble Security. Recently, as an overload, he enthusiastically embraced adding the Robotics Systems Enterprise and has already grown membership in that enterprise from five to 30 students.
“Glen also leads departmental efforts to assemble course offerings and the binder process for the department. He also assigns and mentors the graduate teaching assistants in ECE, and has been known to have them to Thanksgiving dinner at his home in some years.
“But when asked about his favorite parts of teaching, it’s his mentorship of his Enterprise students, especially as they lead a substantial outreach program in ECE. Through Summer Youth Programs, Upward Bound and other programs, Archer’s team hosts hundreds of pre-college students annually. Glen says he ‘couldn’t be prouder’ of the work these teams are doing. He also cites a recent win and third place finish in international competitions for the Blue Marble Security team.
“Finally, Glen measures his success by ‘hearing from students that what they learned in EE3010 was useful in their senior design projects. That’s what helps me get up in the morning.'”
Fuhrmann says “I think that Glen is terrific, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
But given Archer’s student focus, perhaps the best endorsement in his unique teaching capacity comes from a Reddit.com review by an anonymous student. “I’m not an EE so I had him for circuits for non believers, and man is he funny. He is also super helpful. He sets up online help groups, encourages participation, suggests going to his hours, and suggests going to the help center. He’s a really good professor and teaches the material well.”
Archer will be recognized at an end-of-term luncheon with 11 other showcase members, and is now eligible for one of three new teaching awards to be given by the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning this summer recognizing introductory or large-class teaching, innovative or outside the classroom teaching methods, or work in curriculum and assessment.
Husband and wife graduate students have won honors from Tech’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Mohsen Jamalabdollahi was named Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant, and his wife, Sakineh Yazdanparast, was recognized as the ECE Department’s Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant.
Dr. Paul Juodawlkis, assistant leader of the Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and ECE alumnus, has been named a Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).
Fellow is the IEEE’s highest grade of membership and only one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire membership can be awarded the honor in a given year. The Fellows program honors “those who have contributed greatly to the advancement of engineering, science, and technology.”
Juodawlkis is recognized for his contributions to optically sampled converters and waveguide amplifiers.
“I am happy and deeply honored to be named an IEEE Fellow,” says Dr. Juodawlkis. “I’ve been a member of the IEEE since my undergrad days in electrical engineering at Michigan Tech. Those days were critical to sparking my technical interests in solid-state devices and optoelectronics through classes taught by faculty like Professor Emeritus Anand Kulkarni. More recently, I’ve truly enjoyed having a front-row seat to watch the development and growth of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering over the past 16 years as a member of the department’s External Advisory Committee. When I am on campus, I am sometimes jealous of the opportunities and resources available to today’s Michigan Tech students, and wish that I could go back and do it all over again. Well, maybe except for finals. When I get a chance to offer advice to today’s students, I usually recommend that they make time to meet with their professors even if they don’t need help to learn the course material or to get the grade that they want. One of the main advantages of Michigan Tech is that most of the faculty care about teaching the students, and this teaching involves both explaining the course material and sharing the life lessons that they have learned outside of the classroom.”
Dr. Juodawlkis is also a Fellow of the Optical Society (OSA). He has authored or coauthored more than 130 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications. He has participated on a number of technical program committees, including serving as program co-chair (2010) and general co-chair (2012) of the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO). He was an elected member of the IEEE Photonics Society Board of Governors (2011–2013), served as vice president of membership for the society (2014-2016), and is currently secretary-treasurer for the society. Juodawlkis holds a BS degree from Michigan Technological University, an MS degree from Purdue University, and a PhD degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, all in electrical engineering.
Elizabeth (Cloos) Dreyer, BSEE 2012, was selected SWE Outstanding Collegiate Member by the Society of Women Engineers for outstanding contribution to SWE, the engineering community and their campus. Dreyer was honored at the WE16 conference held in Philadelphia, PA this past week.
Elizabeth is an electrical engineering PhD candidate at University of Michigan.
The ECE Department at Michigan Tech congratulates Elizabeth for this well-deserved recognition!