News

• Dec 2007: Latest Comp Eng PhD: Dr. Robert Raygan

  Robert Raygan is the latest graduate of the Computer Engineering PhD program. Robert is shown in this picture with his wife Kattie and major advisor Dr. Gary Grimes at the December 2007 graduation ceremonies. Robert also received his BSEE and MSEE degrees from UAB's E&CE Department. Congratulations Robert!

• 14 Nov 2007: Open House Live - Teacher's Choice 2007

  (Updated) The Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering exhibit for UAB Engineering Open Housed, conceived and executed by the UAB IEEE Student Branch, was awarded the Teacher's Choice Award at the awards luncheon today. Congratulations to all with special recognition to cast members: Jim Diggle, Carrie Self, Sam Mitchell, Matt Ridley, Stefan Schmidt, Jessica Ford, and Sandy Naccarato. Great show!

• 14 Nov 2007: IEEE names Prof. Green as 2008 Treasurer

  The IEEE Assembly selected Prof. David Green as the 2008 IEEE Treasurer. This will be Prof. Green's second year as IEEE Treasurer and member of the IEEE Board of Directors.

• 07 Nov 2007: Outstanding Students - Mitchell and Anthony

  The Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty have selected Sam Mitchell as the E&CE Outstanding Undergraduate Student and Anish Anthony as the E&CE Outstanding Graduate Student for the 2007-8 school year. Congratulations to both of these students for their well deserved recognition.

• 01 Oct 2007: E&CE Students - Speakers at IEEE Alabama Section Meeting

  John Hughes and Micah Graber were guest speakers at the IEEE Alabama Section's October Meeting. John and Micah presented "Wi-Fi for Hoover" based on their work in EE485 last Fall.

• July 2007: E&CE Will Be Looking for a new Chair

  Dr. Vaughn has decided to step down as Chair of E&CE so that a search can begin for a new person to be Chair of the Department and a smooth transition can happen. Dr. Vaughn has served as Chair of E&CE for over ten years. Officially he is now the Interim Chair of E&CE. He will continue to function as Chair of the Department in an Interim capacity until a new person takes over.

  The Faculty, Staff, and students of the department echo Dean Lucas' remarks thanking Dr. Vaughn

  "for all of his efforts over the past nine years in this position. He has worked very hard and his efforts are greatly appreciated by all."

• March 2007: Anish Anthony receives Outstanding Achievement Award

  Anish Anthony, a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Engineering Program, received the Outstanding Achievement Award for International Students. The award was based on academics, extracurricular activities and leadership. Congratulations Anish!

  24 March 2007: UAB Teams participate at SoutheastCon 2007

  Several UAB student groups are participating at SoutheastCon 2007. There are several student partcipating in the technical program. UAB fielded teams in the Hardware Contest, Software Contest, and T-Shirt contest.

  The UAB Hardware Contest team (Jonathan Torbert, Tosin Adeladan, and Nick Christian) experienced some interplay with Murphy of Murphy's Law fame. The group had two winning rounds, one with a perfect score, a round with a hardware issue causing the car not to move (leading to a zero score). Mississippi gave UAB their last loss 120-81 in the fourth round.

  The software team (Ihsan Hakima, Sandy Naccarato, John Hughes) represented UAB in the Software Contest. The team place 9th among th 14 schools that chose to field a team. The UAB T-Shirt design was also entered into the T-Shirt contest but did not place.

• 02 December 2006: Birmingham News on the EE485 Project

  In a Birmingham News article (posted on AL.Com) titled UAB students propose citywide Wi-Fi in Hoover, staff writer Dawn Kent reports on the projects presented in Dr. Charles Hickman's Fall EE485 course. The article gives some of the background on the project, documents the Hoover city leaders involvement in evaluating the project and mentions that "Ben Powell, Hoover's director of support services, said he was impressed with the students' research."

