ECE faculty member elected to the HKN Board of Governors 

The IEEE Educational Activities Board has announced today the results of the election to the 11-member Board of Governors of Eta Kappa Nu (HKN). Founded in 1904, HKN is a membership organization dedicated to encouraging and recognizing excellence in several technical fields of interest, including Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology.  Members of HKN consist of students, alumni, and other professionals who have demonstrated exceptional academic and professional accomplishments. HKN has more than 200 chapters in the United States, Canada, India and China.  The Drexel chapter (Beta Alpha) was established in 1935 and over the years was distinguished by having three individuals from Drexel winning the HKN C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering Teacher Award.

Dr. Timothy Kurzweg was elected by the HKN chapters to serve as Member-at-Large on the HKN Board of Governors for the period 1/1/2013 through 12/31/2016. The Board of Governors determines the organization's policy, provides oversight, and acts in an advisory capacity to university chapters.  Dr. Kurzweg, who has received the C. Holmes MacDonald earlier this year, will also serve in 2015 and 2016 on the Board of Directors of IEEE, a position to which he was recently elected by close to 30,000 members of IEEE in the mid-Atlantic US.

Posted November 26, 2012.

ECE faculty member named IEEE Fellow

The IEEE Board of Directors has released today the list of individuals elevated to the IEEE Fellow grade as of 1 January 2013.  The Fellow grade is a distinction reserved for individuals who have exhibited extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest.  In any given year the IEEE promotes to the Fellow grade no more than 0.1% of its voting members and at present there are about 6,700 Fellows of IEEE, about 1.6% of the organization's 416,000 members. The promotion process requires a nomination and involves a rigorous review process by peers and experts in the nominee's filed of interest.

Dr. Chika Nwankpa, a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is on the list of 2013 IEEE Fellows. A graduate of the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute (now Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University) and the Illinois Institute of Technology, Dr. Nwankpa joined Drexel University in 1990.  His research interests are in power systems and power electronics, focusing on the application of stochastic methods in power systems planning and operation.  The citation chosen by IEEE to designate his elevation to Fellow is: "for contributions to real time computation in power systems analysis."

Dr. Nwankpa joins the following members of the current Drexel Faculty and emeritus Faculty who are IEEE Fellows: Afshin Daryoush, Bruce Eisenstein, Robert Fischl, Eli Fromm, Peter Herczfeld, Dov Jaron, Moshe Kam, Harry Kwatny, Peter Lewin, Vernon Newhouse, Banu Onaral, John Reid, Arye Rosen, and Hun Sun.   The most recent elevation of a member of the Drexel faculty to Fellow before Dr. Nwankpa was in 2008.

Posted November 26, 2012.

Drexel ECE Students win 2012 IEEE PES Scholarship Awards

Fifteen undergraduate students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) have been selected to receive scholarships as part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power & Energy Society (PES) Scholarship Plus Initiative™. The PES Scholarship Plus Initiative™ provides scholarships and real world experience to undergraduates who are interested in power and energy engineering careers. PES Scholarship recipients were selected from 109 U.S. universities for the 2012-2013 academic year and Drexel University’s ECE department had the largest number of scholarship winners. The students were selected by industry and academic representatives based on: academic preparation; extra-curricular activities and leadership; interest in engineering in general and power and energy engineering, as well as overall assessment of a student's potential for a successful power and energy engineering career.

The PES provides the world's largest forum for sharing the latest in technological developments in the electric power industry, for developing standards that guide the development and construction of equipment and systems and for educating members of the industry and the general public. The mission of PES is to be the leading provider of scientific and engineering information on electric power and energy for the betterment of society and the preferred professional development source for our members.

This year's scholarships recipients from Drexel's ECE Department include:

Michael Black, Senior
Robert Carroll, Senior
Nicholas Coleman, Senior (Also received Estey Outstanding Scholar Award)
Eric Dyke, Senior
Armando Elliott, Junior
Reid Flasinski, Pre-Junior
Charles Hicks, Senior
Kacey Hoang, Senior
Jamie Howard, Pre-Junior
Khaula Rashid, Pre-Junior
Kurt Russell, Junior
David Ventura, Senior
Bryce Walburn, Pre-Junior
Katherine Walker, Pre-Junior
Gregory Yeutter, Pre-Junior

For more information about this program visit the official IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholarship Plus Initiative™ website here.

Posted November 19, 2012.

ECE faculty member elected to the IEEE Board of Directors

Dr. Timothy Kurzweg, associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), assistant department head for undergraduate affairs and director of the BSE program, has been elected to become a region 2 director-elect for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2013 board of directors. Kurzweg will be directly responsible for region 2, comprised of several states in the Mid-Atlantic, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia and parts of New Jersey and Virginia. There are approximately 32,000 IEEE members in region 2, known as the center of IEEE's interactions with the United States government.

