Category: ICC

Tim Schulz Selected for Deans’ Teaching Showcase

Timothy Schulzby Michael R. Meyer, Director William G. Jackson CTL

College of Engineering Dean Janet Callahan has selected Tim Schulz (ECE) as the final member of the 2019 Deans’ Teaching Showcase.  As a teacher he is widely acknowledged as one of the ECE departments best, with his friendly, humorous style and his devotion to his students’ learning.  But Schulz’s selection here is, according to Associate Dean Leonard Bohmann for his “leadership in using technology to deliver technical material in electrical and computer engineering.”

Starting in 2012, Schulz created a series of 10 to 15 minute videos collectively titled “Electric Circuits” and posted them on YouTube.  Though he created them with his EE2111 (Electric Circuits 1) class in mind, they are reaching a much wider audience.  In fact, one titled “Introduction to Thevenin Equivalent Circuits” has gotten more than 152,000 views.

Since that time, Schulz has also developed a phone app of randomized electric circuit problems to use in this course. He develops these aids so students can develop a mastery of the course material. As one student noted, “The videos and the infinite practice problems were the most helpful. As much as I hate to say this, the quizzes were also helpful.”

In his courses, Schulz develops from scratch his own interactive web-based approach to homework sets and quizzes, taking full advantage of the capabilities of Canvas and writing his own scripts for generating homework problems with randomized parameters. His colleagues recognize this, and some have adopted Schulz’s materials when they teach the same classes.

Most recently, Schulz has taken the lead in developing new courses for the online MSEE program with a focus on communications and signal processing, in partnership with Keypath Education, Inc. He developed and is teaching for the second time, EE5300, Mathematical and Computational Methods in Engineering, which is the entry point into the program.

His course engages students through a series of interactive MATLAB computational exercises which meet modern standards for online course delivery and are breaking new ground for the ECE Department.

Students find this approach to be very helpful. One said, “The canvas structure paired with the lecture truly was a great combination. The prep work must have been substantial but was well worth it.”

Another provides even broader praise of both Schulz and the course by saying, “The course is excellent and engaging. Overall, I think this class is a must for any student wishing to have a solid starting foundation in graduate studies in engineering. Dr. Schulz is an outstanding professor with extensive research and professional experience and I would totally recommend students to take this class.”

Schulz is currently developing the third course for the online MSEE program, EE5500  Probability and Stochastic Processes, which will be taught for the first time this summer. He agrees that developing an online course is much more rigorous then teaching face-to-face, saying “You need to do more planning of how to approach a topic.  You don’t have the ease of correcting an approach (or even an equation) in real time, so it is a much more deliberate process.”

However, this higher level of rigor is a challenge he enjoys; he’s already signed on to develop his next course, EE5521 Detection and Estimation Theory, which will be offered online for the first time sometime in 2020-2021 academic year.

Callahan emphasizes that it’s really about the technology enabling better learning. In her words, “Tim Schulz’s effective use of technology shows that student learning and satisfaction can both increase with the use of modern tools.”

Schulz will be recognized at an end-of-term luncheon with other showcase members and is now elgible 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.

ICC Members Receive Achievement Awards at Annual Banquet

Soner Onder, Bo Chen, Kevin TrewarthaAt the annual awards banquet of the Michigan Tech Institute of Computing and Cybersysytems (ICC), on Friday, April 12, three ICC members received the ICC Achievement Award in recognition of their exceptional contributions to research and learning in the fields of computing.

Soner Önder, director of the ICC Center for Scalable Architectures and Systems and professor of computer science, was recognized for his research in next-generation architectures. Önder is principal investigator of three National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, and he has three NSF grant proposals under review.

“Soner is one of our very top researchers in terms of research expenditures and new awards,” said Tim Havens, ICC director and the William and Gloria Jackson Associate Professor of Computer Systems. “He is also active in developing and implementing the ICC vision and activities.”

