Electrical Engineering for the Curious: Why Study Electrical

Engineering? Copyright © 2015 by the Curious Academic Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher.

Catalog-in-Publishing Information
ISBN: 978-1-925128-48-2

First Edition: 2015

Disclaimer

This book is presented solely for educational purpose to provide

information and motivation to our readers. It is distributed and sold with
the understanding that the author, editor and publisher are not engaged to
render any type of psychological, legal, or any other kind of professional
services advice. The content of each article is the sole expression and
opinions of its author, and not necessarily that of the editor of the
publisher. While best efforts have been used in preparing this book, the
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Neither the author not the editor/publisher shall be held liable or
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Every individual is different and the advice and strategies contained herein
may not be suitable for your situation. You should seek the services of a
competent professional before choosing any major/minor, career, or
undertaking any research/studies.

***
Dedication

This book is dedicated to all the curious students and readers – senior high
school students (and their parents) who are considering Electrical
Engineering as their field of study, undergraduate students who are
struggling to choose their major/minor, and graduate/research/PhD
students who want to pursue further studies/research in the area of
Electrical Engineering.

***
Advisory and Editorial Board

Professor Wayne A. Shiroma, PhD

Professor Ram Narayanan, PhD
Professor Arnie Berger, PhD
Professor Donald Ucci, PhD
Associate Professor Kishor Vaidya, PhD
Professor Donald Lie, PhD

***
Table of Contents

Disclaimer
Dedication
Books by the Curious Academic Publishing
Your Free e-Book
Advisory and Editorial Board
Preface

Chapter 1: Why Should You Choose Electrical Engineering? -

Professor Andrew Szeto, PhD, and Professor Madhu S. Gupta, PhD
What is Engineering and, in Particular, Electrical Engineering?
Why should I Consider Electrical Engineering?
What do I do to Get Started?
What can I Expect in College?
Which College is Best for Me?
Postscripts

Chapter 2: Why Study Electrical Engineering? – Professors Steven

Hietpas, Ph.D., David Galipeau, Ph.D., Dennis Helder, Ph.D., and Wei
Sun, Ph.D.
Introduction
Electrical Engineering Career Opportunities
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering
Scholarship Opportunities in Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering, Academia, and Industry
Conclusion

Chapter 3: Why Study Electrical Engineering? Professor Ram

Narayanan, PhD
The Ubiquity of Electrical Engineering
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering
The Nexus Between Theory and Practice in Electrical Engineering
Tips for Success in the Field of Electrical Engineering

Chapter 4: Should I Study Electrical Engineering? Professor Ted

Batchman, PhD
Jack S. Kilby Received the Nobel Prize for the Invention of the Integrated
Circuit
Many of the Best Inventors and Entrepreneurs only Had Average Math
Skills
You Want to Work with People? Employment Opportunities for Electrical
Engineers
Entrepreneurship Competitions - What a Way to Start a Career!
What Makes a Career Exciting?

Chapter 5: Making a Big Decision – Professor Harley R. Myler, PhD

Why Study Engineering?
Which Engineering Discipline should I Study?
Why Study Electrical Engineering (EE)?
Where should I study Electrical Engineering?
What do I Need to Study in Electrical Engineering?
What can I Expect in an EE Program of Study?

Chapter 6: Engineering with Aloha – Professor Wayne A. Shiroma,

PhD, Professor Aaron T. Ohta, PhD, Jonathan H. Dang, Christopher
C. Brough, and Bryan A. Fewell
What is Electrical Engineering?
Why Study Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa?
Focus on Hands-on Projects
Engineering with Aloha!
How to Succeed as an EE Major: Advice from Students and Faculty
Larry Martin: A UH Success Story
Closing Remarks

Chapter 7: It Pays to Do Cool Research for Electrical Engineers! -

Professor Donald Y.C. Lie, PhD
Introduction
Research Training is a MUST for EE Graduate Students, and a Big Plus for
Undergraduates
What Research Areas does Texas Tech University Offer?
Research Pays! – What Scholarships are Available?
What do you Do Every Day for your Job, Professor Lie?
What are the Future Directions and Impacts for Your Research?

Chapter 8: Electrical and Computer Engineers Change the World –

Professor Daniel D. Stancil, PhD
Wild Elephants in Rural Africa - A Problem in Wildlife Management or
Electrical and Computer Engineering?
Creative Innovations are Driven by Out-of-the-Box Thinking and
Imagination
What could an Insect Carry that would be Useful?
Technologies Necessary for Realizing the “Smart Grid” of Tomorrow
Applied Physics and Communications
Scholarships, Fellowships, and Financial Aids

Chapter 9: What do I Consider to be Useful and Interesting about

Electrical Engineering? Professor William Gosney, PhD
Not Every Student can be an Electrical Engineer!
Early Electrical Engineers and the Continuing Evolution
Innovative Industries in Electrical Engineering - Beach Sand and Pennies
Can Produce an Industry Worth Hundreds of Billions of Dollars
Transistor Technologies and Integrated Circuits
Why Would a Student Undertake Undergraduate/Graduate and Research
Studies in Electrical Engineering?

Chapter 10: What is Electrical Engineering and Why I am an

Electrical Engineer? – Professor Tokunbo Ogunfunmi, PhD
My History as an Engineer
What is Electrical Engineering?
Is Nanotechnology the Solution?
The Scope of Electrical Engineering and Career Opportunities
Why should you Choose Electrical Engineering? The Core Courses
A Research Degree in Electrical Engineering and Research Laboratories
Scholarships Available for Graduate and Undergraduate Students

Chapter 11: Professors are Proud of their Students and Welcome their
Energy and Creativity in Pursuing Common Dreams – Professor
Donald Ucci, PhD
The Future of Electrical Engineering and Electrical Engineers is Bright,
Vast, and Promising
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering
Many Academics have Used their Research to Launch Start-up Companies
Visit and Speak with their Major Professors Early in their Academic
Program

Chapter 12 - You Want to be an Electrical Engineer (Duh!) –

Professor Arnie Berger, PhD
Why the Future of Electrical Engineering is Limitless?
Why Should you Choose to Study Electrical Engineering?
Why should you Undertake a Research Degree in Electrical Engineering?
How can Electrical Engineering research be Made more Relevant, Useful
and Interesting to Practitioners?
Some Best Practice Tips for the Students and Practitioners

Chapter 13: Electrical Engineering does Involve a Lot of Hard Work,

but It IS Fun and Rewarding! - Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu, PhD
Future of Electrical Engineering as an Academic Major
CMOS and Beyond: Logic Switches for Terascale Integrated Circuits
Electrical Engineering Education also Prepares you well to Succeed in
other Professions such as Business, Medicine, and Law

***

***
Preface

Given the investment in time and money that students will spend on higher
education, understanding what they will learn in their chosen major and
how it will prepare them for a career upon graduation is very important. As
you read this book, we invite you to think about the types of skills that
might be helpful for someone pursuing a career in Electrical Engineering.