Kurzweg is a long-time volunteer of IEEE and has served on the IEEE educational activities board, the new initiatives committee and the conferences committee. He is also active in the IEEE honor society Eta Kappa Nu. Kurzweg will join Drs. Eli Fromm, Bruce Eisenstein and Moshe Kam as one of only three members of the Drexel University faculty to have served as directors of IEEE. He will be the second region 2 director from Drexel University and secured his election win on his first try.

After two years as director-elect, Kurzweg will become an IEEE director in 2015 and 2016 - member of the IEEE board of directors and delegate to the IEEE assembly. These organizational units govern IEEE, the largest international association of technologists, computer scientists and engineers. The IEEE has 420,000 members, an annual budget of more than 400 million dollarand 1200 staff members. It organizes close to 1200 conferences every year and published 1/3 of the world's literature in its fields of interest (including electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, signal processing, biomedical engineering and telecommunications).

For more information on Kurzweg’s IEEE accomplishments and to view his election statement, please click here . To read more about the IEEE Annual Elections, please visit their official website here .

Posted October 17, 2012.

Drexel Engineers Build Trifecta of Robots 

Four undergraduate Drexel students spent the summer months building underwater, ground and aerial robots under the guidance of two graduate students and assistant teaching professor Dr. Pramod Abichandani.

“We call it the trifecta,” Abichandani, who is an assistant teaching professor of the College of Engineering, said of the three projects.

The team members work in pairs or singly on each robot while helping each other out and calling on graduate students Sean Wagoner and Chris Berry when necessary.

Damien Turchi and Cezary Mlynarz, who are incoming sophomores studying Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM), are working together on the underwater robot which has a camera attached to help observe visible levels of pollution in the Schuylkill River. They’ve also hooked the robot up a to video game controller to make underwater steering intuitive for users.

Meanwhile, sophomore Elliott Williams and graduate student Wagoner, who both study Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), are working on the ground robot. The team is developing a computer program called BotWorks to control the ground robot. Users choose a certain destination on the computer screen that represents the robot workspace. The robot, in turn, moves towards the corresponding location on the ground along a straight line. The robot can also be commanded to follow custom paths on the ground through BotWorks.

Ian Wynyard, a MEM sophomore, is designing and fabricating the aerial robot for the trifecta. This robot uses a powerful motor to create forces that provide substantial lift.

“I think the raw talent comes from [the undergraduate] level—these students are amazingly well-informed,” said Abichandani of his team.

The team frequently demonstrates their projects to promote an interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers among younger students. They recently demonstrated the robots to 52 sixth-grade gifted-class students from the Welsh Valley Middle School in the Lower Merion School District.

The team anticipates that all three robot platforms will be fully functional by the end of Drexel’s summer term. They would also like all three robots to be controlled through BotWorks in the future.

Abichandani earned his master of science in 2007 and doctorate in 2011 from Drexel. He has since worked with undergraduate and graduate students on several projects involving robots during his time as a graduate student teacher and an assistant teaching professor at Drexel.

Posted September 7, 2012.

Dr. Youngmoo Kim named Scientist of the Year at Philadelphia Geek Awards

Dr. Youngmoo Kim, Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Assistant Dean of Engineering for Media Technologies, was among the many members of Philadelphia’s vibrant geek community on the red carpet at the Academy of Natural Sciences for Philadelphia’s Geek Awards August 17. Not only did Kim rock the red carpet in his tux and show his inner geek pride, but he took home the award for Scientist of the Year.

“It was a tremendously fun event, and I was honored to be nominated alongside Paul Ehrlich and my Drexel colleague Andrew Hicks. It highlights the incredible work being done by scientists and researchers throughout the region and it was great to see such enthusiasm among the organizers, presenters, nominees and attendees,” said Kim.

Kim was nominated along with two other professors in the Scientist of the Year category. He won the award for his notable work in the community in addition to his outstanding achievements in the sciences. Kim has been an active leader for the Philadelphia Science Festival hosting the Philly Robotics Expo for K-12 schools, employing a humanoid robot to successfully throw out the first pitch at a Philadelphia Phillies game and revealing the Science of Music by organizing a unique concert event combining a world-class jazz ensemble with visualizations driven by the musical performance. In addition his participation in the Philadelphia Science Festival, Kim also participated in several Philly Tech Week panels and presentations and led the Community Genius Bar event, which encouraged neighborhood residents to bring their uncooperative computers, smartphones and media players to the student geniuses of Drexel Engineering’s TechServ for free unbiased advice.

“As I mentioned in my acceptance speech, I firmly believe that this community possesses the collective intelligence, passion, and experience (in short, the geekiness), to address some really tough problems (education, workforce development, and digital literacy) and transform Philadelphia. And I look forward to collaborating with everyone to make that happen,” said Kim.

