DrexelCast: Orchestra Concert Event on October 4

The Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory, in partnership with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Specticast, will host five orchestra concert broadcast presentations on the Drexel campus throughout the 2009-2010 performance season.  These internet-based broadcasts will be presented in high definition in the Mitchell Auditorium in the Bossone Research Enterprise Center located at 3120 Market Street and are free and open to the public.

The next DrexelCast will take place on Sunday, October 4 at 2 p.m. and is entitled Bronfman, Bartók and Brahms.  For more information about this and the other presentations, please visit the DrexelCast website. 

These DrexelCast presentations are sponsored by the Westphal College of Media Arts and Design, the Penoni Honors College and the College of Engineering.

Posted September 29, 2009.

ECE faculty members receive NSF-MRI grant

Drs. Kapil Dandekar (PI), Adam Fontecchio (co-PI), Youngmoo Kim (co-PI) and Timothy Kurzweg (co-PI) of the ECE Department along with Dr. Jeremy Johnson (co-PI) of the Computer Science Department and an interdisciplinary team of senior investigators have recived a new NSF-MRI grant for $888,500 entitled "Development of Software Defined Communications Testbed for Radio and Optical Wireless Networking."

Working with indvidual collaborators, this team will develop a testbed for prototyping ultrawideband software defined radio and optical wireless communications systems.  This testbed will be made available to academic and industrial researchers around the world.  The intent is to create an online user community with software archives, transceiver designs, data repositories and user-support groups that will allow researchers working in radio and optical communication modalities to be able to prototype systems within common modular hardware and software framework.

Posted September 3, 2009.

ECE faculty members receive NSF grant

Drs. Kapil Dandekar (PI), Jaudelice de Oliveira (co-PI) and Moshe Kam (co-PI) of the ECE Department have received a new NSF grant entitled "Cognitive Antennas for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks."  The budget for this three year project is $480,000.

Cognitive radios have the ability to adjust technical parameters such as bandwidth, modulation scheme, transmitted power and error coding schemes.  These abilities provide significant flexibility, and let these radios adapt quickly to changes in communication channels and environmental conditions.  In this project the antennas used by the radios will be configured electronically to allow adjustments to their shape in order to control radiation pattern, polarization and frequency.  Addition of reconfigurable antennas to cognitive radios will give network nodes the additional capability to increase link robustness, enhance interference suppression and increase capacity.  The antennas developed through this grant will be tested in Drexel University's anechoic chamber.

Posted August 31, 2009.

ECE faculty member receives NSF-CAREER award

ECE professor Gail Rosen has just received a prestigious NSF-CAREER award for her project entitled "CAREER: A Machine Learning Framework for Metagenomic Relationships."  Gail is the only PI for this three year project with a budge of $680,000, which is much more than a usual CAREER award.

In this project, Dr. Rosen will be developing a computational framework which will enable identification and comparison of microorganisms to the environmental factors in their habitats.  With recent technologies, DNA can be extracted directly from the millions of cells in any environment and vast amounts of this DNA can now be sequenced, a technology known as metagenomics.  The ability to analyze these datasets will be acheived through machine learning methods to identify the content of this fragmented mixture.  This research will also address fundamental biological questions about global genomic features and theif effect on taxonomical and functional relationships.

As part of her CAREER plan, Dr. Rosen is developing an interdisciplinary graduate and undergraduate Bioinformatics curricula (in collaboration with a molecular ecologist) and K-12 modules to incorporate an innovative NSF-funded K-12 program.

Posted August 27, 2009.

Computing Innovation Fellows Project post-doc joins ECE

The Music Entertainment Technology Laboratory (Director: Prof. Youngmoo Kim, ECE, pictured at left) will be hosting a new postdoctoral fellow, Andrew McPherson, sponsored by the Computing Innovation Fellows Project beginning in Fall 2009.  This is a highly competitive program administered by the Computing Research Association (CRA) and sponsored by the National Science Foundation.  Sixty fellows were selected from 526 applications (with more than 1200 potential mentors).  The budget for this 1-year award is $140,000 and may be renewed for an additional year of support.