For students considering an undergraduate degree in Electrical

Engineering, this book has been prepared to assist you in your research of
college majors by:
providing a description of Electrical Engineering (which helps you
understand what it is),
identifying courses typically found in this type of degree (which
help you focus on what you will learn), and
discussing career opportunities in the field (which helps you
understand why this degree is important for both you and
perspective employers).

Additionally, this book will give you information and best practice advice
on graduate/PhD studies and scholarships in Electrical Engineering. If you
are a practitioner/professional in Electrical Engineering, you will find the
discussion and insights from practitioner perspective interesting and
helpful.
Whether you are a freshman/undergraduate student or graduate/PhD
student or a practitioner, this book will give your lots of insights and best
practice advice concerning the field of Electrical Engineering. In 18
Chapters, top professors from prestigious universities have answered
answer the questions including:
Why should you choose Electrical Engineering as your major?
Why should you undertake a graduate/PhD degree in Electrical
Engineering?
What are the research areas/issues and scholarship opportunities in
field?
What are the career options and best practice tips for the graduates?
What are the academic/faculty peer-perspectives as to Electrical
 Engineering education, research and practice?
What are the key issues and best practices from the practitioner
perspective?

A five-member Advisory and Editorial Board was established as part of the

publication/review process of this book. Most of the chapters in this book
are peer-reviewed (except short articles and interviews), and they have
been written in plain English to give the best/easiest reading experience to
the readers.

So, why study Electrical Engineering – are you curious to know? You
really need to read the book to find the answers but the following
paragraphs provide a brief outline of each chapter.

“Why Should You Choose Electrical Engineering”? Professors Andrew

Y. J. Szeto and Madhu Gupta of San Diego State University ask you in
Chapter 1. “You are probably reading this article because you have some
curiosity about electrical engineering and wondering whether this field is
for you. To address your curiosity, we have organized this essay around
five questions”, Professors Szeto and Gupta begin this chapter. What is
engineering and, in particular, electrical engineering? Why should I
consider electrical engineering? What do I do to get started? What can I
expect in college? Which college is best for me? Professors Szeto and
Gupta answer these questions for you and argue that choice of a field of
study is a very important decision that has life-long implications. ”It is
considerably more important than the choice of a college, and therefore it
deserves a serious consideration and investment of time”, say Professors
Szeto and Gupta. They also want you to warn that, although the option of
changing a career field at a later stage may be available in principle, it
incurs a substantial cost and time penalty. Professors Szeto and Gupta offer
you some best practice advice. They suggest that, to learn more about the
electrical engineering profession, consult with counselors, those in the
profession, the web sites of professional societies in the discipline, and
career-related articles in professional and trade magazines. ”Every nation
needs creative engineers, and the engineering profession needs dedicated
new entrants. We hope that you will be one of them” Professors Szeto and
Gupta conclude this chapter.

“Why Study Electrical Engineering?” is the title of Chapter 2 by

Professors Steven Hietpas, David Galipeau, Dennis Helder, and Wei Sun
of the South Dakota State University. “Unashamedly borrowing Intel’s
marketing slogan ”Intel Inside®”, we would like to say that for essentially
any system designed by mankind in the 21st Century, there is an
“Electrical Engineer Inside”” Hietpas et al., begin this chapter. According
to the authors, the electrical engineering discipline is concerned with
energy and information, in its myriad forms, and solving the most difficult
problems affecting society.As Professor Hietpas and his colleagues
explain, there are five senses we rely on – sight, hearing, taste, smell, and
touch, and the electrical engineer is concerned with emulating, duplicating,
storing, transmitting or complementing each of these senses through the
design of electronics and electronic systems. The authors discuss various
issues about Electrical Engineering including career opportunities, research
opportunities and scholarship/stipend opportunities. “It often comes as a
surprise that our open-scholarships offered by the department are open to
all students, including international students. With 150 undergraduate EE
students, over 40 named scholarships totaling greater than $40,000/year,
many of our hard working students do receive scholarships, including our
international students” Professor Hietpas and his colleagues proudly
inform you. While Electrical engineering is probably the most creative and
innovative degree any university has to offer, Hietpas et al. warn that is it
also one of the most difficult degrees to earn.They suggest that you should
want to be very good at math and enjoy putting your math to work
for you in solving complex problems. ”While the program is difficult, the
rewards are magnificent” Professor Hietpas and his colleagues conclude
this chapter.

Professor Ram Narayanan of the Pennsylvania State University wants you

to look around you. ”...Your eyes will fall on something or the other that is
based on the fundamental principles of electrical engineering. Why Study
Electrical Engineering? Do you appreciate the benefits of electrical
engineering? “Just imagine a day without light bulbs, cell phones,
computers, cars…..…pretty scary, isn’t it?”, says Professor Narayanan in
Chapter 3. Professor Narayanan discusses the the ubiquity of Electrical
Engineering and asserts that it is an extremely exciting field of endeavor
which is made possible by electrons that move about creating small
currents. According to Professor Narayanan, the field of electrical
engineering has several areas for you to get involved in, based on your
aptitude and interests including networks and electronic circuits,
electromagnetic fields and waves, signal processing, microprocessors,
communication and control systems, solid state electronics, electrical
power systems, computer engineering, analog and digital electronics,
optoelectronics, instrumentation, remote sensing, robotics and automation,
microwaves, radar, and power generation, transmission, and distribution.
He talks about the research opportunities and offers his perspectives as to
nexus between theory and practice in Electrical Engineering. Professor
Narayanan offers some tips for success in the field of Electrical
Engineering and recommends you to seriously consider obtaining some
research experience by working with professors in their laboratories. Why?
“Obtaining a recommendation letter from a professor supervising your
research project is weighed significantly higher compared to one from a
faculty member under whom you merely took a course or two”, explains
Professor Narayanan.