• 16 November 2006: IEEE names Prof. Green as its 2007 Treasurer

  At its November meeting in New Orleans, LA, IEEE named David Green as its Treasurer for 2007. As Treasurer of IEEE, he will be a member of the IEEE Board of Directors and will chair the IEEE Finance Committee.

  9 November 2006: IEEE-USA Members select Dr. Gregg Vaughn

  E&CE Department Chair Gregg Vaughn was select as an IEEE-USA Member-At-Large in a recent vote of the IEEE-USA membership. Dr. Vaughn has been elected to the two year term beginning January 2007. Dr. Vaughn previously served as IEEE-USA Vice President for Member Activities.

• September 2006: IEEE Larry K. Wilson Recipient Honored

  Counselor Prof. Green, on behalf of Pedro Ray, IEEE Vice President, Regional Activities presented Daniel Van Hauen the Larry K. Wilson Region Student Activities Award which recognizes the student most responsible for an extraordinary accomplishment associated with IEEE activities. In Daniel's case, this accomplishment was his efforts towards organizing and implementing the E&CE Open House exhibit. Recognition of Daniel's accomplishments initially occurred at SoutheastCon 20006.

• 28 April 2006: EE497 Class Project Computes!

  The Spring 2006 EE497 Design class was challenged to design and construction of a prototype microprocessor. Teams Group1 and SuperComm bested team Initech in the contest but all groups had working processors. Well done all!

• 25 April 2006: EGR100 Class Race won by Group 3

  

  Group 3 successfully completed the required loop, figure-8, loop pattern to win the EGR100 class race this term. Each group presented their design concepts, raced their car, and posed for photos. As one can tell from the photos, the groups explored a large number of car concepts as well as methods of programming the steering of their car around the loop.

• 31 March - 2 April, 2006: UAB IEEE Student Branch @ SoutheastCon 2006

  The UAB IEEE Student Branch received multiple honors in Memphis this weekend:

  • Daniel Van Hauen received the Larry K. Wilson Region Student Activities Award which recognizes the student most responsible for an extraordinary accomplishment associated with IEEE activities. In Daniel's case, this accomplishment was his efforts towards organizing and implementing the E&CE Open House exhibit.
  • The branch's new web site was awarded 3rd place in the IEEE Region 3 Web Site Contest. Congratulations to Jonathan Torbert and webmaster Ihsan Hakima!
  • The branch's T-Shirt design was awarded 2nd place in the IEEE Region 3 T-Shirt Contest. Our entry was designed by Marcus Neally and produced by Jonathan Torbert.
  • The conference also had a resume writing contest where they were provided background information for fictitious electrical engineering students and jobs, were required to write resume, business card, and cover letter for a selected scenario. The UAB team of Daniel Van Hauen and John Hughes placed second overall.
  • The Student Branch also fielded teams in the hardware and software contests but did not place in either event.
  • Finally, the UAB Student Branch was recognized as the Outstanding Student Branch in Region 3. Congratulations to Jonathan Torbert and the 2005-6 officers and volunteers.

  Approximately 51 of the 81 student branches in Region 3 participated in the conference.

• 1 April 2006 -- Prof. Green recognized for Sections Congress 2005

  

  Prof. David Green received a special Director's Award from Region 3 Director George McClure for serving as Program Chair for the very successful Sections Congress 2005 conference held in Tampa, FL last year. This award was presented as part of the SoutheastCon 2006 Awards program held last weekend in Memphis, TN.

• Computer Engineering PhDs #2, #3, and #4

  December 2005, congratulations to Gregg Franklin, Johnny Goode, and Mathew Mithra Noel -- graduates of the UAB-UAH shared PhD program in Computer Engineering. These three are UAB graduates 2-4. Remzi Seker was the first UAB graduate of this program. Full-size pictures: 1, 2, 3.