Andrew McPherson's research explores the role of computing in creative expression, creating hybrid acoustic-electronic instruments offering new musical possibilities to performers and composers.  He received undergraduate degrees in music and electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and subsequently complete a Master's in electrical engineering, pursuing his thesis work at the MIT Media Lab.

He will receive his Ph.D. in music composition at the University of Pennsylvania in Summer 2009.  As a composer, he has attended the Tanglewood and Aspen music festivals and received honors from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Composers Forum, Aspen, University of Pennsylvania and MIT.

More information about the Computing Innovation Fellows Project is available on their website.

Posted August 6, 2009.

ECE faculty members receive ONR grant

ECE professors Moshe Kam (PI) and Kapil Dandekar (co-PI) have received an ONR grant entitled "A Platform for Analyzing the Radio Frequency Environment of Naval Vessels."

This project is based on measurements taken in January 2008 by the ECE Data Fusion Laboratory aboard the USS Ticoderoga (CG 47).  The objective is to design and deploy a physical analysis platform for  characterization of the radio frequency environment found on naval vessels, with applications to wireless communications and SIGNIT techniques.  The budget for this one year project is $280,000.

Posted August 4, 2009.

ECE faculty members receive NSF grant

Drs. Kapil Dandekar (PI), Adam Fontecchio (co-PI), Nagarajan Kandasamy (co-PI), Youngmoo Kim (co-PI) and Timothy Kurzweg (co-PI) of the ECE Department have received a new NSF grant entitled "MIMO Software Defined Communication Testbed for UWB Radio and Free Space Optics."

As the ubiquity of wireless networking leads to an increasing reliance on high-speed data communications, there is clearly a need for new high-bandwidth, inexpensive, flexible and upgradable wireless communications technologies to meet the growing demands of future applications.  To address this need, this project generalizes the notion of "software defined radio" to include ultrawideband radio and optical communication modalities.  The main result is expected to be a modular testbed for rapidly prototyping high bandwidth networks for a variety of next-generation applications.  These applications include wireless HD-TV distribution, localization and broadband "last-mile" data access.  The budget for this three-year project is $609,646.

Posted August 4, 2009.

ECE student receives IEEE MTTS Undergraduate Scholarship

The IEEE Microwaves Theory and Techniques Society announced six winners of its Undergraduate Scholarships for fall 2009.  The purpose of these scholarships is to attract undergraduate students to the microwave and RF disciplines and to encourage them to pursue graduate degrees in these fields.

ECE BS/MS student Milad Alemohammad is among the awardess and the only awardee from a U.S. institution.  Advised by Dr. Peter Herczfeld, his project investigates the optical generation of rapidly tunable millimeter wave subcarriers where the tuning range exceeds 100 GHz.

Mr. Alemohammad also serves IEEE as a policy intern in Washington.  His research supports policies which encourage penetration of broadband technologies to rural America.  The outcome of these studies will be submitted to the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) and will be published in WISE Journal of Engineering & Public Policy.

Posted July 2, 2009.  

College of Engineering celebrates its 122nd commencement

Drexel's College of Engineering held its 112nd commencement ceremony on June 13. 2009.  Family, friends, College of Engineering faculty and staff, Drexel's board members and Interim President Chuck Pennoni gathered in the Daskalakis Athletic Center to celebrate the graduation of 569 students from the College of Engineering.  Among the graduates were 105 Electrical and Computer Engineering undergraduate students.  The ECE Department also graduated 17 students earning a Master's degree and 1 Ph.D. student.

Honorary degrees were awarded to Chris Ferguson '84 (MEM), NASA astronaut and commander of space shuttle STS-126 Endeavour, and Dr. Richard Caruso, chairman and founder of the medical device company Integra Life Sciences.

To see an archived webcast of the event click here.  For more information on commencement, please click here.

Posted June 16, 2009.

New Computer Engineering faculty member to join department

Dr. Mark Hempstead will be joining the ECE faculty by yearend as an assistant professor.  Dr. Hempstead is a graduate of Tufts University (B.S. 2003) and Harvard University (S.M. 2005, Ph.D. 2009).  He was co-advised at Harvard by Professors Gu-Yeon Wei and David Brooks, and his interests lie mostly in the field of Computer Engineering.  They include: power-aware computer architecture, low-power VLSI design, wireless sensor networks and accelerator-based architectures.  His doctoral dissertation is entitled "Accelerator-based computing for wireless sensor networks and future multicore microprocessors."