Should I Study Electrical Engineering? You may be asking this question

to other people and yourself. Professor Ted Batchman of the University of
Nevada has written Chapter 4 to satisfy your curiosity. “Electrical
engineering is both a broad field and a field filled with opportunities” says
Professor Batchman. “My electrical engineering background prepared me
for working in all of the areas [of this field of study]. When I went into a
new area, I was certainly not an expert, but I did have the fundamental
background which allowed me to study any of these areas and make a
meaningful contribution to a project”, Professor Batchman assures
you. He encourages you to think about the invention of Jack s. Kilby who
received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the integrated
circuit, and about Earl E. Bakken, who produced the first battery-operated
wearable pacemaker. “Just think how thesesolutions have changed the
world as we know it today! Who would not like to be part of such a
revolutionary change?”, Professor Batchman further encourages you. He
makes you aware of the fact that most engineering disciplines are based on
a solid mathematical foundation, but asserts you that any foundation is
built stone by stone. He then talks about the entrepreneurship
competitions and gradaute research programs and informs you that some of
these student plans are funded with prizes and venture capital to help
students start and operate their own company upon graduation. ”What a
way to start a career!”, Professor Batchman entices you. However,
he would discourage you from selecting a career simply because the job
will pay a good salary. Why? “If you select a career on that basis, then it
will be a “job” and not an exciting career”, Professor Batchman offers
his reasons and explains what makes a career exciting in this
chapter. Professor Batchman asks you: Do you enjoy being
challenged? Do you want an extremely broad range of employment
opportunities? Do you want a job that you enjoy going to work every
day? Do you want opportunities to invent new devices to help people?
Would you like to become a technology manager? And finally, do
you want a salary that provides you with adequate compensation? ”If most
of these electrical engineering career opportunities excite you, then
definitely study electrical engineering!”, Professor Batchman concludes.

“Making a big decision” is the title of Chapter 5 by Professor Harley R.

Myler of the Lamar University. Professor Myler says that deciding whether
or not to pursue a career in engineering is a very big step in a young
persons future planning. According to him, to get to the point of studying
electrical engineering, one should see it as a three‐ step process, where
each step refines the decision making progression and solidifies the final
decision into one that will deliver the greatest satisfaction in the result.
Professor Myler explains these steps in greater details in this chapter and
poses a number of questions to satisfy your curiosity: Why study
Engineering? Which engineering discipline should I study? Why study
Electrical Engineering (EE)? Where should you study Electrical
Engineering? What do you need to study Electrical Engineering? What can
you expect in an EE program of study? What Chemical engineers do?
What Civil engineers do, and what Electrical engineers do? Professor
Myler answers these questions and makes an important distinction between
science and engineering. “Scientists discover, engineers design”, says
Professor Myler. According to him, engineering is built on a foundation of
science and sometimes engineering is called “applied science.” “You will
spend the first two years of your education becoming a scientist and then
the last two developing your skills as an engineer. Good luck!” Professor
Myler concludes this chapter.

Professor Wayne A. Shiroma, Professor Aaron T. Ohta, Jonathan H. Dang,

Christopher C. Brough, and Bryan A. Fewell of the University of Hawai‘i
have co-authored Chapter 6 entitled Engineering with Aloaha. The
authors understand you have many questions to ask: What is Electrical
Engineering (have you ever wondered how your cell phone works?)? What
would you do to make the future happen? Why Study Electrical
Engineering? How to Succeed as an Electrical Engineering
Major? Professor Shiroma and his colleagues want you to imagine for a
moment transporting yourself back in time to meet your grandparents as
kids: “If you told them that one day they could have a video chat with
people on the other side of the world with a handheld device, they would
say “impossible”! And yet here we are doing just that while at the same
time taking selfies, playing Angry Birds, and downloading movies. Almost
every aspect of your life is made possible by electrical engineering:
iPhones and Galaxies, iPads, laptop computers, GoPro cameras, Wii, and
even the Internet itself!”. In this chapter, the authors offer diverse
perspectives – from a sophomore, a senior, a graduate student, a faculty
member, and the department chair – gave you an all-around picture of
electrical engineering to not only convey the passion that they have for
electrical engineering, but more importantly convince you to consider it as
your college major and career choice. Thought to yourself “if only my cell
phone could do this, it would be perfect”? Then maybe you should become
an electrical engineer! “No, we’re not talking about fixing your family’s
computer when its running slow...we’re talking about creating the future by
making the impossible, possible” Professor Shiroma and his colleagues
conclude this chapter. ”Farewell till we meet again!”, the authors bid you
“an Aloha a hui hou”.

It pays to do cool research for Electrical Engineers!” so says Prof.

Donald Y.C. Lie of Texas Tech University in Chapter 7. “I have often met
students who came and asked me: “why should we take on an
undergraduate research project?” Or, more often from graduate students:
“Why should I need to write a thesis for my master degree in Electrical
Engineering?” ...and now many graduate students has taken the “non-thesis
option” and try to join the industry without ANY research and thesis
writing experience with their M.S.E.E. degree; all they did for their degrees
were just taking classes only; would that make them competitive in today’s
highly volatile industry?”, Professor Lie questions. In this chapter,
Professor Lie argues that research training is a MUST for Electrical
Engineering Graduate Students, and a Big Plus for Undergraduates. He
explains his perspectives as to the importance of research and answers a
number of questions for you: What research areas are offered at a major
university? What are the future directions and impacts for your research?
What does he do every day for his job as a Professor? Professor Lie
answers these questions for you and discusses various issues concerning
student supervision, publications, research funding and reputation.
Professor Lie is proud of the unique interdisciplinary nature of his lab that
will continue to bridge this large gap among the clinicians and engineers.
“...It is especially needed and beneficial for the next revolution on the IoT
and Big Data. Research Pays!”, Professor Lie concludes this chapter.

Professor Daniel D. Stancil of North Carolina State University has written

Chapter 8 entitled “Electrical and Computer Engineers Change the
World”. As Professor Stancil begins this chapter, he wants you to take
to some parts of rural Africa, where wild elephants can be a serious
problem. According to him, if the wild elephants happen to wander into
villages, they may injure people and damage structures. and it may be
necessary to destroy the elephant. Isn’t it the wildlife management
problem? You wonder. Professor Stancil talked about this issue to let you
know that, however, a team of Electrical and Computer Engineering
students at his university has been considering precisely this problem as
their senior Capstone Design project, and that Electrical and Computer
Engineering is at the core of potential solutions to almost every major
societal challenge. According to Professor Stancil, horses, donkeys,
camels, and yes—elephants, have been used for centuries as beasts of
burden, but EE students are exploring how to use insects as beasts of
burden. What could an insect carry that would be useful? And how do you
make a cockroach go where you want it to go? Professor Stancil answers
these questions to satisfy your curiosity and provides many more examples
to illustrate that Electrical and Computer Engineering is a very broad
discipline that extends from applied physics, chemistry, and biology on one
end to applied mathematics and computer science on the other end. ”I hope
you will consider Electrical and Computer Engineering as a major that will
equip you to help change and improve the world”, Professor Stancil
concludes this chapter.