  Gregory Allen Franklin's dissertation was "Analysis and Mitigation of High Frequency Harmonic Interference in High Voltage Power Line Carrier Coupling Systems". He was advised by Dr. Gregg L. Vaughn.

  Johnny W. Goode's dissertation was "Erlang's Loss Formula and its Use in Designing Packet Switched Networks". His advisor was Dr. Dale W. Callahan.

  Mathew Mithra Noel's dissertation was "Explorations in Swarm Algorithms: Hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization and Adaptive Culture Model Algorithms". His advisor was Dr. Thomas C. Jannett.

• IEEE-USA Shines its Spotlight on Dr. Vaughn

  The December on-line edition of Today's Engineer focuses its Spotlight on "On Gregg Vaughn, IEEE-USA Vice President of Member Activities".

EGR100 Robot Car Races

Congratulations to Group 6 for an impressive 45 second race their Lego racer through a figure 8 followed by a turn-around, followed by a figure 8 on the EGR100 competition track. See the pictures of the groups and their cars.

• Congratulations to IEEE Student Branch Members for an Outstanding Engineering Open House

  November 2005 - The UAB IEEE Student Branch put on an exiting Open House Exhibit they termed "IEEE Idol". The show consisted of three EE-songs performed by members, three judges, and a Master of Ceremonies who both kept things moving and inserted tidbits about Electrical Engineering and UAB into the show. The IEEE Student Branch site has more details including pictures, recordings and lyrics from the show.

• June 6, 2005 - UAB Student Branch members speak at IEEE Alabama Section

  Members of the UAB IEEE Student Branch who were part of the SoutheastCon 2005 Hardware Contest team will be presenting their design to the Alabama Section of IEEE at it's June Meeting.

• April 2005 - IEEE Student Branch at SoutheastCon 2005

  The UAB IEEE Student Branch was named an Exemplary Student Branch in Tampa, FL at the annual SoutheastCon conference. The UAB Student Branch competed in the hardware contest, software contest, web site contest, and T-Shirt contest. The branch nominated, and IEEE selected, Prof. Green as one of ten 2004-5 Outstanding Branch Counselors world-wide.

• April 2005 - Congratulations to John Tanik

  PhD Candidate John Tanik has received a 2nd year fellowship from NASA. This $22K fellowship will support his studies and continued work with the Marshall Space Flight Center.

• April 2005 - Prof. Green recognized by IEEE Region 3

IEEE Region 3 recognized Prof. David Green with their 2004 IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Service Award at their Annual Awards Ceremony in Ft. Lauderdale FL.

• April 2005 - IEEE Student Branch Elects New Officers

  The UAB IEEE Student Branch chose officers to serve as the 2005-6 Branch Officers. The following students were elected:

  Position	Student
  Chair	Jonathan Torbert
  Vice Chair	Gayathri Sundar
  Secretary	Matthew Blackmon
  Treasurer	Jim Diggle

  and the following students were appointed to key positions in the branch:

  Position	Student
  Past Chair	Brad Thompson
  Program Committee Chair	Jared Elliot
  Manual Sales Committee Chair	Clifford Okeyo

  Congratulations to these new student leaders and thanks to last years officers on a job well done!

• March 22, 2005 - EE497 Offered Fall 2005

EE497-S7 has been added to the Fall Semester Schedule. This is the one semester team design project. This course will also be offered Spring 2006. There will also be a Hardware Design Contest two semester design project starting Fall Semester. Details of this two semester project will not be available until mid-April.

• March 2005 - MSEE Graduate is also Outstanding Math Student

  Mandar Kulkarni, who finished his MSEE this past semester while also being in the MS program in math. Congratulations to Mandar on being named the outstanding graduate student in the Mathematics MS program!