Many thanks to the ECE Computer Engineering recruiting committee for its diligent and successful efforts.  Members of the committee included Dr. Harish Sethu (chair), S. Basavaiah, Ali Shokoufandeh, Timothy Kurzweg, Nagarajan Kandasamy, John Walsh and Steven Weber.

Posted June 8, 2009.

ECE Senior Design teams take 1st and 2nd place at 2009 Competition

The College of Engineering (CoE) held its 2009 Senior Design Competition on June 3, 2009 in the Mitchell Auditorium.  All graduating CoE students are required to complete a Senior Design project, teaching students the engineering design process from conception to production.  Eight teams competed for first place, but ECE Professor Steven Weber and his team took the grand prize of $2000.  The ECE team designed an application called 'schdulr', which is a web-based course scheduling application that provides students with a unified interface to plan out their course of study and register for classes.  Team members included Abhishek Bhardwaj, Anisha Shrestha and George Benny Varghese (not pictured).

Second place and the $1000 prize went to the joint ECE and Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM) student team for the design and construction of the Drexel FSAE Formula Hybrid Car.  The hybrid car team designed, fabricated, tested and raced an open-wheel Formula Hybrid SAE car.  The car utilized a series drive train incorporating a motorcycle engine - electric motor pair for power generation, ultracapacitors for energy storage and independent electric motor drive for the rear wheels.

Team members included ECE students Joshua Verdieck, Arnold DiBlasi, Jason Futcher and Robert Smith and MEM students Matthew Sera, Matthew Janisch, Joseph Kain and Matthew Schoman.  The design team was advised by ECE faculty member Dr. Kevin Scoles and MEM faculty members Drs. Tein-Min Tan and Nicholas Cernansky.

The Senior Design team advised by Dr. Harish Sethu of the ECE Department was also nominated for the competition for its project titled "ProxiTrack: A Real-Time Product Locating System Accessible by GPS-Capable Devices."  The ProxiTrack system assists consumers in locating retail products in a given area and provides vendors with a means to track in-store inventory efficiently.

Posted June 8, 2009.

ECE students assist in introducing Jaemi HUBO the Humanoid

A team of researchers lead by Drexel University is collaborating with a team of Korean researchers on advancing humanoid development and enhancing the concept of human-robotic interaction.  The goal of the five-year project, funded through the National Science Foundation Partnership for International Research and Education Program, is to enable humanoids to interact with their environment and to train scientists and engineers to effectively work in global multi-disciplined design teams.  Through the collaboration, Drexel now houses a version of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology's (KAIST) HUBO humanoid, Jaemi HUBO, in the Drexel Autonomous Systems Laboratory directed by Dr. Paul Oh of the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department.

ECE doctoral student, Daniel Lofaro, traveled to Korea to work with KAIST and is one of the primary caretakers of Jaemi HUBO.  ECE undergraduate students Brian Kobe, Robert Sherbert and Clayton McNeil also contribute to the project and have performed co-ops at our travelled to KAIST.  Mr. Lofaro is pictured introducing Jaemi HUBO at the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia on May 28 through a demonstration of the humanoid interacting with the children, greeting passerby and playing "Simon Says."  The event served to educate the American public at all ages and increase the interest of young children in robotics and humanoid interaction.  Subsequent appearances will also be scheduled at various times throughout the year.

More information and videos about the overall project and news coverage of the Please Touch Museum event can be found here.

Posted June 8, 2009.

Two ECE faculty members granted tenure

The Board of Trustees of the University accepted the recommendation of Interim President Pennoni to grant academic tenure to Drs. Jaudelice de Oliveira and Steven Weber of the ECE Department.  Both will also be elevated to the Associate Professor rank in the Fall Quarter of 2009.