What I consider to be useful and interesting

about Electrical Engineering? Professor William Gosney of Southern
Methodist University begins Chapter 9 by by saying that not every student
can be an electrical engineer! Why? “If you don’t have the talent or the
aptitude for it, the study of electrical engineering, like other fields of
engineering, physics or mathematics, can be a daunting (if not impossible)
challenge”, explains Professor Gosney. “But for those students who do
have the aptitude, the study of electrical engineering is a joy. Your eyes are
opened to the ways and means of putting electrons in motion and using the
results to create world-changing technology”, Professor Gosney asserts
you. He discusses the successes of the inventions including the
incandescent light bulb, LED light sources, transistor, battery technology,
and raw materials such as beach sand (particles of quartz) and pennies
(copper) to produce an industry whose net worth is measured in the
hundreds of billions of dollars. Why would a student undertake
undergraduate/postgraduaduate and research studies in electrical
engineering? ”Such studies open the door to the modern-day gold rush of
technology”, Professor Gosney entices you. He is very optimistic that more
companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook will emerge in the
future and the chances are that those new companies will be technology
oriented, and that electrical engineers will provide the know-how to make
them succeed. ”These concepts are what I consider to be useful and
interesting about electrical engineering; and assuming they have the
aptitude, this why our prospective students should undertake studies in
EE!”, Professor Gosney concludes this chapter.
“What is Electrical Engineering and Why I am an Electrical Engineer”
is the title of Chapter 10 by Professor Tokunbo Ogunfunmi of SCU.
“Electrical Engineering is a fascinating and interesting field of engineering.
I am glad to know you are contemplating a study in Electrical Engineering
or are already committed to do so” Professor Ogunfunmi asserts
you. Before Professor Ogunfunmi tries to answer the question “What is
electrical Engineering?”, hewants to first give you his history as an
engineer. Professor Ogunfunmi talks about the largest professional
organization in the world (the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers (IEEE) and provides a complete list of IEEE Societies in this
chapter. He shares this good news that his universityhas many scholarships
available for graduate and undergraduate study and invites you to visit his
website. As Professor Ogunfunmi mentions, he livesand works in Silicon
Valley where there are many startup companies which are founded by
academic persons and also by industry professionals. He is saying this to
highlight that many universities currently have been emphasizing
entrepreneurship and innovation as part of their engineering curriculum.In
concluding this chapter, Professor Ogunfunmi wishes you the best in the
study of this fascinating field of engineering.

“If one thinks about all the possibilities just mentioned, it is clear that the
future of electrical engineering and electrical engineers is bright, vast, and
promising. Hence, it would behove young people interested in pursuing a
career in engineering to strongly consider the EE field and its related areas
or sub-disciplines, so says Professor Donald Ucci of Miami University. In
this chapter (Chapter 11 - Professors are proud of their students and
welcome their energy and creativity in pursuing common dreams),
Professor Ucci outlines creative and fascinating areas of engineering
research, development, design, implementation, and technology. He
encourage you to visit and speak with your major professors early in their
academic program and learn that the faculty members who serve in
educating them are open to new ideas, hard work, and inventive minds.
Professor Ucci offers his best practice advice to the students and discusses
the relevancy of academic research to practitioners and notes that many
academics have used their research to launch start-up companies or been
consultants to existing industries. “The starting point is opening a dialogue
between academics and non-academics”, concludes Professor Ucci.

“You want to be an Electrical Engineer (Duh!)”? Professor Arnie Berger

of the University of Washington Bothell asks you in Chapter 12. Professor
Berger believes the future of Electrical Engineering is limitless and
extremely bright. Why? ”Just look around you. Who’s going to invent and
design the next iPhone, or electric car, or wearable computing device?
How about swallowing a little pill and having it scan your digestive tract
for diseases? How about designing an affordable version of the Tesla?”
Professor Berger asserts you. He offers a list of reasons as to why you
should choose to study Electrical Engineering. In this chapter, Professor
Berger also discusses a number of questions for you and shares some best
practice tips with you. Why should you undertake a research degree in
Electrical Engineering? How can Electrical Engineering research be made
more relevant, useful and interesting to practitioners? “So, there you have
it. I love what I do and I love to excite my students about it. Become an
engineer because you want to do engineering, or because it will prepare
you for whatever you ultimately want to do later on. Good luck!”,
Professor Berger concludes this chapter.

Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu of the University of California, Berkeley has

answered the interview questions in Chapter 13 (Electrical Engineering
does involve a lot of hard work but it is fun and rewarding). How does
Professor Liu see the future/potential of Electrical Engineering as an
academic major? According to Professor Liu, Electrical Engineering is a
dynamic and growing field, challenging as a course of study but ultimately
very rewarding in terms of opportunities available to successful graduates,
due to increasing demand and the continual need for new innovations to
overcome the limitations of present-day technology. Professor
Liu’s research interests are in the area of Nanometer-scale semiconductor
devices and technology, and CMOS Front-End Materials and Process
Technology. She discusses these issues in this chapter in plain English for
you and offers her advice to you. “An EE education not only enables you
to understand and apply science and technology to make impactful
contributions to society, but also prepares you well to succeed in other
professions such as business, medicine, law, etc” says Professor Liu. Why?
As Professor Liu offers her reasons, this is because teamwork, effective
communication, professional and ethical responsibility are abilities which
you develop through the course of an engineering degree program. ”It does
involve a lot of hard work, but it is fun and rewarding!”, concludes
Professor Liu.

Now about this book itself. This is the first book of its kind ever published
on Electrical Engineering education, research and practice. In this book, we
have invited a number of Professors from top-ranked universities to share
their perspectives and advice on Electrical Engineering to help you.

At the Curious Academic Publishing, we have worked hard to bring the

book/s of your interest in plain English. Please search your
intended/current discipline on Google or Amazon for other books from the
Curious Academic Publishing.

Finally… academic books do not sell much. We were reminded of this

“fact” many times. We knew this and we still decided to work on this book
and other books like this.

We are not expecting to make a dime off of this book and we don’t care.
What we really care about is that as many students as possible read this
book and make better-informed decisions about their college major/career,
even if it puts our own financial/time investment at risk.

