The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association                                                                          July  2017
Letter from the Editor
Badri Roysam,
University of Houston
Dear ECEDHA Members, Industry Partners, and Colleagues,

ECEDHA is proud to welcome a distinguished set of new Board Members. Dan Stancil (NCSU) is the new President, Jelena Kovacevic (CMU) is the new Secretary-Treasurer, and Jay Farrell (UC-Riverside) and Bill Sanders (UIUC) are our new Board Members at Large.
 
Initiative is the mark of true leadership. In this issue, we are pleased to feature fresh initiatives towards advancing diversity from Jelena Kovacevic, and from former ECEDHA President Athina Petropulu (Rutgers). George Pappas (U Pennsylvania) has described an initiative aimed at shaping a National Agenda for Intelligent infrastructure. We are proud to honor Ken Connor (Rensselaer) who is widely respected for his pioneering Studio Learning Initiative that I had the privilege of being a part of. We are proud to honor Ragu Balakrishnan (Purdue) for his E-Mentoring Program initiative. What can I say, initiatives are a way of ECE life!
Featured Articles
Judith Resnick Year of Women in ECE

Jelena Kovačević,
Carnegie Mellon University
In 2016, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University released FIRE: Foster, Impact, Research, Education: the strategic plan that sets the five-year course for department. 

As one of the four strategic objectives (Foster), ECE takes great pride in articulating its position on what guides it as an inclusive and respectful community. To that end, ECE has formed a committee on inclusion and outreach to formalize the strategy along all axes: from outreach (middle-school and high-school students), prospective students (communications and tours), admissions (working with Central admissions staff to provide balanced and holistic cohorts), climate for current students and hiring and retaining a diverse faculty body.
 
The iREDEFINE Project

Athina Petropulu, Rutgers
iREDEFINE ECE (Improving the Diversity of Faculty in Electrical and Computer Engineering) is an NSF funded project, also supported by ECEDHA (ECE Department Heads Association). The project aims to increase the numbers of women and under-represented minorities (W-URM) in faculty positions at ECE departments. The project includes the iREDEFINE workshop and follow up mentoring activities for W-URM at the graduate student level.

The project's vision is to redefine the field of ECE by making it more diverse at the professorial level, so that it can benefit from new ideas and new perspectives. The first iREDERFINE workshop was held with great success on March 17-18, as part of the 2017 ECEDHA (ECE Department  Heads Association) Annual Conference and Expo, in Miramar  Beach, Florida.

 >> Read more
A National Research Agenda for Intelligent Infrastructure 

George Pappas,
University of Pennsylvania
The ECEDHA Community Working Group, in collaboration with the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), have developed a series of visioning white papers that collectively propose a national research agenda for intelligent infrastructure. While infrastructure is emerging as a critical national priority, these visioning efforts make a strong case for investments in Intelligent Infrastructure. Intelligent Infrastructure will provide a foundation for increased safety and resilience, improved efficiencies and civic services, and broader economic opportunities and job growth for our nation.
Special Announcements
Daniel Stancil Appointed President of ECEDHA

Dr. Daniel D. Stancil, Alcoa Distinguished Professor and Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University has been named president of ECEDHA. 





Daniel Stancil

Professor and Chair
North Carolina State University

Stancil will serve as president for the 2017-18 year and leads a 15-person Board of Directors for the Organization.

ECEDHA 2017-2018 Results

The 2017-2018 Election has officially concluded.  We are pleased to announce the results of our election for Secretary-Treasurer.

ECEDHA welcomes the following officers to the ECEDHA Board of Directors:







Jelena Kovacevic
Secretary-Treasurer
Carnegie Mellon University





Jay Farrell
Member-at-Large
University of California, Riverside





William Sanders
Member-at-Large
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Congratulations to our new officers. We look forward to a continued strong leadership for the association.

ECE in the News
Kenneth Connor Honored at ECEDHA 2017

Kenneth Connors of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was honored with the Innovative Program Award at the 2017 ECEDHA Annual Conference and ECExpo in Sandestin, Florida this past March.

The award is given to individuals or departments that have created, implemented, and sustained the implementation of a successful innovative program and possibly assisted in the implementation of that program at other institutions. A successful program is one that has stood the test of time and has produced measurable improvements in the quality of the electrical and computer education received by a significant number of students at one or more institutions.

The impacts of Ken's dedication to innovation are twofold: Deeper Student Learning, and the Creation of Community.  Ken, jointly with Don Millard who is currently at NSF, developed a novel take home laboratory called Mobile Studio.  This innovation provided an extremely portable hardware/software platform to support student learning of circuits and electronics.  Ken helped to develop a 14-member university proposal that was funded at close to $4 million with a 3 year duration.  This group has developed a pedagogical process that has been proven to result in deeper learning of concepts in circuits and electronics, a traditional impediment to many ECE Students. Don Millard's quote summarizes well Ken's contributions:  " Ken is loved by many and is a true innovator: he has the intellect and motivation to seek and see space that others don't, he is not afraid to break from the norm, pushing past traditional wisdom."