Dr. de Oliveira joined the department in 2003.  Her research interests include the development of new protocols and policies on quality of service in the future Internet, traffice engineering and efficient routing in ad hoc and sensor networks.  She is widely known and cited by researchers in traffic engineering and Internet congestion control and has also contributed to standarization in computer networks within the Internet Engineering Task Force.  Dr. de Oliveira recieved her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dr. Weber also joined the ECE department during the Fall Quarter of 2003 and has done significant work in mathematical modeling of computer and communications networks, including streaming multimedia and ad hoc networks.  Of his many contributions to these fields is the definition and application of Transmission Capacity - a term that he had introduced to the literature and is being used widely now by many researchers as a performance index for wireless networs.  Dr. Weber's Ph.D. is from the University of Texas at Austin.

Posted June 8, 2009.

ECE professor publishes first book

Dr. Baris Taskin, Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, recently published his first book entitled Timing Optimization Through Clock Skew Scheduling with two colleagues from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Rochester.

The book focuses on optimizing the timing of large scale, high performance, digital synchronous systems.  A particular emphasis is placed on algorithms for non-zero clock skew scheduling to improve the performance and reliability of VLSI circuits.

An online version of the book is available to the Drexel community on Springerlink.

Posted May 21, 2009.

ECE Professor receives Linback Award

Dr. Timothy Kurzweg of the ECE Department was selected to be the 2009 Drexel University recipient of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching.  This is one of the most prestigious higher education awards in the U.S..

The Lindback Awards for Distinguished Teaching were established with the help of the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation. Christian Lindback was president and principal of Abbotts Dairies, Inc. and a trustee of Bucknell University.  The Foundation established Lindback Awards for Distinguished Teaching at colleges and universities throughout the Abbotts Dairies, Inc.'s service area in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

Dr. Kurzweg will be recognized for the award at the Faculty Recognition Dinner on June 3, 2009, and the award will be announced during graduation ceremonies.

We offer our warm congratulations to Dr. Kurzweg on this important recognition!

Posted May 15, 2009.

Drexel Formula Hybrid Club places 3rd overall in International Formula Hybrid Competition

The Drexel Formula Hybrid Club with students from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics Department, received the third place award in the Third Annual International Formula Hybrid Competition in Loudon, New Hampshire in May 2009.

In the five months prior to the competition, the Drexel Formula Hybrid team designed and built an entire series configuration hybrid drive train, electrical system, suspension and chassis from the ground up, starting with only a bare front half of a frame.  Drexel placed first for series drive train configuration hybrids, and placed third overall during the competition that took place from May 4 to 9, 2009.

Twenty nine teams from all around the country and as far as Canada, Russia and India competed in this three day event sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to push the limits of hybrid power race cars in acceleration, autocross and endurance events.

In the static events, Drexel placed sixth in the design competition and seventh in the marketing presentation.  In the dynamic events, Drexel began to head to the front of the pack - taking sixth for acceleration, third for autocross and second for endurance, each of which is progressively worth more points in the competition.

For more information on joining or helping to further support the Drexel Formula Hybrid Club, contact Joshua Verdieck or Matt Sera at drexelhsae@gmail.com.

Posted May 14, 2009.

ECE professor and colleagues receive NSF-GOALI

Dr. Bahram Nabet (Co-PI), Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, as well as Dr. Jonathan Spanier (PI), Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Drs. Gary Tompa (Co-PI) and Nick Sbrockey of Structured Materials Industries, Inc. have received a $468,149 National Science Foundation Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (NSF-GOALI) award.  The award comes from the Division of Materials Research and is entitled "GOALI: Low-Dimensional Plasmonic Semiconductor Materials."

This project will research the fabrication of semiconductor nanowires and their response to electromagnetic waves.  Drexel will work in partnership with Structured Materials Industries, Inc. and scientists in Italy.

The NSF-GOALI program promotes university-industry partnerships for various ends, including interdisciplinary research.

Posted May 14, 2009.

Naval Nuclear Reactor Program Information Session

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department will be hosting the Department of Naval Reactors in search of qualified Drexel students for potential post-graduation employment as nuclear prupolsion officers, engineers and nuclear instructors within the Department of the Navy.  This information session will be held on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 in Curtis Hall Room 162 at 4:00 p.m.