Then…why this book is not FREE? You ask. It is because – people no

longer value books if they are given away for free. We understand the
students with limited disposable cash certainly can’t afford the cripplingly
high book prices charged by other publishers, whereas we have offered the
digital version of the book for the price of just two lattes (or two beers, if
you prefer). We want the students to actually READ this book. We will be
just as happy because it means the message will spread and you, the
student/reader who reads the book, will be helped. It will also help the
institutions and the professors get connected to the students.

If you purchased this book through an online retailer such as Amazon and
liked it, please leave an honest review (as to why you liked it). We would
be really grateful if you shared your comments on the social media.

We, at the Curious Academic Publishing, hope you benefit from this book.
Whether it’s about making an informed decision about your major/minor
or career options, or keeping yourself updated about the research
trends/scholarship opportunities, this book will prove to be a valuable
resource.

We wish you happy reading and all the best with your studies, research,
and career in Electrical Engineering.

K. Vaidya, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
The Curious Academic Publishing

***
Chapter 1: Why Should You Choose Electrical
Engineering? - Professor Andrew Szeto, PhD, and
Professor Madhu S. Gupta, PhD

Andrew Y. J. Szeto, Ph.D

Professors of Electrical & Computer Engineering
San Diego State University

Dr Andrew Szeto got into electrical engineering because of his fascination

with batteries and motors. When he was 14 years old, his science teacher
encouraged him to enter his school’s science fair. To get some ideas, he
went to the local library and checked out a book on building fun things,
one of which was a simple motor powered by dry cell batteries. He
purchased the necessary parts from a local hardware store and built a
working motor following the instructions. His interest technical things
blossomed even more when he wanted to enjoy great music but could not
afford nice stereo components. To save money, he built a stereo receiver
made by Heath Kit. Throughout his middle and upper school years, he
enjoyed and did well in physics, chemistry, and math whereas literature
and poetry bored him. Wanting to expand his practical interests while also
choosing a major that would led to a good job, electrical engineering was
the logical decision. Even after 40+ years, he has never regretted this
career choice.

Madhu S. Gupta, PhD

Professors of Electrical & Computer Engineering
San Diego State University

Dr Madhu Gupta got into electrical engineering because of his curiosity

about things electrical. First, the twentieth century breakthroughs in the
field of electrical engineering were intellectually stimulating. Second,
unlike some branches of engineering where the knowledge is sometimes
empirical and where rules and procedures are often based on experience,
electrical engineering is more systematic and scientifically based. As a
result, Professor Gupta found the study of electrical engineering more
satisfying because there was a scientific and logical explanation for
virtually every facet of knowledge, and the answer to the question of
“why” followed from a set of fundamental laws and principles. The field
has been a source of endless adventure for him, and he invites similarly
minded young people to join him.

You are probably reading this article because you have some curiosity
about electrical engineering and wondering whether this field is for you.
To address your curiosity, we have organized this essay around five
questions. These questions have been expressed in subheadings below.
What is Engineering and, in Particular, Electrical Engineering?

Before answering the question that is in the title, let us consider what is the
difference between a scientist and an engineer. Because both of these
professions draw upon biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, they
are cousins. The relationship between these professions can be thought of
as engineering is the application of science. One key difference between
scientists and engineers lies in the what they do: scientists discover things
whereas engineers use those discoveries to build new things. Another
difference lie in their orientation: scientists study the world as it is while
engineers create the world that has never been. Because of these
differences, scientists tend to be more theoretical -- what is this
phenomenon and what causes it? -- while engineers tend to be more
practical -- Can I use this phenomenon to do something useful?

First of all you should know that electrical engineers do many different and
often interesting things. For example, electrical engineers work in the field
of communications by designing and building the latest smart phone and
all those cell towers that wirelessly connect the phones together. Electrical
engineers also work in the generation and delivery of electrical power to
factories, office buildings, and everyone’s homes. Other electrical
engineers work in designing medical instruments that allow the doctors to
see inside our bodies without having to cut us open. Electrical engineers
can be found working at large semiconductor companies to develop
integrated circuits that will fit inside flat panel TVs, laptop computers,
iPads, iPhones, and handheld diagnostic scanners like those depicted in
Star Trek. Being technical quantitative problem solvers, electrical
engineers also can be hired by such non-traditional employers as financial
institutions, R&D laboratories, aircraft and automobile manufacturers, and
governmental agencies such the Environmental Protection Agency, the
Food Drug Administration, and the Homeland Security Agency in the
United States.

Obtaining a degree in engineering does not close the doors to all other
professions. Many students, after obtaining a degree in engineering go on
to other professions, including law, medicine, and business. People with
technological degrees are highly sought after in many different lines of
work for their quantitative and utilitarian way of thinking. Many engineers
continue on for graduate study in business administration (the MBA
degree) to prepare themselves for a career in management of technological
enterprises. People with engineering degrees can go on to study law, and
become well suited for careers in patents and intellectual property law.
Those who go on to study medicine frequently work in fields like
bioengineering and rehabilitation engineering. In short, a bachelor degree
electrical engineering can open many doors.
Why should I Consider Electrical Engineering?

Having read this far, you want to be convinced that electrical engineering
is a good field of study. Electrical engineers generally enjoy a very good
standard of living and experience steady employment (few layoffs).
Because they contribute to a country’s wealth and their work creates more
jobs -- look at the impact of Microsoft and Apple Corporation on
America’s wealth and employment -- electrical engineers also are
respected by society. They are viewed as professionals who make
everyone’s lives better through their technical problem solving abilities
while adhering to a code of conduct and ethics. The field also allows a
wide range of choices of geographical locations, since electrical
engineering positions are available widely.

Moreover, for those who like to be self-employed or have an

entrepreneurial bent, an education in electrical engineering enables you to
start your own company or a consulting practice.

Electrical engineering is a well-paying profession and is included in most

lists of the ten highest-paying field for college graduates, with starting
salaries that are 35-50% higher than the average college graduate.
Moreover, during the college years, electrical engineering students can
gain valuable work experience via well-paying internships during their
undergraduate studies and then receive multiple job offers upon
graduation. Employers know that students who studied electrical
engineering are willing to work hard and abide by higher standards (no
grade inflation) — traits that are useful and valued in the labor market.
Additionally, because these students worked harder in college, they also
learn more, not only about engineering but other subjects too, and are
versatile problem solvers in many different lines of work.

Visiting or working in an engineering environment can be an invaluable

way of learning more about the engineering profession before making a
commitment of four years of college, and even an entire lifetime. But
understand that the work performed as a summer job as a student assistant
in an engineering company may not be very representative of an
engineering job . Summer jobs or internships with an engineering company
will, however, allow you to observe what “real” engineers do in addition to
earning a welcomed paycheck.
What do I do to Get Started?