Above (from left to right): Khalil Najafi, ECEDHA President, Kenneth Connor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Zhihua Qu, ECEDHA Awards Committee Chair

Purdue University Honored for Innovative Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Purdue University was honored with the Innovative Program Award in 2016.  Venkataramanan (Ragu) Balakrishnan accepted the award at this year's 2017 ECEDHA Annual Conference and ECExpo in Sandestin, Florida.

The award is given to individuals or departments that have created, implemented, and sustained the implementation of a successful innovative program and possibly assisted in the implementation of that program at other institutions. A successful program is one that has stood the test of time and has produced measurable improvements in the quality of the electrical and computer education received by a significant number of students at one or more institutions.

Purdue University has accomplished just that with their E-Mentoring Program.  The program was born in the School of ECE at Purdue in 2008.  Due to its success, it was expanded and administered by the Purdue Graduate School in the fall of 2014.

E-Mentoring is a first-semester peer mentoring program where incoming graduate students are paired with experienced graduate students who serve as mentors. Mentors and mentees are paired based on a personality trait assessment. Further data shows that the quality of these relationships is much higher than if students were paired randomly.  The E-Mentoring program is helping to assure that all incoming graduate students are being actively coached by trained peer mentors and faculty, are receiving guidance in securing an advisor and funding, are being counseled on courses and research options above and beyond the normal departmental advising, and are being prepared for success.  More interesting, 85% of the mentors and mentees said they would continue to meet after the program was over, which is a tremendous indicator of the high value students have placed on their newly formed mentoring relationships.

Above (from left to right): Khalil Najafi, ECEDHA President, Venkataramanan (Ragu) Balakrishnan, Purdue University, and Zhihua Qu, ECEDHA Awards Committee Chair

Conference Corner
Corporate Features
ECE Insights

ECE Insights offer in-depth interviews with leading industry executives.

Featured ECE Insights:
In This Issue
Calendar of Events
July 21, 2017
Great Lakes Regional Meeting
Hosted by the University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN
Early September (TBA), 2017
Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting
Hosted by Rowan University
Glassboro, NJ
October 5-6, 2017
SWECEDHA Regional Meeting
Hosted by the University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM
October 22-23, 2017
CSECEDHA Regional Meeting
Hosted by South Dakota State University
Brookings, SD
November 2-3, 2017
SECEDHA Regional Meeting
Hosted by Georgia Tech,
Atlanta, GA
November 17-19, 2017
WECEDHA Regional Meeting
Hosted by the University of California, San Diego
San Diego, CA
March 16, 2018
ABET Workshop
Presented at the ECEDHA Annual Conference
Hyatt Monterey - Monterey, CA
March 16-20, 2018
ECEDHA Annual Conference and ECE xpo
Hyatt Monterey - Monterey, CA
On Demand Webinar
In Partnership with National Instruments, ISTEC, LACCEI, and Tecnológico de Monterrey
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by COMSOL
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by National Instruments
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by Keysight Technologies
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by National Instruments
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by Quanser
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by COMSOL
On Demand Webinar
Sponsored by National Instruments
ECEDHA News
Renew your 2017 ECEDHA Membership today!

2017 ECEDHA membership renewal for ECEDHA department heads is now underway.  Renew your membership today to keep receiving ECEDHA membership benefits, including: 
  • Access to the ECEDHA Annual Conference and ECExpo
  • Complimentary registration for ECEDHA's ECE Webinars
  • The opportunity to participate in the ECEDHA Annual Survey, a valuable tool in benchmarking your organization in lab and office space, faculty and department head salaries, research budgets, student retention, graduation rates, and much more.
  • Complimentary job posting service via the ECEDHA website
  • And much more!

For questions, please contact Megan Bekolay at mbekolay@ecedha.org or 312.559.3724
Ideas/Comments/Suggestions?

We're interested in hearing from you!

We welcome all feedback - drop us a line at:
ECEDHA Member and Partner News
THE BRIDGE Magazine of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN)

The magazine of IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu is THE BRIDGE, which publishes a variety of features and content relevant to ECE students, faculty, and professionals. The magazine is electronic and open access with PDF versions of the current and prior issues.

Issue 1 of THE BRIDGE 2017 is available now! The theme of this issue is "Outreach and Impact."

ARC 2017 - Academic Research Colloquium for Engineering Ph.D. Students

ARC is open to engineering Ph.D. students who are one to two years away from graduation. The selection process is highly competitive with 20 spots available. All expenses are paid.

Deadline: July 15, 2017

2018 National Radio Science Meeting

The USNC-URSI is appointed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and represents U.S. radio scientists in URSI. Through technical co-sponsorship of the meeting by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, authors will have their choice of submitting one-page abstracts that are not archived on IEEE Xplore, or two-page summaries that are archived on IEEE Xplore.

Deadline for the submission of abstracts/summaries:
Monday, Sept. 18, 2017


At the ECE Source, we strive to cover topics that are relevant and timely to ECE  department heads.  We welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions of topics t o cover in our next issue.  Thank you.