Students may apply as early as sophomore year and selectees will immediately begin receiving $3000 to $3500 per month plus a $15,000 signing bonus.  This program is available to students in any and all majors who have obtained a 'C' or better in Physics and Calculus.

Interested students are encouraged to bring along a transcript - official or unofficial - to the event for the opportunity to receive a professionally endorsed invitation to interview with the Naval Nuclear Power Program.  Food and beverage will be provided.

For more information, contact Jessica Ward at jward@ece.drexel.edu.

Posted May 14, 2009.

Engineering a Better World Conference taking place on May 13

In celebration of IEEE's 125th anniversary, Drexel's IEEE student chapter will be hosting the third annual Engineering a Better World Conference on Wedenesday, May 13 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Mitchell Auditorium on the first floor of Bossone Enterprise Research Center.  Free lunch will be provided for conference attendees at noon.

This year's event is titled "Engineering the World: The Diversity of Engineering."  The goal of the conference is to represent and give examples of the diversity of engineering education, career opportunities and the global impact of engineering efforts.  Please join us on May 13 in support of the distinguised speakers and the IEEE student group.

The following is the schedule of the day's events:

• 11:00 a.m. - Dr. Adam Fontecchio [Drexel ECE Professor]: Evolution and diversity of engineering education
• 11:30 a.m. - Orlando Gutierrez [Ex-president of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and retired NASA engineer]: Benefits of a diverse population
• 12:00 p.m. - Lunch
• 1:00 p.m. - Dr. Tony Lowman [Drexel College of Engineering Associate Dean]: Entrepreneurship and business in engineering
• 1:30 p.m. - Mary Graham [Founder of Practical Small Projects]: Best practices when cultural implications affect engineering projects
• 2:00 p.m. - Round Table Discussion with all of the day's speakers moderated by Dr. Stephen Cox [Director of Drexel's Alliance for Minority Participation]

For more information regarding the event, please contact Dave Delaine at dad49@drexel.edu

Posted May 5, 2009.

Ph.D. student accepts NRC Post-Doc position

Anna E. Fox, Ph.D. candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, has accepted a National Research Council (NRC) Post-doctoral Research Associate position at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado.  Her research interest lies in developing a real-time adaptable photomask for contact photolithography fabricated from holographically structured polymer dispersed liquid crystal thin films.

Anna received her undergraduate degree from Columbia University and her M.S. in Engineering Science from the Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering.  She peformed her doctoral research under Dr. Adam K. Fontecchio in the Drexel NanoPhotonics Laboratory.  While at Drexel, Anna was awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellowship.

Posted May 5, 2009.

Ph.D. student accepts faculty appointment

Nicholas J. Kirsh, Ph.D. candidate in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, has accepted a tenure track position at the University of New Hampshire.  His research interests deal with designing and prototyping next generation wireless communications systems making use of multiple antennas.

Nicholas received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin Madison and performed his master's and doctoral research under Dr. Kapil Dandekar in the Drexel Wireless Systems Laboratory.  Nicholas was supported by both the Applied Communications and Information Networking (ACIN) Program and a Koerner Family Fellowship.

Posted May 5, 2009.

ECE student wins Research Day 2009 Award

Matthew Prockup, ECE BS/MS student advised by Dr. Youngmoo Kim, received an award at Research Day held on April 23, 2009 in the undergraduate category of Computation, Modeling and Simulation (non-Biological) for his paper “A Simple yet Robust Multi-touch Software Development Platform.”  This is the second consecutive year that Mr. Prockup has been acknowledged for this project.

Several ECE students also earned honorable mentions, including: (1) Jared P. Coyle, advised by Professor Adam Fontecchio, for “Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Analysis for Quality control of Electro-optic thin Films”; (2) Patrick Richardson, advised by Professor Youngmoo Kim, for “Music Games Beyond Fun and Gaming”; and (3) Alex Hrybyk, advised by Professor Youngmoo Kim, for “Guitar Chord Transcription Using Video and Audio Analysis of Live Performance.”

The ECE Department congratulates the students and faculty for their hard work and achievements. 

Posted April 29, 2009.