Kevin Trewartha, a member of the ICC’s Center for Human-Centered Computing, was recognized for his interdisciplinary and collaborative research at the intersection of technology and human motor movement. Trewartha is an assistant professor with a dual appointment in the departments of Cognitive and Learning Sciences and Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology.

“Kevin encompasses the best of the ICC vision,” said Beth Veinott, director of the ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing and associate professor of cognitive and learning sciences.

Trewartha is co-principal investigator, with ICC member Shane Mueller, of a new, three-year, interdisciplinary and collaborative project funded by the National Institutes of Health. For this research, Trewartha and Mueller are working with UP Health Systems Portage and five graduate and three undergraduate students to investigate how technology supports earlier diagnosis of the neurodegenerative diseases.

Bo Chen, a member of the ICC’s Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and assistant professor of computer science, was recognized for his teaching and research in cybersecurity of mobile devices.

Chen is the co-PI of two external grants on cybersecurity from the National Science Administration, and he has submitted numerous cybersecurity proposals to NSF, NSA, Microsoft, and Google.

“Dr. Bo Chen has demonstrated achievements and contributions to the mission of the ICC since coming to Michigan Tech as a tenure-track CS faculty in fall ’17,” said ICC members Guy Hembroff and Yu Cai in their nomination, adding that during that short time, “Dr. Chen has published one book, five journal papers, and 10 conference papers, and in 2017 he was awarded a Distinguished Paper Award from the prestigious cybersecurity venue, the Annual Computer Security Application Conference (ACSAC ’17).”

Chen is the faculty coach for the MTU NCL (National Cyber League) cyber competition team, and during the fall 2018 regular season under Chen’s leadership, a Michigan Tech CS undergraduate student placed 36th out of 3,350 players in NCL cyber competition. Dr. Chen was also recently recognized for receiving an exceptional “average of seven dimensions” student evaluation score for his teaching, among additional accolades.

The ICC, founded in 2015, promotes collaborative, cross-disciplinary research and learning experiences in the areas of cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, data sciences, human-centered computing, and scalable architectures and systems. It provides faculty and students the opportunity to work across organizational boundaries to create an environment that mirrors contemporary technological innovation.

Five research centers comprise the ICC. The ICC’s 50 members, who represent 15 academic units at Michigan Tech, are collaborating to conduct impactful research, make valuable contributions in the field of computing, and solve problems of critical national importance.

Visit the ICC website at icc.mtu.edu. Contact the ICC at icc-contact@mtu.edu or 906-487-2518.

Computer Science Workshop Held April 5-7

Explore CSR GroupMichigan Tech hosted the workshop “Exploring Computer Science Research” last Friday – Sunday (April 5-7). The workshop was one of 15 Google has sponsored in the U.S. and was organized by four CS Faculty: Leo Ureel, Linda Ott, Jean Mayo and Laura Brown; Jean Mayo and Laura Brown are members of the ICC. The workshop was for women and underrepresented groups to explore research and graduate school opportunities in computer science.

There were 26 attendees from six universities and colleges across Michigan and Wisconsin. Over the course of the weekend each student participated in a research experience, investigating a research question with a faculty mentor. Topics included:

Machine Vision – Robert Pastel, ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing

Data Science in Energy Systems – Laura Brown, ICC Center for Data Sciences

Cybersecurity and Privacy in Storage Systems – Bo Chen, ICC Center for Cybersecurity

Agent-based Simulations in Education – Leo Ureel

Human Computer Interactions: Natural Language Processing for Assistive Technologies – Keith Vertanen, ICC Center for Human-Centered Computing

After learning about and working on their research topics, the students presented out to the group. In addition to their research experiences, attendees learned about different job opportunities after graduate school, heard how to apply to graduate schools and talked to current graduate students about the graduate school experience and their research.

Guest speakers included Niloofar Gheissari and Anja Gruenheid, two Google employees, Pushpalatha Murthy, Dean of the Graduate School and Robin Hunicke, our keynote speaker from the University of California Santa Cruz and Funomena.