Issue 3
03
BIANNUAL NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
2015
INFORMs INSIDE Faculty Spotlight - Dr. Selcuk Kose p. 11 Student Honors p. 5 USF Welcomes New Dean p. 2
USF Faculty Awarded National Science Foundation Grant The National Science Foundation awarded a grant of $259,819 to the University of South Florida. The support was awarded to the project called “EAGER: Development of a rectenna for energy harvesting and detection applications.” The project is under the direction of Elias K. Stefanakos, Manoj Ram, and Yogi Goswami. Total research expenditures for the EE Department in 2014-2015 exceeded $2.9M.
Message from the Chair I am very pleased to welcome our new College of Engineering Dean, Dr. Robert Bishop, to USF and as our newest member of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Dean Bishop is a highly accomplished researcher in the area of controls, and has a deep commitment to advancing undergraduate education. He is wasting no time getting involved in the EE Department’s teaching mission, either, offering his first course in the Spring 2015 semester. In fact, the entire department is focused on improving the quality of our BSEE program. Last fall the faculty met in downtown Tampa for a Curriculum Retreat to brainstorm ideas for modernizing the curriculum and for helping our students to compete and succeed in the engineering profession. The faculty was joined by students, members of our External Advisory Board and individuals from across the campus who share interest and expertise in developing teaching skills and improving learning environments. It was a successful event by all measures, generating innovative ideas for creating a more student-centric program, experiential learning opportunities, expanded and modernized student advising and mentoring, and partnerships with colleges across the USF campus. The retreat was only a first step in a longer process to implement the best of the ideas that were generated, and I expect the first innovations to be in place for the Fall 2015 semester. Although, a component of the ‘new BSEE’ program is already making a significant impact on our students – the MAKE Course started in Spring 2014 by Professor Rudy Schlaf. Based in the new Mini Circuits Design for X Lab http://www.eng. usf.edu/dfx/index.html, Dr. Schlaf’s course follows the Do-Then-Learn model and gives students the opportunity to design, create, program and test their own Arduino-controlled robotic systems. The course is wildly popular with students, and is generating just the type of enthusiasm for engineering that we aim to infuse into the entire EE curriculum. For more details on Dr. Schlaf’s course please see http://makecourse.com/. Send me a note (weller@usf.edu) if you’d like to learn more about our plans for curriculum reform, or have some ideas of your own for preparing students for the 21st century. Otherwise please stay tuned for exciting changes to come.