Faculty members receive grant for nanoparticle ink research

Drs. Kapil Dandekar, Adam Fontecchio, and Timothy Kurzweg, Associate Professors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, received a grant for $210k from Pchem Associates, Inc. and the Benjamin Franklin Nanotechnology Partners in March 2009 for the project “Printed RFID Antenna Using Nanoparticle Inks.”

The project will explore new applications for nanoparticle enhanced inks in wireless communications.

Potential applications include printed conformal antennas on fabric, glass, displays, stickers and mobile devices.

Posted April 23, 2009.

Thank you to all accepted students

The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department would like to extend our gratitude to all of the high school students and families who joined the department for Accepted Student's Day on Saturday, April 18.  The day was spent getting to know Drexel University's College of Engineering and then ECE department through presentations, information sessions and lab and campus tours with Drexel faculty, staff and students.

For those accepted students who could not join us or those of you who did but would like another chance at viewing the ECE department presentation and associated videos highlighting undergraduate research projects, please click here.

Posted April 23, 2009.

Photodector design garners recognition

Dr. Bahram Nabet, Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, was interviewed by Optics.org for the 27 March 2009 article “Plasmonic Lens Improves Photodector.”  The article described Dr. Nabet and his research groups’ project supported by two grants from the National Science Foundation and by the US Army Research Office involving a simple photodetector design (patent pending) that incorporates a plasmonic lens that doubles the efficiency of the device, which benefits imaging and optical communications applications.

The interview stemmed from the publication of “Integrated Plasmonic Lens Photodetector” in Applied Physics Letters by authors James A. Shackleford, ECE graduate student, Richard Grote, ECE graduate student, Dr. Marc Currie, Naval Research Laboratory, Dr. Jonathan E. Spanier, Materials Science Engineering professor, and Dr. Nabet in February 2009.  Another news story about this work involving the photodetector design will appear in the April issue of Laser World Focus.

Posted April 15, 2009.

Faculty member receives grant for radar research

Dr. Athina Petropulu, Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, received an award from the Office of Navy Research (ONR) in partnership with H.V. Poor of Princeton University in March 2009 for the project "Cooperative MIMO Radar."

The project will investigate a novel approach for detection and characterization of moving targets.  Nodes of a wireless network will act as a distributed antenna system.  By exploiting node cooperation the proposed radar system can achieve super-resolution, it maintains low implementation cost and can be easily deployed without preexisting infrastructure.

The budget of the ONR award is $800K for three years, and Drexel's portion is $400K.

Posted April 15, 2009.

A Founding Father of the Internet, Drexel EE Alumnus Paul Baran Named National Medal of Technology and Innovation Laureate

Paul Baran, a founding father of the Internet and a Drexel University alumnus, has been named a 2007 National Medal of Technology and Innovation laureate.

President Bush presented the award to Baran on Monday, Sept. 29, in the East Room of the White House.

The award honors America's leading innovators and is presented to individuals, teams and companies for their contributions to the nation's economic, environmental and social well-being.

"On behalf of the entire Drexel University community, I congratulate Paul Baran for his remarkable achievements," Drexel President Constantine Papadakis said. "One of the Internet's premier architects, he helped revolutionize the way we communicate, conduct business, teach and learn and so much more. He is one of Drexel's most accomplished alumni, and he has made us all proud."

A native of Poland who graduated from Drexel with a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1949 and received an honorary degree in 1997, Baran is credited with helping to develop packet-switching technology in 1962. Packet-switching enables information to be divided into small packets that are addressed, sent to several destinations to increase the odds the information will actually arrive and, finally, reassembled. Packet-switching laid the foundation for the Internet to develop.

While working at RAND Corp., Baran conceived of packet-switching as a military communications system to be used in the event of nuclear attack during the Cold War. A series of papers outlining the key concepts of packet-switching published in 1964, "On Distributed Communications" influenced the work of Lawrence Roberts and Leonard Kleinrock, a 2007 National Medal of Science laureate. Roberts and Kleinrock utilized packet-switching in the development of the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, or ARPANET, the world's first operational packet-switching network and predecessor of the Internet.

