Dr. Derek Chiou displays a motherboard that includes reconfigurable hardware he is using to develop a simulator that is thousands of times faster than current simulators. Once developed, the new simulator will enable computer architects and users to better evaluate the complex behavior of computer systems. Chiou received a $300,000 Department of Energy grant for the research.

Hurricane Katrina helped ECE power researcher, Alexis Kwasinski, formulate a new plan for the U.S. telecom system: a de-centralized telecom architecture that would have kept the lights and the phones on in New Orleans.

Sun Microsystems awarded ECE Research Fellow Mark McDermott a $20K award for Best University Level Computer Architecture and/or VLSI Course. McDermott received the prize for EE 382M-8, VLSI II.

Chan-Byoung Chae, a Ph. D. candidate supervised by Prof. Robert W. Heath, Jr., has been awarded the 2008 IEEE VTS Dan E. Noble Fellowship Award. The fellowship recognizes an individual most likely to impact the areas of concentration of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society including wireless, and mobile radio. This is the most prestigious award a graduate student in wireless communications can receive. The award will be presented at the IEEE VTS Conference (VTC) in Calgary, Canada on September 23rd.

Professor Yale Patt was one of five speakers to address the Mexican Congress at a 50th Anniversary Celebration of the first computer installed in Mexico. The title of his talk was Future Microprocessors and their Implications for Computer Science Education in Mexico.

Dr. Alan C. Bovik has been selected to receive the 2008-2009 Claude R. Hocott Distinguished Centennial Engineering Research Award. Dr. Bovik will receive the award at the Faculty Excellence Awards Dinner later this fall.

Dr. Charles Roth has received the 2008 McGuffey Longevity Award for his fifth edition of Fundamentals of Logic Design. The Text and Academic Authors Association created the McGuffey Longevity Awards in 1993 to recognize textbooks and learning materials demonstrating excellence over a significant period of time. Works must have been in print at least 15 years and currently remain in circulation and use.

ECE professor Michael Orshansky has just published a book on the emerging techniques for design for manufacturability. Manufacturability has become a crucial challenge in the design of nanometer scale integrated circuits and systems. The book—co-authored by IBM researcher Dr. Sani Nassif and MIT professor Duane Boning—is entitled Design for Manufacturability and Statistical Design: A Constructive Approach.

ECE Professor Seth Bank has just been selected to receive the 2008 Young Investigator Award that is presented by the North American Molecular Beam Epitaxy (NAMBE) Advisory Board. The award will be presented at the 2008 NAMBE conference, which is being held in Vancouver, Canada on August 3-8.

ECE graduate student Patrick Doody received a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship for 2008. Each year NSF offers about 1,000 fellowships nationwide to provide graduate students with up to $40,000 annual support for three years.