Kim is Director of the Expressive and Creative Interaction Technologies Center (ExCITe) Center at Drexel, a novel partnership bringing together research, education, civic engagement and entrepreneurship as interrelated and necessary ingredients for transformative regional development. He also directs the Drexel Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) , which pursues research on the machine understanding of music and audio, human-machine interfaces and robotics for expressive interaction, and K-12 outreach for engineering, science and mathematics education.

For more information on the Geek Awards, visit the site .

Photo compliments of Clever Girl Photography .

Posted September 7, 2012.

Department Head to address Cultural Ministers Sumit in Edinburgh 

Moshe Kam, Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University and 2011 IEEE President, was invited to address the International Culture Summit - a collaboration between the Scottish Government, the UK Government, the British Council and the Edinburgh International Festival hosted at the Scottish Parliament.  The Summit is planned to coincide with the closing of the 2012 Olympics in London.

"The Summit will, for the first time, bring together Culture Ministers with prominent artists, thinkers and others responsible for formulating and implementing cultural policy to discuss how the arts enrich the lives of people around the world and contribute to the wellbeing of nations."

Kam will address the summit on 14 August 2012, on the subject "Engineering as a Liberal Art."

For more information about the summit, please visit http://www.eics2012.com/about-summit

Posted August 10, 2012.

ECE faculty look to integrate wireless networks into microchip design

“Location, location, location”: That age-old key to successful real estate investing has also been the driving mantra in microchip architecture. But with space on the tiny silicon chips at a premium, as demand for faster, smaller technology increases, engineers at Drexel University could be adding “bandwidth” and “frequency” to the chip design paradigm by adding wireless antennas to the chips.

The engineers recently earned a National Science Foundation grant to develop tiny wireless networks on microchips. Wireless radio frequency antennas would allow information to be transmitted from one part of the chip to another without the use of wired interconnections, the “landlines” of the microchip world.

“Much like the human intestine, wired interconnections can be very long despite their ability to be condensed into a small space. However, the sheer volume of the connections necessary to make a functional chip still takes up a great deal of area,” said Dr. Baris Taskin, an associate professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and a lead researcher on the project.

Taskin’s team is working to design a hybrid network-on-chip that uses both antennas and wired interconnections to optimize communication speed and allow the chip to be used in new and sophisticated platforms. The new chip will also use reconfigurable antenna technology developed at Drexel by Dr. Kapil Dandekar, who is Taskin’s collaborator in the research.

“A hybrid chip that utilizes both wired and wireless connections provides a more robust platform,” Taskin said. “Wired interconnections can be used as dedicated communications lines between areas that are constantly transmitting data. Antennas can eliminate a number of wired interconnections between the less-traveled paths of communication on the chip.”

The use of radio frequencies to transport data holds an additional advantage over other wireless methods used in next-generation microchips because the radio waves can travel through solids. Optical data transmission, which uses light waves, is also being developed as an alternative to wired interconnections. This method requires a clear line of sight between transmitters and receivers, however, which is a significant limiting factor in design and essentially negates its viability in 3D chip development.

A fully functional proof of concept could be finalized in the next five years, according to Taskin. The biggest challenges to designing the chip are the same as those experienced in developing a telecommunications network: making decisions about location of antennas, frequency of transmission and the amount of data that can be transmitted.

Successfully demonstrating the concept of wireless on-chip networking could open doors for using the technique in multi-core processors and to improve 3D chip design.

Posted August 10, 2012.

Drexel alumnus recognized for science education innovation 

Drexel alumnus Simon Hauger, BS Electrical Engineering and MS Science of Instruction, is being recognized by CNN's "The Next List" for his work in inspiring a love of science and engineering in Philadelphia inner-city high school students through education innovation.  Hauger is the co-founder of The Sustainability Workshop, a full-day high school program in which learning centers around projects, instead of typical subjects and lectures.  This past year, the Workshop taught 27 high school seniors through projects that included building electric go-karts, designing solar charging stations and crafting energy-efficiency business plans.

Hauger and The Sustainability Workshop were featured on the July 1 airing of CNN's "The Next List" program.  "The Next List" is a weekly television program that profiles innovators, visionaries and agents of change who are currently making a significant impact on their community and whose ideas may one day drive broader change in the world.  For CNN's story about The Sustainability Workshop and a preview of the upcoming episode, please visit CNN's What'sNext blog .  Past episodes of CNN's "The Next List" can be found on the  show's archive website .  For more information about the Workshop, please visit The Sustainability Workshop website .

Posted June 29, 2012.

