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One of our Fall 2003
graduating seniors will be the
10,000th BSEE to graduate from UT-ECE.
It will be a blind drawing, but you must register
to win!
Welcome back
from ECE Chairman, Dr. Anthony Amber
 I hope your summer prepared you for
the semester ahead. I have several pieces of interesting news. The
first is that the ECE department has once again been recognized as
one of the top programs in the country. Both the graduate and the
undergraduate programs are listed in U.S. News and World
Report's top 6 for public institutions and in the top
11 for all institutions. The rankings are based on entrance exam
scores, student acceptance rates, faculty/student ratios, research
dollars awarded, reputation among engineers in academia and
industry, Ph.D.s produced, and percentage of faculty elected to
membership in the National Academy of Engineering.
Incidentally, out of 8 departments in the UT-Cockrell
School of Engineering, almost 20% of the NAE members are in
ECE.
New Faculty
and Staff
The ECE department recruited 3 new faculty members and 2 new staff
members recently. The faculty members are an extremely talented and
diverse group and will undoubtedly make significant contributions
to the high quality of research and instruction that already exists
at ECE.
 Although
Dr. Surya Santoso comes to us from industry as a
former senior power systems engineer at Electrotek Concepts, Inc.,
his academic credentials are strong. He received his Ph.D. from the
University of Texas at Austin and co-authored the undergraduate
textbook, Electric
Power Systems Quality. His primary interests involve
modeling of transients and harmonic phenomena and development of
intelligent systems algorithms for power quality data
analysis.
 Dr. David Zhigang Pan left a job
as a researcher for the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in NY for
a position in the ECE computer engineering group. He received his
B.S. in physics from Peking University and his masters and Ph.D. in
computer science from UCLA. His research interests include VLSI
interconnect modeling, synthesis and planning, physical design
closure, low power design with novel circuitry, and CAD.
 Dr. Michael Orshansky received his BS
and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of
California at Berkeley and worked there as a research scientist and
lecturer. His research interests include statistical analysis and
synthesis techniques for robust circuit design, algorithms for
low-power IC design, modeling and simulation of semiconductor
devices. He was a Fellow of Semiconductor Research Corporation and
Advanced Micro Devices.
 Dr.
Renee Babcock was promoted to Program Coordinator for
the Undergraduate Office and hired Sharon
Bressette as an academic advisor. Ms. Bressette has
over 9 years of experience as an advisor working with diverse
groups of students.
 Dr. Herb
Krasner, founder of the Software Quality
Institute (SQI), has accepted a position as Director of the
Software Engineering Industry Affiliates Program which partners ECE
with the private sector.
We are delighted to have these stellar individuals as part of
the ECE family.
 The Genesis Project
ECE
is working with other Texas universities, Texas Engineering and
Technical Consortium (TETC), and National Instruments to create new ways to
provide students with relevant, hands-on laboratories and design
projects. The tool being piloted in Dr.
John Pearce's Circuit Theory and Biomedical Electronics
classes is called ELVIS. NI ELVIS combines virtual instrumentation,
data acquisition, and a prototype station so that students can
create, measure, and analyze "real" circuits, even as
freshmen. National Instruments and Professors Archie Holmes and
Bill Bard are spearheading this effort. More...
 New Circuit Design Academic Track
Professor
Jacob Abraham was instrumental in creating a new academic track in Circuit
Design. This program was initiated at the request of industry to
provide a more focused curriculum covering both analog and digital
design. Local industry also provided the equipment, finance, and
teaching experts necessary to make the circuit design track a
reality. The curriculum will focus on the fundamentals of signal
processing, communication theory, system design and modeling.
Regular graduate students will be able to specialize in circuit
design beginning this summer.
Working professionals can get a Masters in Circuit Design
through the Option III
program starting this semester. Classes will be provided on one
weekend (Fri./Sat) per month for two years. This format has been
very successful for many years in two other masters degrees
associated with this department: Software
Engineering and Engineering
Management. Support for this program has been provided by
Cadence, National Instruments, Intel, IBM, Motorola, and with coordination
support from Austin
Ventures.
The Ohmes Antique Vacuum Tube
Collection
 We
recently received half of a donation of over 1,500 vacuum tubes
from Leonard J. Ohme in Corpus Christie. Mr. Ohmes was a natural
self-taught engineer who during his varied career worked as a round
house electrician for the railroads, had a radio service business,
and worked on the navigation for the B-29s used to deliver the
atomic bombs to Japan. He began to collect tubes when he retired.
The collection, which has been appraised at $30,000, includes the
earliest experiments in tube design and some very rare specimens.
About half the collection is being displayed in the newly
refurbished ENS 637 and we hope to display the rest in the near
future.
 The ENS 637
conference/meeting room has been completely remodeled with an
audio/visual podium (as in the classrooms) conference table to seat
~24 people with additional seating for another 20 or so...plus
carpet! Leaving 637 reinforces your previously held beliefs about
the beauty of the blue tiles!
Upcoming
Events
WNCG First Annual Wireless Networking
Symposium
Oct. 22-24
More...
ECE Lights the Tower
Oct. 30, 6:00 - 7:00 PM, Main mall plaza
Live webcast from the UT Coop's Tower Cam
Thanks
to our Corporate Sponsors
Intel
Hewlett Packard
Motorola
National Instruments
Schlumberger
Shell
Oil
Silicon Labs
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