To be successful in electrical engineering, you need to enjoy intellectual

challenges and have an interest and aptitude for math and science. With
today’s increasing reliance on computers and information technology, a
person with strong interests in computing also should consider the
electrical or computer engineering major.

In order to prepare yourself for a program of undergraduate study in

electrical and computer engineering, you will obviously want to take all
available advance placement courses in calculus, physics, chemistry,
statistics, and computer science. These classes will provide you with the
necessary background to become a technical problem solver and the
necessary self discipline and work habits that the electrical and computer
engineering major will require in college.

Do not fret, however, if you are not able to take a particular course in
primary or secondary school as there will be opportunities in college to
make up most deficiencies. What is harder to make up for is a lack of
motivation and interest. People with hobbies such as model making or
tinkering with machines may well have a better aptitude for some types of
engineering work than your typical nerd. The broad range of activities
encompassed by engineering will have something to offer for people with
other interests as well.
What can I Expect in College?

Once you have entered a college, you will be studying hard to master the
many fundamentals of electrical engineering. The first two years of a
typical undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum consist of calculus,
advanced math, physics, chemistry, and computer programming, In their
third and fourth years, students usually take electrical engineering courses
like circuits analysis, electronics and amplifiers, digital and VLSI circuits,
signals and systems, and wireless communications using electromagnetism.

To give students the opportunity to apply their classroom skills, many

engineering colleges sponsor design projects and competitions between
student teams such as building a micro-mouse that can self-navigate
through a maze, a submersible underwater vehicle capable of locating
sonar beacons, and a multi-rotor flying drone capable of delivering
payloads guided by
GPS signals. Engaging in such projects is not only fun, but it teaches the
importance of careful planning, organization, and team work. Prospective
employers view such projects so positively that they frequently financially
sponsor them and offer the assistance of their engineers to the student
design teams.

One of the most efficient ways of learning engineering is based on forming

a mentor – mentee relationship with an experienced engineer. Although
women have made substantial gains in recent years, a majority of the
professionals in electrical engineering are still men, and the best mentor for
a women electrical engineering student may be a male. While there may be
fewer women to serve as role models, the technical and quantitative nature
of the profession makes it equally suitable for both men and women.

One final comment about college life as an electrical engineering student.

You should know that your chosen major is much more demanding than
majors outside of science, technology or math. You will necessarily spend
more hours doing experiments in laboratories, working on design projects,
and studying outside the classroom. Hopefully, your interests and aptitude
for all things technical, and the future rewards as an electrical engineer,
will undergird your natural self-discipline and perseverance.
Which College is Best for Me?

The choice of where to go to study electrical engineering depends on many

factors, including cost, amount of financial aid, recommendations of
friends and family, willingness to relocate to another part of the country,
the ability to meet the demands and compete successfully with fellow
students, and proximity to friends and family. Visits to the campus,
conversations with alumni, and advice from your high school counselor are
some of the ways to learn more about a college that you are considering
attending.

There are several other issues to consider while planning where to go for
college: small versus large colleges; colleges in urban or rural settings;
public versus private universities; colleges near or far away from home;
and colleges that have major sport teams. In general large colleges offer
many different majors, have a significant intercollegiate athletic program,
and a wide variety of extracurricular activities. Because large campus have
many students, they tend to be somewhat impersonal, hold classes in very
large lecture halls, teach course material with the aid of multiple teaching
assistants. Small colleges tend to be more intimate in terms of class size,
student body count, and access to the professor. Colleges in urban settings
offer the advantages of a big city with its varied entertainment
opportunities, restaurants, professional sports teams, more traffic, and
possibly crime.

In terms of contact with instructors, class size, and student advising, public
colleges tend to be large and somewhat impersonal whereas private
colleges tend to be smaller and much more personal. Colleges in rural
settings often become the center of everyone’s activities. As such they are
the source of most extracurricular activities, including music programs,
theater productions, campus parties, student sponsored trips, intercollegiate
athletic competitions, etc.

During your visits to the websites of various colleges, you will often
encounter claims of superior rankings. With regard to college rankings,
three precautions should be kept in mind. First, it is not possible to rank
order colleges and universities like football teams, because there are
numerous criteria of evaluation, some of which may be irrelevant to your
situation.

Moreover, a highly ranked school with superstar professors does not ensure
that you will ever encounter any of them during your college years. Real
learning will likely come from interactions with teaching assistants with
whom you can meet and who will personally answer your questions.
Second, it is better to select a school where the learning environment is
matched with your own learning style and thus make the educational
experience more enjoyable and less stressful. For example, are you an
independent learner who can learn by attending lectures and studying by
yourself and with classmates or would you rather be able to ask questions
of your professor?

Can you avoid the temptations and distractions of a big city university or
would you prefer the tranquil of a rural campus in which your classmates
are around on weekends? The third reason for focusing less on school
rankings is that accredited engineering programs teach similar courses --
often using the same textbooks and following similar course outlines.

In fact studies of on-the-job performance and career satisfaction have

shown that success in the engineering after graduation depend much more
heavily on one’s own traits like creativity, perseverance, self-discipline,
ability to self-learn, and motivation rather than on “alumni connections” or
the school’s prestige factor.
Postscripts

Choice of a field of study is a very important decision that has life-long

implications. It is considerably more important than the choice of a college,
and therefore it deserves a serious consideration and investment of time.
Although the option of changing a career field at a later stage may be
available in principle, it incurs a substantial cost and time penalty.

To learn more about the electrical engineering profession, consult with

counselors, those in the profession, the web sites of professional societies
in the discipline, and career-related articles in professional and trade
magazines. Every nation needs creative engineers, and the engineering
profession needs dedicated new entrants. We hope that you will be one of
them.

***
Chapter 2: Why Study Electrical Engineering? –
Professors Steven Hietpas, Ph.D., David Galipeau,
Ph.D., Dennis Helder, Ph.D., and Wei Sun, Ph.D.