Drexel team competes in 2012 Formula Hybrid competition

In May of 2012, under the guidance of faculty advisors Drs. Kevin Scoles (ECE) and Tein-min Tan (MEM), a team from Drexel University competed in the 2012 Formula Hybrid competition in Loudon, NH with a newly reconstructed all-electric car. The race team was composed of ECE students Adam Hollock, Norman Chan, Nathalie Capati, Jacob Iseminger and Ian Galagher and MEM students Nik Heid, John Lang, Evan Dimmerling, Ryan Garis and Tim Lombardi.  The competition is intended to promote innovation in automotive drivetrains, and is scored based upon static judging and dynamic race events. Despite numerous hurdles in the construction of the car and component failures at competition, the team passed all electrical and mechanical inspections, and was able to compete in dynamic events. The students demonstrated both their teamwork and technical ability through their on-the-fly engineering to ensure they stayed in competition.
 
After all the challenges and late nights, the team managed to place 3rd in the electric only category out of 7 registered electric-only teams, and came in 8th overall out of both categories for the endurance race, beating out several teams that have been long-time competitors of the Formula Hybrid competition. The team has been invited to the Formula Student Electric competition in Turin, Italy, and is currently in the process of making a more competitive vehicle to race at an international level.  For more information about the competition, visit the  Formula Hybrid website .

Posted May 16, 2012.

Drexel team participates in wireless technologies competition - Vote Now! 

Interdigital and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at the University of California, San Diego announced the Interdigital Innovation Challenge in February. The challenge solicited innovative proposals aiming to discover breakthroughs in wireless technologies.

Drexel Wireless Systems Laboratory, directed by ECE Professor Kapil Dandekar, has submitted a proposal to the challenge titled "Cognitive Antennas for Femtocell Environment". The proposal aims to develop and integrate cognitive antenna technology in femtocell base stations as a part of next generation heterogeneous cellular networks. The submitted proposals will be evaluated by a nine-member judging panel from academia and industry and a popular entry will also be selected based on a public voting system.  The team is seeking votes to become the most popular entry.

To find more information about the entry, read more about the competition and to vote, visit the entry voting page .

Posted April 19, 2012.

Dr. Kevin Scoles awarded SAE International 2011 Faculty Advisor Award

SAE International, an engineering association focused on the study anddesign of self propelled vehicles, has just announced its 2011 Faculty Advisor Awards.  One of this year's recipients is Dr. Kevin Scoles of the ECE Department.  The SAE award recognizes "dedication and contributions to SAE and an SAE Collegiate Chapter" and was undoubtedly given to Professor Scoles on account of his devoted long-time work with Drexel University teams that build Formula Hybrid race cars.

The award will be presented at the SAE 2012 World Congress & Exhibition in Detroit on April 25, 2012.  It includes an engraved plaque and provides funds for Professor Scoles to attend any SAE meeting or conference in 2012.

Posted March 22, 2012.  

Dr. P. Mohana Shankar publishes Fading and Shadowing in Wireless Systems

Drexel’s Dr. P. Mohana Shankar, Allen Rothwarf Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has recently published his book Fading and Shadowing in Wireless Systems . The book addresses the need for more information to comprehend wireless channel characteristics.

Shankar’s book presents a comprehensive view of wireless channel degradation arising from fading and shadowing.  The text utilizes a variety of statistical models, and provides relevant background information to facilitate easy understanding of the models and analysis. With more than a 1,000 equations and 350 Matlab generated figures and tables, it is a source of information that will be used by students, educators, researchers and professionals in wireless communications, allowing access to information currently unavailable.

Shankar received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from Kerala University in India, an additional master’s degree in applied optics at the Indian Institute of Technology and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering. The book was a result of Shankar’s studies and research during a two-quarter sabbatical (September 2009 - March 2010) granted by Drexel University. Shankar has been at Drexel since 1982.

Posted February 17, 2012.

Dr. Timothy Kurzweg wins IEEE-HKN C. Holmes MacDonald Award

Dr. Timothy Kurzweg, Associate Professor in Drexel's ECE Department, was selected as the recipient of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu’s 2011 C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering Educator Award.

This is a very prestigious recognition by the profession.  The award is known as an early "detector" of future leaders.  Past recipients include Peter S. Maybeck,  A. Richard Newton and Denice Dee Denton. Drexel University recipients include our Vice Dean, Bruce Eisenstein.

"The Award is intended to recognize the central and crucial role of college professors in training and motivating future electrical and computer engineers. The program attempts to identify and give national recognition to electrical engineering professors who have demonstrated, early in their careers, special dedication and creativity in their teaching responsibilities. Thus it is...a re-affirmation of the basic and essential need of excellence in teaching."

In describing Dr. Kurzweg's contributions, one of the recommenders wrote: "I believe that through his contributions to programs at Drexel University and at the IEEE level worldwide, Dr. Kurzweg had made a potentially transformative contribution to engineering education. As we seek new models for future engineering programs, experiments such as the ones he has introduced and led may prove pivotal to define the changes we need to make in traditional programs over the next 10-15 years."

More information about this award can be found on the HKN award webpage .

Posted February 13, 2012.