• Feb 24, 2005 - Engineering Council of Birmingham

The Engineering Council of Birmingham held its annual Engineering banquet. Tim Rhodes was honored as the UAB ECE Undergraduage Student of the Year. Rajani Sadasivam was honored as the UAB ECE Graduate Student of the Year and was also selected as the overall UAB Engineering Graduate Student of the Year. John Randall Horton, both a BSEE and MSEE graduate of UAB as well as part time instructor for UAB, was slected as the Young Engineer of the Year. Congratulations to all for these well-deserved honors.

• February 2005 - Rajesh Kathiru Honored

  Congratulations to E&CE Graduate Student Rajesh Kathiru who was selected by Dean Lucas as a top academic international student in the School of Engineering. He will be honored at the International Awards Banquet on April 15, 2005 at the Harbert Center. Rajesh is now a candidate for the Academic Excellence Award that will be given by the UAB International Awards Committee.

• January 2005 - Welcome Prof. Jon Marstrander

  Jan 2005... Please welcome Jon Marstrander to the E&CE Faculty. Prof. Marstrander is a graduate of UAB and has been working as a Electrical Engineering Consultant specializing in hardware and software design, image processing and embedded systems for a variety of regional companies for the last 10 years prior to joining us as an Instructor. We look forward to his contributions to our program and the UAB community.

• January 3, 2005 - IEEE honors UAB Professor

The Alabama Section of IEEE honored Prof. Green naming him as their IEEE Engineer of the Year award at their first meeting of the year.

• December 2, 2004 - EGR100 EE Project Groups Race

Dec 2nd... Groups in EGR100 brought in their lego-based car designs today for evaluation. Each group presented their design concepts and then demonstrated their car's performance on a figure-8 track. All groups used optical tracking and software they developed to control the car. Group 3 (shown here) had the fastest car with a winning time of 12.53 seconds for the two lap race. Pictures of the other groups and close-ups of the cars are on-line. The project was part of Dr. Rigney's EGR100 class and was organized and run by Dr. Vaughn and Prof. Green with support from Adisesh Krishnan and Robert Raygan.

• November 18, 2004 - IEEE Meeting in San Antonio

  Nov 18th... At its final series of Board meetings for 2004, IEEE-USA selected Dr. Gregg Vaughn to serve as its 2005 Vice President for Member Activities. Dr. Vaughn was also selected to be on the IEEE-USA ballot for member-at-large for 2006. IEEE's Regional Activity Board selected Prof. David Green as its 2005 Treasurer. The IEEE Educational Activities Board honored Adjunct Prof. Mark Conner with its Pre-College Educator Award for inspiring high school students to appreciate and understand mathematics, science, technology and the engineering process...

• October 2004 - AITA Technology Awards Reception

  Southern Company Services sponsored UAB E&CE Student Jonathon Torbert's participation at a private AITA reception for Wally Schirra, one of the seven original astronauts.

  (Picture courtesy of Alabama Space and Rocket Center)

   

• July 20, 2004 - Accenture Scholarship Awarded

  The scholarship committee announced today that EE student Sajjad Hassan is the recipient of the Accenture Scholarship. Sajjad was chosen from a pool of applicants from business, enginering and computer science. Congratulations!

• April 8, 2004 - Changed Senior Design Model

Effective Fall 2004, E&CE students may choose to take either EE498 and EE499 for six hours of credit or EE497 for three hours credit and an additional technical elective. Read more...

• April 2004 - UAB E&CE Students Selected ...

Congratulations to Anish Anthony for his first place finish in his Physical Sciences and Engineering Session at the recent Graduate Student Research Day.

Urcun (John) Tanik has been selected for a prestigious NASA fellowship he will use to complete his doctoral studies in Computer Engineering. The fellowship, an Alabama Space Grant Consortium NASA Training Grant, provides generous financial support and the opportunity to work with NASA scientists and engineers. The winning proposal is called "An AI and Expert System Driven CAD System For the Design of Optical Interconnection Systems."

 

Quentin Bonds was selected to participate in the summer Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD.