Steven Hietpas, PhD

Head of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department
South Dakota State University

Professor Steven Hietpas received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from Montana State University, in 1984, 1991 and
1994, respectively. From 1984 to 1989, he worked for General Dynamics,
Space Energy Group, in San Diego, CA, where he joined an engineering
research team developing power electronic and control systems for the
Shuttle Centaur and the International Space Station programs. The Space
Energy group developed 20 kHz Resonant Power Inverters for the space
station, resulting in a system weighing an order of magnitude less than
standard aerospace power processing systems commonly used at that time.
He joined South Dakota State University in 1994 and has served as the
Coordinator for the Center for Power Systems Studies since 1998. Hietpas
is currently Head of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Department at South Dakota State University and is a Professor of
Electrical Engineering.
 Dennis Helder, PhD
Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering
Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering
South Dakota State University

Dr Dennis Helder received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical

engineering from South Dakota State University and the Ph.D. in
engineering from North Dakota State University. He has been involved
with radiometric calibration of the Landsat series of instruments since
1988. He founded the SDSU Image Processing Laboratory in 1991 and is
the current director. He has been involved with the Landsat 7 Science
Team, the EO-1 Science Validation Team, and is currently a member of the
Landsat Data Continuity Mission Science Team. Helder is currently the
Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering at South
Dakota State University and Distinguished Professor of Electrical
Engineering.
 David W. Galipeau, PhD
Professor of Electrical Engineering
South Dakota State University

Dr David W. Galipeau is the Harold Hohbach Professor of Electrical

Engineering and the Coordinator of the Center for Advanced Photovoltaics
and Sustainable Energy; and Electrical Engineering MS and Ph.D.
graduate programs at South Dakota State University. He was also the
program lead for the Alternative Power Technology (APT) Program
supported by the Department of Defense. While at SDSU, he has been the
PI or Co-PI on over forty funded research projects, including twelve major
NSF awards for over $10 M and eight SBIR-STTR awards. He has
published over 100 research papers, given numerous presentations, and
established a spin off business. He was also Co-founder of the Center for
Advanced Photovoltaics and Sustainable Energy.
 Wei Sun, PhD
Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering
South Dakota State University

Dr Wei Sun is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at South

Dakota State University (SDSU). He received his B.S and M.S. degree from
Tianjin University, China, and Ph.D. degree from Iowa State University,
all in electrical engineering. During his Ph.D. years, he worked as a
Regional Transmission Planning Engineer at California Independent
System Operator, and a Visiting Scholar at The University of Hong Kong.
Before he joined SDSU, he worked at Alstom Grid in Redmond WA for two
years, as a Power System Engineer to develop software product of Energy
Management System and provide support to nationwide power utilities. He
received Microsoft Software Engineering Innovation Foundation Award in
2014 to develop reliable and resilient microgrid-based data centers. He is
a member of IEEE, and he is leading the Task Force of Restoration from
Cascading Failures in IEEE PES CAMS Working Group.
Introduction

Established in 1881, South Dakota State University [1], a Land Grant

School resulting from the signing of the Morrill Act by President Abraham
Lincoln on July 2, 1862 [2], has had a vibrant history and is the largest
university in the great State of South Dakota. The college has been recently
named the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering after a 1958 alum,
Jerome Lohr of the world renowned Lohr Winery in Paso Robles, CA [3].
The college has enjoyed the greatest facilities expansion on campus,
doubling in size since 2002, with three new buildings and a significant
addition to the primary engineering building, which can be attributed to
generous donations by our alum and corporate partners. The college also
boasts the largest endowment for scholarship opportunities, and offers the
most prestigious full-ride scholarships awarded at SDSU, named after
Stephen F. Briggs, a 1907 electrical engineering graduate, known for
developing the Briggs and Stratton air-cooled gasoline engines primarily
for outdoor power equipment.

Other notable South Dakota engineering and science contributors hailing

from South Dakota State are Gene Amdahl (formulated Amdahl’s Law,
which states a fundamental limitation of parallel computing), Aelred
Kurtenbach and Duane Sanders (founders of Daktronics, Inc., leaders in
large scale high-definition LED displays seen in sporting arenas world-
wide), and Ernest Lawrence, considered the father of modern day physics,
inventor of the cyclotron, and founder of the Lawrence Berkley and
Livermore Laboratories.

The Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department [4]

combines all aspects of electricity, electronics, hardware, and software into
one multi-disciplinary unit, offering degree programs in Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science with minors in Computer Science,
Biomedical Engineering, Informatics, and Software Engineering. The
department offers BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering.

All first year engineering students take the first year seminar and learn
about engineering as a whole and are acclimated to college life. The
department coordinates the first year lab experience for electrical
engineering and computer science students providing an excellent learning
opportunity based on a robotics platform. Two-Student Teams (one EE and
one CS) work together to complete software and electronics lab exercises,
culminating in a grand-challenge, where they compete for monetary prizes
against all the other teams. This first experience sets the stage for the next
three and half years that leads them through a rigorous program designed
to optimally prepare them for a career anywhere in the world.

The rigor of the program is made possible due to our faculty being deeply
engaged in and leading well-established research programs in materials
science, nanotechnology, sensors, photovoltaics, alternative energy and
power systems, and satellite calibration and image processing. Our alumni
are successful practitioners of these disciplines worldwide.
The Electrical Engineering Academic Major

Unashamedly borrowing Intel’s marketing slogan “Intel Inside®”, we at

South Dakota State University like to say that for essentially any system
designed by mankind in the 21st Century, there is an “Electrical Engineer
Inside”. Broadly speaking, the electrical engineering discipline is
concerned with energy and information, in its myriad forms, and solving
the most difficult problems affecting society.

Energy is critically important to all of humanity. Electrical engineers work

with all other science and engineering disciplines in the conversion of
energy from one form (e.g., petroleum oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solar,
wind and other forms of renewable energy) to electrical, as well as from
electrical to other forms (lighting, storage, mechanical, heat). The
generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical energy are critically
important to all of society, and electrical engineers are engaged at every
level.

While this sub discipline of electrical engineering is fundamentally

important to all electrical engineers, information technology is as well.
Every science and engineering discipline, and for that matter, any other
discipline such as sports, business, medical, politics, economics, to name a
few, requires information in order to accomplish the everyday demands of
their profession. There are five senses we rely on – sight, hearing, taste,
smell, and touch. The electrical engineer is concerned with emulating,
duplicating, storing, transmitting or complementing each of these senses
through the design of electronics and electronic systems. Some of the
obvious examples of electrical engineer’s impact on information
technology are the telephone, television and internet systems we enjoy
today. But this is a very small component. We design computers and
software systems to enable safe, high speed travel, biomedical
instrumentation and prosthetics to heal the sick and injured, automated
systems for numerous engineering sectors, such as automotive, aerospace,
medical and manufacturing, sophisticated sound and lighting systems for
the entertainment industry, to name but a few.

To put it succinctly, an electrical engineer provides exciting, creative, and

innovative solutions to meet many of society’s problems and needs.
Electrical Engineering Career Opportunities

The world we live in is intricately weaved together by electrical engineers.