Dr. Bruce Eisenstein honored with 2012 IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award

Drexel’s Dr. Bruce Eisenstein, Arthur J. Rowland professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and interim dean of the College of Engineering, was named the 2012 recipient of the Richard M. Emberson Award. The award is one of the highest recognitions presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the largest technical/professional society in the world with nearly 400,000 members.

Eisenstein will be presented with the award, which includes a bronze medal, an illuminated certificate and an honorarium, at the 2012 IEEE Honors Ceremony in Boston, Mass. with more than 600 people expected to attend. It is given out for distinguished service to the development, viability, advancement and pursuit of the technical objectives of the IEEE.

Eisenstein received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MIT, a master’s in electrical engineering from Drexel and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a NASA/ASEE fellow at Stanford University and the NASA Ames Research Center and a visiting research fellow in electrical engineering at Princeton University under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation. At Drexel, he has served as the head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and associate dean of Engineering. He currently serves as interim dean of the College of Engineering.

He has published more than 50 papers in the areas of digital signal processing, pattern recognition, deconvolution, and biomedical engineering. Eisenstein was the recipient of the C. Holmes MacDonald Award of Eta Kappa Nu given to the “Outstanding Young Electrical Engineering Educator.” He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, and served on the National Board of Directors and as president. He is also a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, ASEE and is a registered professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Eisenstein was elected Delaware Valley Engineer of the Year for 2000. He served as president of the IEEE in 2000 and has held several other IEEE positions, including chairman of the Philadelphia section, treasurer, vice president for technical activities, member of the Board of Directors, and president of the Education Society.

In 1986 the Board of Directors established the IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award. The Award is named in honor of Dr. Richard M. Emberson, whose 23-year association with the Institute at both the staff and volunteer levels, including Director of Technical Services, Executive Director and General Manager, and Member of the Board of Directors, exemplified loyal and dedicated service to the Institute, especially its Technical Activities. Past recipients of this award include Bruno Weinschel and Robert Lucky.  Additional information about the award can be foun on the IEEE website .

Posted December 12, 2011.

Five ECE students win 2011 IEEE PES Scholarships

ECE is pleased to announce that five of our electrical engineering undergraduate students have been selected to receive scholarships as part of the inaugural IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) Scholarship Plus Initiative. PES Scholarship recipients were selected from 51 U.S. universities for the 2011-2012 academic year.  These undergraduate students were selected by industry and academic representatives based primarily upon: academic preparation; extra-curricular activities and leadership; interest in engineering in general, and power and energy engineering in particular; and overall assessment of the student's potential for a successful power and energy engineering career.

2011 PES Scholarship recipients from the ECE department include:

• Calvin Au - Electrical Engineering Senior 
• Nicholas Coleman - BS/MS Electrical Engineering Junior
• Joshua Edelman - Electrical Engineering Senior
• Khaula Rashid - Electrical Engineering Sophomore
• Vincent Zaccone - Electrical Engineering Senior

For more information about this program, please visit the PES Scholarship Plus Initiative homepage .

Posted December 2, 2011.

Department Head presents IEEE/Royal Society of Edinburgh Award

Dr. Moshe Kam, ECE Department Head, met with HRH Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, on Friday, August 15th  for the purpose of presenting the IEEE/Royal Society of Edinburgh Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award to Dr. Marcian E. Hoff. The Maxwell award recognizes ground breaking contributions by those who follow in Maxwell’s footsteps. The award this year was presented by Dr. Kam to Dr. Hoff for developments in programmable integrated circuitry for a wide range of applications.

Dr. Hoff’s determination that there ‘must be a better way’ to use integrated circuits for computing led him to design the world’s first microprocessor – the Intel 4004 – in 1968, paving the way for a large number of applications, including the personal computer and embedded systems.

Additional information about this event is available from the Royal Society of Edinburgh website .

More information about the award can be found on the IEEE website .

Photographs reproduced by permission of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; photographs by Gary Doak.
Posted August 24, 2011.

Department Head comments on the future of robotics

On June 24, President Obama announced a $70 million National Robotics Initiative. The stated goal of this new initiative is "to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people." Dr. Moshe Kam, ECE Department Head, was asked by the Philadelphia Inquirer to comment on the impact of this initiative on research and economics as well as the place of robots in human life.

When asked about the practical implications of the president's recently announced initiatives, Dr. Kam stated that it "represents a step up in the way we work with robots." He feels that the initiative makes explicit a commitment to an objective that has been motivating research for years, namely "to have robots that are out in the human environment, cooperative with humans, becoming partners of humans in their activities, trying to understand their intentions." Dr. Kam continues the interview by enumerating a vision of the future in which robots assist in tasks ranging from food production to search and rescue to communications. To read the entire interview, please visit the Philadelphia Inquirer story .