Congratulations to E&CE students Ihsan Hakima, Arunima Roy, and Johnathan Warren for being inducted into Phi Kappa Phi on Sunday.

• March 15, 2004 - New UAB IEEE Student Branch Officers

The UAB Student Branch members elected new officers. See their web site for more details.

• 

  Dr. Vaughn named ECOB Engineer of Year

  March 1, 2004 ... The Engineering Council of Birmingham named E&CE Department Chair Gregg Vaughn as their Engineer of the Year at their 45th Annual Awards banquet held as part of Engineering Week. Dr. Vaughn was nominated by the Alabama Section of IEEE. Congratulations Dr. Vaughn!

• Mar 2004 - New UAB IEEE Student Branch Officers

The UAB Student Branch members elected the following members as their officers for the next year:

Chair: Brad Thompson
Vice Chair: Rajani Sadasivam
Secretary: Tim Rhodes
Treasurer: Jonathan Torbert
Program Chair: Deepak Premnath
Membership Chair: Justin Sampayo
Publicity Chair: Ejemole Michael Ojukwu
Manual Sales Chair: Clifford Okeyo

Incoming Chair Brad Thompson appointed Pooya Eslami as the new IEEE Student Branch Webmaster.

Congratulations to these incoming officers! Many thanks to the outgoing officers: Gary Michael, Kerri Daniel, Josh Pierce, Corey Scoggin, Larry Fantroy, Jay Sims, John Thomas, and Jonathan Torbert -- well done!

• Jan 2004 -- E&CE participates in Distance Learning

EE447/547 at UAB is being offered to the UA students as ECE 483/583 through new video conferencing facilities. The Department is also offering EE682 for UAB graduate students that is a course originating at UA. More cooperative courses are planned including broadcasting EE432/532 from UAB summer semester.

• Jan 2004 - Charlotte Oliver retires...

  Administrative Associate Charlotte Oliver recently retired. Charlotte has served the department in many ways, most recently assisting in the Center of Telecommunications, Education, and Research. We are fortunate that she will continue to help out on a part time basis.

• Dec 2003 - Added 2004-5 Projected Schedule

  The projected schedule for 2004-5 has been added to assist students and their advisors.

• Nov 2003 - Updated (Changed) Day/Night Tracks

• Nov 2003 -The planned tracks for Day/Night students have changed.

This document gives you the latest information on when courses will be offered for planning purposes. A links to Spring 2004 is also available.

• Aug 2003 - Updated (again!) IEEE Branch Web Site

With help from the branch leadership, IEEE Student Branch Webmaster Jonathan Torbert has done a second makeover of the branch's web site -- Check it out!

• 08 July 2003 Update Drive I: access information

Remote access to I:'s contents is now available through FTP.

• June 2003 Conversion to BlazerIDs

  The E&CE Department along with the rest of the School of Engineering has converted to the use of BlazerIDs for login creditials. Read more about this and other changes.

• June 2003 Server Re-organization

The servers used for ECE are being re-organized. Drive I: is now located on the server eng-fs01 at the UNC of \\eng-fs01\DriveI. This web space will also move but will retain the http://www-ece.eng.uab.edu URL.

• 03 April 2003 Add info about Course Registration

  Registration process for non-Engineering Students and Engineering courses like EE432/532, EE447/547.

• 05 Feb 2003 Add links for University Resources

  WebCT, Blazer Central, Engineering Intranet, Engineering Help

• 24 Jan 2003 Update Tentative Schedules

  Add 2003-4 tentative schedule on-line

• 13 Nov 2002 Computer Engineering PhD documents posted

  A program description and plan of study form are now available off the main page on our intranet site.

• 04 Feb 2002 EE697 Grading Policy

  The grading and enrollment policy is covered in this memo (pdf) from Dr. Vaughn, E&CE Departent Chair.

• Jan 2002 - Tentative E&CE Schedule 2002-3

  The projected schedule for 2002-3 is on-line.