Baran, an Atherton, Calif., resident who received the 2001 Franklin Institute Bower Award for Achievement in Science for his contributions to the Internet, is credited with helping to develop a packet voice technology that led to the development of the first commercial ATM product. He is also credited with helping to develop discrete multitone modem technology, used in DSL modems, and doorway metal detectors.

Another Drexel alumnus, N. Joseph Woodland, is a National Medal of Technology and Innovation laureate for his conception and development of Universal Product Code technology. Woodland, who graduated with a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering in 1947 and received a Drexel honorary degree in 1998, was presented the award in 1992.

Wireless Laboratory Receives a Donation from Aeroflex, Inc.

Aeroflex, Inc. recently donated approximately $800,000 in specialized wireless communications protocol conformance testing and software defined radio equipment to the Drexel Wireless Systems Laboratory (DWSL) directed by Professor Kapil Dandekar in the ECE department. The donation was initiated by Drexel alum of the Class of 1983, and Aeroflex VP and General Manager, Robert Vogel (pictured at the right with Dean Guceri at the 2007 Engineer of the Year Banquet). The Aeroflex equipment, coupled with the anechoic chamber testing facility and other capital equipment in DWSL, will enable many new and exciting research projects and educational opportunities. The Aeroflex equipment also provides unique capabilities to Drexel which will allow it to become a research and educational leader in the area of wireless communication system development and testing.

New Financial Engineering Courses

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department is pleased to announce a new year-long Special Topics series of courses in Financial Engineering.  This series of courses is designed to: prepare students to be competitive applicants for jobs in the financial sector; help students apply math and programming skills to a new, quickly growing area; and give students the skills to make more informed decisions in their personal management of money and investments.  The first course in the series will be offered this Fall Quarter and will cover time-value of money, portfolio management and the Capital Asset Pricing Model.

In the Winter and Spring terms, we will cover derivative securities, option pricing, betting strategies, auctions, financial time-series analysis, heavy-tailed distributions and parameter estimation.

The first course will meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30 to 1:50 during the coming Fall Quarter.  The prerequisites for the course are ENGR 361: Probability and Statistics for Engineers and ECE 203: Programming for Engineers.  If you did not take these courses but believe that you have studied the same material in other courses, please ask for permission to enroll of the instructor, Dr. Steven Weber, at sweber@ece.drexel.edu.

All courses in this sequence can be counted towards fulfillment of core or technical elective requirements.

Register for the Fall term course, ECES 490, under the CRN 15151.

Direct questions to the course instructor, Dr. Steven Weber, at sweber@ece.drexel.edu.
(Photo: Jaap Steinvoorte )

Posted on August 1, 2008.

Nihat M. Bilgutay (March 31, 1952 - July 1, 2008)

Nihat M. Bilgutay was born on 31 March 1952 in Turkey. He received his academic training at Bradley University (BSEE 1973) and Purdue University (MSEE 1975, PhD 1981). His thesis advisor at Purdue was Vernon L. Newhouse. Between his graduation from Purdue and his appointment as ECE Department Head at Drexel Dr. Bilgutay focused on studying ultrasonic nondestructive testing and imaging, and digital signal processing. He developed an international reputation in the field of ultrasonics, especially Split Spectrum techniques, and was well known for his contributions to engineering education. An IEEE Fellow and a recipient of an IEEE Third Millennium Medal, Dr. Bilgutay was advisor to seven doctoral and post doctoral students, and to fifteen students who received the Master of Science degree under his guidance.

Dr. Bilgutay came to Drexel in 1982 as a Drexel Fellow, and was made Full Professor in 1992. He served Drexel as the Vernon L. Newhouse Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Research (1990-1995), leader of the Gateway Engineering Education Coalition, and, most notably, ECE Department Head (1995-2006). During his tenure as Department Head, the ECE Department saw an unprecedented growth in external funding for research, and significant and successful hiring of many young faculty members. Under his leadership, the Department had also made the important transition from Commonwealth Hall to its current home in the Edmund D. Bossone Research Enterprise Center.