Three ECE faculty members granted tenure and promotion

The Board of Trustees of the University accepted the recommendation of President Fry to grant academic tenure to Drs.  Youngmoo Kim and Baris Taskin of the ECE Department.  Drs. Kim and Taskin will both be elevated to the Associate Professor rank in the Fall Quarter of 2011.  In addition, Dr. Karen Miu will be promoted to the rank of Professor.

Dr. Miu (pictured left) joined the department in 1998.  She has focused on the analysis of power distribution systems and the development of analytically-based power distribution application functions such as service restoration, VAR/Voltage control and load estimation.  These functions become increasingly important as power distribution systems grow to be more stressed and new operating scenarios arise.  In addtion, Dr. Miu has developed several new courses in power, energy and control systems incorporating active and hands-on learning within the classroom and laboratories. 

Dr. Kim (pictured right) joined the department in 2005.  He directs the Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab), which pursues research at the intersection of engineering, design and creative expression and performance.  Areas of active research at the MET-lab include music information retrieval, robotics and new interfaces for expressive interaction as well as K-12 outreach for engineering education.  In addition, Dr. Kim is the newly appointed Assistant Dean of Media Technologies and Principal Investigator on projects totalling over $7 million in funding from NSF. 

Dr. Taskin (pictured left) joined the ECE department during the Fall Quarter of 2005.  He specializes in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) of VLSI circuits, circuit timing, high performance integrated circuits and nanoarchitectures.  In 2009, he received an NSF CAREER award for his project, "Rotary Clock Technology Integration."  Dr. Taskin's research is expected to have impact on a large number of microelectronic systems, from field-deployable low power sensors to the world's fastest supercomputers.

Posted June 13, 2011.

ECE hosts first Advisory Council meeting of the year

The ECE department hosted a face-to-face meeting of the ECE Advisory Council on Tuesday, April 12, 2011, in the Bossone Research Enterprise Center.  Six of the seven council members spent the day with the department learning about our undergraduate and graduate programs through presentations, touring the ECE laboratory facilities and meeting with ECE faculty and students.  The final council member, Dr. Xiaoxun Zhu, participated via teleconference from Shanghai, China.  The 2011 ECE Advisory Council members, representing academia, industry and public sector, include: Holly Cyrus, Federal Aviation Administration; Boris Gelfand, Lockheed Martin; Mark Karol, Telcordia Technologies, Inc.; John Reagan, Prof. Emeritus of ECE at University of Arizona; Lewis Terman, IEEE 2008 President and IBM Research Emeritus; William P. Walsh, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren and Drexel BS; and Xiaoxun Zhu, Honeywell Technology Solutions and Drexel BS and Ph.D..

Posted April 25, 2011.

Senior Design team takes home award in Shell Eco-marathon Americas

The Green Dragon, a solar car designed by a Drexel University engineering senior design team, took to the track between April 14 and April 17 in Houston, Texas to compete in the Shell Eco-marathon Americas 2011.  The Shell Eco-marathon aims to challenge both high school and college students to design, build and test energy efficient vehicles in competions held around the world.  This year 30 university and 18 high school teams from the United States and Canada competed in the Americas competion.  This is the first year that Drexel has participated in the competion.

Advised by Drs. Adam Fontecchio (ECE) and Bradley Layton (MEM), the senior design team, comprised of eleven ECE and MEM students, constructed one of a small minority of solar powered vehicles to enter this year's competion.  While many of the teams, including the winning team from Université Laval of Québec City, aimed to produce lighter cars to increase the efficiency of the more traditional internal combustion engine vehicles, Drexel's team decided to tackle the complexities of designing and building a solar car, reusing as many parts as possible from last year's Automotive X-Prize vehicle to produce as green a product as possible.

ECE student and team member Asaf Erlich noted before the competion that "building a solar vehicle has special merits, especially for a school such as Drexel University, who holds itself as a pioneer of technology and a leader in sustainability.  The Shell Eco-Marathon Competition is a great way to meld the two themes together."  Ultimately, it seems that this commitment to cutting edge technology and sustainability paid off, as the Green Dragon won first place in the Solar Power division.  To learn more about the competion and the conception and creation of the Green Dragon, check out National Geographic's coverage.

Posted April 25, 2011.

ECE student receives prestigious Goldwater Scholarship

ECE student Magdalena Bielinski is one of the 2011 recipients of the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.  The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by the United States Congress in 1986 in honor of former United States Senator and 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.  Its goal is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.  Competition for the annual merit-based scholarship awarded by this program is exceptionally intense, with each university alloted four nomination slots for 300 possible scholarships nationwide.

Magda is currently in the BS/Ph.D. program, conducting research in wireless networks under the guidance of Dr. Kapil Dandekar.   A member of Drexel's Pennoni Honors College, she also participates in the Honors Students Tackling Advance Research (STAR) program, is the co-inventor of a U.S. patent application and is the author or co-author on several conference papers.  Magda's long term plans are to conduct research on wireless communications and digital signal processing in health care settings. 

