Issue 2
02
BIANNUAL NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
2014
INFORMs INSIDE Faculty Spotlight - Dr. Arash Takshi p. 2 Student Honors p. 5 Mini-Circuits Sponsors Design for X Lab p. 6
Senior Design Winners Announced The Fall 2013 Senior Design presentation was held December 6, 2013 at the University of South Florida. The winning project, “Smart Greenhouse,” was developed by graduating seniors Rafael Perez Cruz and Jorge Sayegh Labbad. The Smart Greenhouse consists on humidity and temperature control inside a greenhouse to avoid crop damage and unwanted production of fungus. More information on the project can be found at http://greenhuseusf.wix. com/smart-greenhouse
Message from the Chair
O
ne of the most important aspects of an engineering education is something that will never show up in GPA or GRE scores. But
many engineering managers will tell you that concerns about it are the most likely reasons for sleepless nights. And, it is the foundation upon which all good engineers can build their careers --- I am referring to professional integrity. Integrity is often described in terms of behavior --it is expected that engineers will accept full responsibility for their own work, maintain independence in their professional judgment, and be fair, and avoid deception in all statements, documents, methods, and tools. One reason I chose to write about this topic is because it occurred to me that, on an individual level a transgression will have far greater effect today than ever before. Within one’s profession there have probably never been six degrees of separation, and with today’s tools such as LinkedIn and other networking tools, there is much less separation. And, as they say, bad news travels fast. But the main reason for choosing this topic is because I think professional integrity makes engineers (and scientists) special, and it is hard earned, expected, and very much valued. Professional integrity is a sound basis for enhancing your working relationships and will generally lead to good communication and cooperation in the workplace When I have the opportunity to talk about the engineering profession to those outside of it, I often go to this point first because I’m proud to be part of our community. Our department also places great value on professional integrity, and last year we established our own Academic Integrity Policy. The new policy is signed by all of our undergraduate and graduate students, is a standard component of our course syllabi, and violations of the policy are severe. It contains the following “The faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department is committed to maintaining a learning environment which promotes academic integrity and the professional obligations recognized in the IEEE Code of Ethics (http://ee.eng.usf.edu/about/ codeOfEthics.htm ). Accordingly, the department adheres to a common Academic Integrity Policy in all of its courses. This policy is to be applied uniformly in a fair and unbiased manner.” We want engineering managers that hire our graduates to sleep peacefully at night. And when our graduates become managers, we want them not to worry about whether all the engineers on their staff have the same high level of professional integrity as they do.