Department News

Dr. Beard receives the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award

Randal W. Beard received the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award for outstanding research and creative accomplishments. Dr. Beard has made pioneering contributions to his field. Widely considered an international expert in the area of coordinated control of small unmanned aerial vehicles, his work is documented in journal articles and book chapters, conference articles, and a book, with many of these publications invited or highly cited contributions. His research has allowed him to mentor 27 graduate students, many undergraduates and other faculty members. He is the past recipient of the BYU Young Scholar and Technology Transfer awards.

2010 Globalization Study Abroad

Attention College of Engineering and Technology students. Spend spring term in Nanjing China while you: study globalization, engineering, and technology, prepare for the job market by gaining global experience, visit and interact with engineering firms in China. No prior foreign language skills needed. Come and learn about the program, courses, costs and financial aid available. The information session will be held on Monday, October 5 @ 3:00 p.m. in room 254 of the Clyde Building. For more information see Professor Brent Nelson, 459 CB, 422-6455. Study Abroad 2010

Come learn about a new program in ECE!

Honors@ece will combine project-based learning with real world applications, undergraduate research, entrepreneurship experience, and senior project course credit, as well as periodic informal gatherings, networking, leadership opportunities, service and outreach, and joint activities with other societies like Women in Engineering (WE).

Wynn C. Stirling new dean of BYU Graduate Studies

Brigham Young University Academic Vice President John Tanner announced the appointment of Wynn C. Stirling as the new dean of Graduate Studies. "Professor Stirling brings a strong academic record to his new position as dean of Graduate Studies, as well as long experience on the Graduate Council," said Tanner. "The latter has given him broad understanding of graduate education at BYU. He is committed to BYU's mission of sponsoring graduate programs that are excellent in quality, though limited in number, and which serve to strengthen our undergraduate programs."

EcEn PhD student publication appears on the front page of Applied Optics

Ph.D. student Rich Gibson published his research on electric field sensor arrays in the July 1st issue of Applied Optics,Vol. 48, No. 19, pp.3695-3701 (2009).  The paper, "Electric field sensor array from cavity resonance between optical D-fiber and multiple slab waveguides" is coauthored by Richard Gibson, Richard Selfridge and Stephen Schultz.  The publication is highlighted on the cover page and addresses the fabrication of an array of electric field sensors made by multiplexing resonantly coupled electro-optic crystals with specialty D-shaped optical fiber.

Several BYU alumni earn best paper awards

At the recent Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) conference in San Jose Mar 16-18, BYU graduates swept the Best Paper awards. The SNUG conference is a technical meeting for designers of digital architectures and circuits and had more than 2,100 engineers in attendance, with individual session having 300-600 engineers apiece. The best paper awards given out by the conference were:

Best Paper - 1st Place - Cliff Cummings - Sunburst Design, Inc. - BYU BSEE - April 1982 Title: SystemVerilog Assertions - Design Tricks and SVA Bind Files

Best Paper - 2nd Place - Kelly Larson - MediaTek Wireless, Inc. - BYU BSEE - December 1987 Title: Advanced VMM Transactor Development: Tips for Designing VIP You Wouldn't Mind Reusing

Best Paper - 3rd Place - Don Mills - Microchip Technology - BYU BSEE - December 1985 Title: If Chained Implications in Properties Weren't So Hard, They'd Be Easy

ECEn PhD Student presents research at Nanotech 2009

Ph.D. student Stan Ness presented his research co-authored with Dr. Greg Nordin and Dr. Seunghyun Kim at a special symposium on MEMS and InkJet Applications during the Nanotech 2009 Conference held May 3-7, 2009 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.  The presentation was entitled "Deposition of Functionalizing Materials on Photonic Microcantilever Chemical/Biological Sensors using Inkjet Technology".  It focused on how a high-tech inkjet printer can be used to place and immobilize proteins or other biological material on silicon substrates, in this case, a photonic microcantilever.  The ability to immobilize proteins is of great interest to the sensor and biomedical communities since it forms the crucial link between inorganic sensors and organic analytes.  The level of immobilization was qualitatively determined using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and fluorescent microscopy.

ECEn student spot-lighted by news media at BYU graduation

Each year at graduation time, BYU selects a student to represent the university to the news media.  This year, Steffanie Kuehn from the ECEn department was selected to represent BYU.  Steffanie, after graduating from our department in April 2009 will go on to Columbia University to pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering.  More information about Steffanie and her accomplishments can be found here.

MATLAB Article Highlights Prof. Rice's Course

The feature article in the April 2009 issue of the Matlab Digest - Academic Edition highlights our very own ECEn 485. The article, entitled, "Teaching Digital Communication Theory with Simulink at Brigham Young University,"  describes how Simulink has been used to enhance learning in the laboratory portion of ECEn 485. Follow this link to the April 2009 issue of the Matlab Digest.

Dr. David Long presented at the University of Miami

Dr. David Long presented this year's Bader Lecture at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami.  He spoke about using radar scatterometry to study wind patterns on the ocean, variations in sea ice, and the health of vegetation in tropical climates. To read more about this, click here.