Posted April 5, 2011.

ECE student publishes paper on low power clocking technologies

ECE Ph.D. stduent Ying Teng and Assistant Professor Baris Taskin have been featured on the cover of the December 2010 issue of the Journal of Low Power Electronics (JOLPE), published by the American Scientific Publishers, for their work on low power clocking technologies.  The cover image shows the ratio of the power consumption of the transmission line and the inverter pairs of a rotary travelling wave oscillator (RTWO).  In this article, a new power analysis and optimization model is proposed for the RTWOs, which are being investigated as a clocking system leading to low power, high-frequency integrated circuits by Dr. Taskin's VLSI design group.  This work could lead to advancements for micorelectronics in areas such as sensing, consumer electronics, health sciences and microprocessors.

Posted January 12, 2011.  

ECE professor elected to prestigious awards committee

ECE Professor Afshin Daryoush was elected to the Committee of Science and the Arts (CS&A) of the Franklin Institute.  The CS&A selects winners of the prestigious awards that the Franklin Institute bestows on scientists, industrialists and humanitarians.  The Franklin Institute has maintained this award program since 1833, making it the longest continuously active science and technology awards program in the United States and one of the oldest in the world.  Past recipients include Henry Ford, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marie Curie, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Paul Baran.

Other members of the CS&A that are currently affiliated with Drexel University are Frank Ferrone (Physics), Ary Rosen (Biomed), Jeremy Johnson (CS), Dario Salvucci (CS), Tom Hewett (Psychology) and Peter Lewin (Biomed).

Posted September 28, 2010.

ECE awarded curriculum development grant

Dr. Christopher Peters (PI) and Dr. Moshe Kam (Co-PI) have been awarded a curriculum development grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the intial development of the Drexel University Nuclear Engineering Education Laboratory (DUNEEL).  The funding, $150,000 over two years, will assist in establishing a nuclear engineering minor via course development - including courses such as Introduction to Nuclear Reactor Theory, Nuclear Power Plant Operation and Design and Radiation Transport and Simulation Design - and acquiring software for secondary stream plant design and analysis and for transport of fundamental particles through matter.

The nuclear renaissance is expected to require the hiring of highly educated engineers in nuclear engineering, replacing an aging workforce while expanding for the future.  The establishment of DUNEEL will position Drexel University to become a strong contributor to the field of nuclear engineering

Posted September 28, 2010.

ECE professor receives NSF MRI-R2 for humanoids research

ECE Professor Youngmoo Kim (PI) and co-investigators Yury Gogotsi (Professor of Materials Science and Engineering), William Regli (Professor of Computer Science), Dennis Hong (Virginia Tech, Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Stefan Schaal (University of Southern California, Department of Computer Science) have been awarded a $6 million Major Research Infrastructure - Recovery & Reinvestment (MRI-R2) grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Development of a Common Platform for Unifying Humanoids Research".  Drexel University is the lead institution for this ambitious 5-year effort, partnering with leading robotics researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University, University of Southern California and Virginia Tech.

This project builds upon Drexel's existing partnership with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), developers of the Hubo humanoid robot.  Based upon Drexel and KAIST's Hubo, the new effort will develop the world's first adult-sized humogenous humanoid robot team, enabling a critical mass of robotics researchers across the country to work with a common instrument to compare, benchmark and validate methods and results.  The goal of this project is to advance the United States to the forefront of humanoids research.

Posted August 23, 2010.

The Drexel Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) presents DrexelCast: a live HD broadcast of the Philadelphia Orchestra's concert program "Dutoit Conducts Strauss" the afternoon of Tuesday, June 8th in the Mitchell Auditorium (Bossone Research Center). The DrexelCast events are part of an ECE senior design project to advance music education and audience engagement, which was just awarded second place overall in the College of Engineering's design competition.

This event will kick-off at 1:30 p.m. with a pre-concert presentation entitled "The Technology of DrexelCast" by Prof. Youngmoo Kim, MET-lab director and Professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  This is the final DrexelCast presentation for the 2009-2010 concert season and is free and open to the Drexel community through the generous sponsorship of the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, Pennoni Honors College, and the College of Engineering.

A pair of off-the-hook noblemen and a Turkish rondo mark Maestro Dutoit's penultimate concert set of the season, as electric Munich-born violinist Arabella Steinbacher makes her Philadelphia Orchestra subscription debut. She'll play Mozart's Fifth Concerto, known for its torchy Turkish finale, and Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Viola Choong-Jin Chang will join cellist Arto Noras for Strauss's heart-on-the-sleeve musical retelling of Cervantes's Don Quixote-with Chang "playing" Sancho Panza to Noras's Quixote. Strauss's high-octane but ultimately tragic Don Juan opens the program with orchestral fireworks and virtuosic panache.

