2011 Edition - Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - The ...

Allen Wins Talley Teaching AwardSeniors honored EECS ProfessorChristopher Allen with theHarry Talley Award for TeachingExcellence in the May. This marks thesecond time Dr. Allen has won the award,which is voted upon by graduatingEECS seniors for the professor whohas contributed significantly to theireducation and has developed a strongrapport with them.Dr. Allen teaches the Senior DesignLaboratory (EECS 501 and 502). The yearlongcapstone course is the culminationof the EE program and serves as bridgebetween the classroom and industry.Seniors apply what they have learnedthroughout their EECS coursework tosolve real-world engineering problems.They design, build, and assess systemsthat adhere to industry standards andgain communication and presentationexperience.Levi Lyons (BSEE ’11) had Dr. Allenfor his Senior Design Laboratory. Thetremendous amount of thought involvedin the physical design of the circuit andthe work needed to complete the projecton schedule are crucial skills for engineers,says Lyons, who is now an Engineer-in-Training at Southwest Power Pool in LittleRock, Ark. Dr. Allen helped guide studentsthrough the process.“Dr. Allen is very deserving of the HarryTalley Award,” said Lyons. “He had highexpectations and pushed us to attendweekly meetings with him to ensureour progress. During these meetings,we could be sure that he would ask us aquestion that would stump us and forceus reevaluate some aspect that we hadEta Kappa Nu President Joel Schmelzle presents EECSProfessor Christopher Allen with the Harry Talley Awardfor Teaching Excellence at the Graduation Banquet.not even considered! But he was alwaysthere to lend a helping hand and to makesure we were on the right track.”Dr. Allen advised the first hybrid teamof Jayhawk Motorsports of which TravisBland (BSEE ’11) was a member. Inaddition to seeking Dr. Allen’s help onthe hybrid vehicle, Bland also had him forhis Senior Design Laboratory. Bland saidboth projects helped prepare him for hisjob as On-Board Diagnostics CalibrationEngineer at Chrysler in Chelsea, Mich.“Most all of the great professors I had atKU and in EECS had one thing in commonwith Professor Allen—they genuinelycared about their students,” said Bland.“I really believe that Dr. Allen wanted usto learn. His feedback was sincere andhelpful; it never seemed like he was simplygoing through the motions.”Dr. Allen received the John E. Sharp andWinifred E. Sharp Teaching Professorshipfrom the School of Engineering in 2002and a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for TeachingExcellence and Ned N. Fleming TrustAward for Excellence in Teaching, bothfrom KU in 2001. •Perrins Selected forArea Editor PositionEECS Associate Professor ErikPerrins has accepted an invitationto serve as an Area Editor for theIEEE Transactions on Communications. Hisduties include assigning papers to the13 editors withinthe modulationand signal designarea, monitoringtheir performance,and assisting theeditor-in-chief."Erik is aninternationallyrenownedresearcher in the field of modulation andsignal design for telecommunicationsystems. He has served as an editor forseveral years and has done an excellentjob in this capacity," said Robert Schober,a professor in the Department ofElectrical and Computer Engineering atthe University of British Columbia, whonominated Dr. Perrins for the position."This made him a natural choice when theposition of Area Editor became vacant."Dr. Perrins’ research expertise is inwireless communications. He recentlyreceived a Department of Defenseresearch grant to help develop newcommunications architectures for flighttest telemetry—measuring at a distance.By simultaneously allowing multiple teststo take place over hundreds of squaremiles, the integrated Network EnhancedTelemetry (iNET) program is a significantupgrade in aircraft testing.Prior to Area Editor, Dr. Perrins served forfour years as an editor for the journal. •EECS News 2011 11