Among his colleagues and friends, Dr. Bilgutay was known as a sharp and purposeful person, energetic, perceptive, and passionate. He was able to bring together individuals from different backgrounds and experiences, and to foster harmony and cooperation. He was methodical and stable, persistent and focused. His dedication to Drexel University and to the Department was legendary -- students, members of the staff and the faculty found him extraordinarily responsive to their needs. He would go to any length to advance the department's cause and to improve its operations, physical plant, reputation and reach. He was a permanent feature in the ECE office -- during and after normal working hours and on numerous evenings and weekends.

During the last two years, as debilitating illness has progressively limited his faculties, Dr. Bilgutay has waged the most courageous and forceful effort to continue to work, and to be as productive and participatory in Drexel affairs as was humanly possible. This heroic, tragic and awe-inspiring struggle has now come to an end.

Our deep condolences go to Dr. Bilgutay's wife Kathy and his three children Canan Ayse, Aylin Nur, and Deniz O. Bilgutay. We hope that in time they will be able to recover from this great loss. Some solace can perhaps be found in the remarkable impact of Dr. Bilgutay's long term activities. The fruits of his good deeds will continue to improve our lives and the lives of many others who were fortunate enough to know him and to benefit from his vision, labor and unbounded dedication.

Posted on July 1, 2008.

Drexel ECE Professor Appointed Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing

At the IEEE Meeting Series in Louisville, KY held during the week of February 11, it was announced that Dr. Athina Petropulu, of the ECE department, was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing.

The IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing is one of the most respected and cited publications in its field. It has the fourth highest impact factor in the very large group of "publications in Systems and Control," and it is considered the premier journal in its field. It covers theory and application of filtering, coding, transmitting, estimating, detecting, analyzing, recognizing, synthesizing, recording, and reproducing signals by digital or analog devices or techniques. The "signals" that the journal addresses include audio, video, speech, image, communication, geophysical, sonar, radar, medical, and musical signals. The Editor in Chief of an IEEE Transactions is the highest authority on the publication. This is a responsible and prestigious assignment reserved to individuals whose scholarship and judgment are considered the best that the sponsoring society (in this case the IEEE Signal Processing Society) can offer.

Posted on March 15, 2008.

Dr. Bruce Eisenstein Joins the Board of Directors of ABET, Representing IEEE

At the closing of the November 2007 meeting of ABET Inc. in Lake Tahoe, NV, Dr. Bruce Eisenstein, Associate Dean of the College of Engineering and Arthur J. Rowland Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has joined the Board of Directors of ABET as Director Representative of IEEE. The Board of Directors is the highest governing body of ABET.

ABET is a non-governmental accrediting agency for US college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. It is a federation of about 30 professional and technical societies representing these fields that had just celebrated its 75th anniversary. ABET currently accredits some 2,500 programs at over 550 colleges and universities nationwide. Over 1,500 volunteers participate annually in ABET-related activities.

Posted on February 28, 2008.

Graduate Research Fellowship Awarded

Novel Power Generation Methods Examined

Dr. Adam Fontecchio's graduate advisee, David Delaine, has been awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). Mr. Delaine was a NSF Bridges to the Doctorate fellow in his first year of graduate study at Drexel University and completed his undergraduate degree at Northeastern University where he was a recipient of the Robert J. Bunche Scholarship. Dr. Fontecchio's and Mr. Delaine's research will explore the fundamental science and engineering of novel methods of power generation using Stirling engine configurations and radiometric phenomena to develop power-producing, micro-electromechanical systems.

Posted on January 15, 2008.

NSF Honorable Mention

Elaine Garbarine, a first-year graduate student working at the time of application with Dr. Athina Petropulu and currently being advised by Dr. Gail Rosen, received an NSF GRFP honorable mention.

Posted on January 12, 2008.

Nanotechnology

Drs. Adam Fontecchio, Gennady Friedman and Yuri Gogotsi, along with three Ph.D. students, have successfully developed a carbon nanotube-tipped probe with the possibility of transferring fluids through the carbon nanotube (CNT) into and out of the pipette, thereby bridging the gap between existing microscale technologies and nanoscale interactions. According to a recent paper published in Applied Physics Letters, (Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 103108 2007), this development will make it possible to perform injections or probe the fluid not just inside a cell but in specific regions inside the cell, maybe even specific organelles.

Posted on December 18, 2008.