More information about DrexelCast is available at: http://music.ece.drexel.edu/drexelcast

Posted June 3, 2010.

ECE professor receives Department of Energy Award

Professor Gail Rosen has recieved an award from the Department of Engery (DOE), entitled "Tracking Down Cheaters: Molecular Analysis of Carbon Consumption by Organisms That Do Not Contribute to the Extracellular Enzyme Pools."  The start date of the award is June 1, 2010.

The project, led by Christopher Blackwood, a soil biologist from Kent State University, aims to study the role of microbial communities in litter decomposition and the carbon cycle.  Current models only incorporate "investor" microbes, those that make extracellular enzymes in order to break down plant matter for digestion, but "cheaters" have recently been discovered that free-ride off of the existing enzyme pool and are hypothesized to affect decomposition rates.  In fact, it has been found that some "cheaters" have the capacity to be "investors" but are opportunisitic.  The aim of the proposal is to find out which microbes belong to each category: "investors", "obligate cheaters" and "opportunistic cheaters".  Dr. Rosen's role will be to develop new bioinformatic techniques to integrate metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data to discover new microbes and genes and their role.

The total amount of the aware is $1.07 million, with Drexel's portion being $180,000.

Posted May 26, 2010.

ECE Professor awarded US Patent

US Patent 7,705,415 was issued to Bahram Nabet, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Affiliated Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, on "Optical and Electronic Devices Based on Nano-Plasma" on April 27, 2010.  Assigned to Drexel University, the patent covers devices in which a plasma of mobile charge that is confined to nano scales is used to detect or sense perturbations with very high sensitivity.  Radiation in the Terahertz range, charged particles such as electrons and optical photo detector devices are described in the patent.  Applications range in security, such as explosives detection, to biomedical and optical communication devices.

Posted May 26 2010.   

ECE students earn NSF Graduate Research Fellowships

Two ECE students were awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF), which "recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines."

David K. Grunberg, who is advised by Dr. Youngmoo Kim (ECE), earned the fellowship for work combining audio signal processing and robotics research to develop technologies for analyzing and understanding human creativity and expression.  His current project is the development of a dancing humanoid, offering a unique platform for advancing the fields of robot movement and human-robot interaction.

Robert Sherbert is advised by Dr. Paul Oh (MEM).  The goal of his project is to develop a generalized control system framework that will couple robotics hardware with its representation in software.  This technology is expected to reduce robot development time and increase the capabilities available in the end product.

Alyssa Batula, advised by Dr. Youngmoo Kim, and Ben Pelleg, advised by Dr. Adam Fontecchio (ECE), received NSF GRF honorable mentions.

In related news, Magda Bielinski, advised by Dr. Kapil Dandekar (ECE) earned an honorable mention in the Goldwater Fellowship Competition, "an educational sholarship program designed to provide opportunities for outstanding U.S. students with excellent academic records and demonstrated interest in, and potential for, careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering."

Posted April 14, 2010.

ECE professor spotlighted in ASEE online magazine eGFI

On April 12, 2010 the American Society for Engineering Education's (ASEE) online magazine eGFI published "Breaking the Sound Barrier," highlighting research conducted by ECE professor Dr. Youngmoo Kim and his students in the Music & Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab).  Research in the MET-lab centers on digital media technologies that will shape the future of entertainment, especially in the areas of music production, music information retrieval and new interfaces for musical expression.  The eGFI article specifically focuses on one of Dr. Kim's recent projects: an iPhone application that allows a user to adjust the mood and tempo of music to personal taste, providing a unique interactive musical experience.

You can view the full article on the eGFI website.  The article is a follow-up to a piece originally appearing in the Summer 2009 publication of ASEE's Prism.

Posted April 14, 2010.

ECE Professor to speak at Energy Leadership Conference

Dr. Chika Nwankpa, director of the Center for Electric Power Engineering in the ECE department, will be speaking on the topic of Smart Grid Campuses at 1pm on April 8 in the Mitchell Auditorium, located in the Bossone Research Enterprise Center, as part of the Advanced Energy Leadership Conference held at Drexel University from April 8-9, 2010.  In this seminal conference, regional thought leaders from both the private and public sectors will discuss the evolving future of energy for Greater Philadelphia and the Mid-Atlantic states.  Experts with unique commercial experience will also examine and discuss advanced energy and grid technologies.

This conference is designed for regional stakeholders and employees of large universities, hospitals, commercial and industrial companies and government organizations whose responsibilities include energy and facility management, sustainability, demand response, energy research, financial investment and technology innovation.  This conference is also well-suited for employees of power companies and independent systems operators and members of regional transmission organizations.

Information, including registration, can be accessed here.

For more information, please contact Vanessa Vardon at 215-895-6601 or by

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Drexel University

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