The world depends on electricity and information. We will continue to
consume energy at an ever increasing pace. The accumulation and
processing of information is expanding at an exponential rate. We as
electrical engineers are increasingly being called upon to bring new
efficiencies and performances in order to manage our insatiable appetite for
energy and information. Electrical engineers are the designers and keepers
of these technologies – they will always be in demand.

Aside from the comment above, which makes the strong argument that
there will always be a demand for electrical engineers and job security, the
discipline itself is simply exciting, making for a rich (both spiritually and
financially) career choice. Sure, every job has its routine aspects, but you
will find that electrical engineers are some of the most fulfilled people in
the world as they are always involved in creative activities that require the
unique ability to solve real-world problems – electrical engineers are
trained to be problem solvers, not problem makers. The specific areas of
interest, an electrical engineer is able to pursue, are enormous.
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering

We are developing an intelligent decision-making restoration system for a

self-healing smart grid. Power outages cost American businesses billions
of dollars every year and jeopardize the lives of hospital patients. These
problems could be significantly alleviated by building a “self-healing
power grid”, as US President Obama urged in his 2013 State of the Union
address [5]. Our novel work has led to two successfully commercialized
software tools by industry partners [6-7]. The innovation contributes
tremendously to power system research area, and power grids will be better
prepared and equipped for handling extreme events like power outages [8].
We also have well-equipped power system and microgrid laboratories to
facilitate different research projects in smart grid areas, e.g., renewable
integration, distributed energy resources, distribution automation,
microgrid, etc. Another research area is cost effective direct generation of
solar energy using new inorganic materials to improve existing silicon cell
technologies [9] and novel organic solar cell structures and materials.
Organic solar cells are potentially less expensive than silicon solar cells
because they can be produced from solution processing such as printing,
painting or spray coating without use of high temperatures or expensive
vacuum systems. New light absorbing and charge transport materials and
device designs including single and multijunction cells are currently
pursued in the SDSU Electrical Engineering to increase organic solar cell
efficiency and lifetime [10].

Our department is closely tied to NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey’s
EROS Center, which is the world’s largest archive of satellite land images.
The research we conduct for these entities is in optical satellite calibration,
which turns the imagery collected by these sensors into calibrated data sets
that allow us to estimate wheat yields Russia, deforestation in Brazil and
many other forms of global change [11-12]. Our experts can not only
calibrate the imagery, but also remove the effects of the atmosphere so that
users have an image of surface reflectance [13]. As an example of our
work, most of the imagery you see when using Google Earth has been
calibrated by our team.
Scholarship Opportunities in Electrical Engineering

The cost to attend SDSU is very affordable for out-of-state and

international students compared to similar universities of our size and
quality. It often comes as a surprise that our open-scholarships offered by
the department are open to all students, including international students.
The university handles all incoming first-year students with little to no
assistance by the colleges and departments (except for the Briggs
Scholarship selection). First year students are allowed to declare electrical
engineering as their major. Once a student completes their first semester in
electrical engineering, they are eligible to apply for an open college of
engineering scholarship or an electrical engineering scholarship. With 150
undergraduate EE students, over 40 named scholarships totaling greater
than $40,000/year, many of our hard working students do receive
scholarships, including our international students. There is more
information regarding these opportunities at
http://www.sdstate.edu/eecs/for-students/scholarships.cfm.

One of the best ways to get involved in research at SDSU and to further
your education is to attend graduate school. Applications for admission
must be sent directly to the graduate school. Their web site contains
admissions and transcript certification requirements, deadlines, application
status, the graduate bulletin, and other relevant information at
http://www.sdstate.edu/graduate/index.cfm. A Bachelors of Science in
Electrical Engineering (or equivalent) is required for admission. Teaching
Assistantships are awarded on a competitive basis to highly qualified
applicants. The assistantship application form is on the EECS web site
under Electrical Engineering/references/ [4]. Research assistantships are
awarded on a competitive basis, typically during the second year of study,
to about 75% of enrolled Masters of Science (MS) students. The Ph.D.
program requires that students have an MS degree. Candidates are
encouraged to submit a statement of purpose with their application and
contact potential faculty advisors directly about research opportunities and
assistantships. Check the EE Department web site for: plan of study forms,
research areas of our faculty, curriculum, courses, and other program
specific information [4].
Electrical Engineering, Academia, and Industry

While it is true that many firms do not rely on academic research, this is
not necessarily the general rule. The most advanced and cutting-edge
industries, e.g., IBM, GE, ABB, Hewlett-Packard, Agilent, Microsoft,
Google, Qualcomm, Samsung, to name a few, have programs specifically
targeted at developing collaborative research endeavors with academia. For
example, several of our faculties are conducting research in the
development of next generation solar cell fabrication technologies in
partnership with industry. Recently, we have received funding from
Microsoft Corporation in the research and development of reliable and
resilient microgrids for data centers [14].

It is important for undergraduate students to be given opportunities to work

alongside our research faculty before they enter the workforce – this is the
case at SDSU. Research faculties explore the most difficult challenges
facing industry and society. The process of working alongside a research
professor develops in the student necessary skills to be extremely effective
practitioners.

The Center for Power Systems Studies (CPSS) was established to build
partnerships with the regional power industry and enable students to learn
through direct involvement with industry. Several research faculties are
actively involved in the CPSS, and work with industry members for senior
design and research projects [15].

We have heard it said by many of our international students that the system
in the US is quite different from the rest of the world. We employ a
continuous assessment process wherein students regularly hand in
homework and projects throughout the semester, and take numerous
quizzes and exams. At first, our international students are startled, but
overtime come to appreciate the methods and become believers and
proponents. Secondly, a majority of our classes are coupled with a practical
lab experience using state-of-the-art lab equipment – very hands-on
approach. Hence, we encourage our international students to come
prepared to stay busy and learn a lot.
Conclusion

Electrical engineering is probably the most creative and innovative degree

any university has to offer, but is it also one of the most difficult degrees to
earn. Students should want to be very good at math and enjoy putting their
math to work for them in solving complex problems. While the program is
difficult, the rewards are magnificent. The great news about South Dakota
State University is that it is located in a small and safe community (22,000
population, 36,000 when students are attending), yet has a considerable
number of international corporations providing excellent industry
experience for our engineers. Aside from the excellent engineering
educational system, SDSU is NCAA Division I school giving student
sports enthusiasts numerous events to attend and cheer their team on. The
university has a large and thriving international student community and
offers many, varied and diverse cultural opportunities for enjoyment by all
faculty, students and local community. The university is large enough to
provide a rich experience, but small enough to provide a family
atmosphere to its students.

References

[1]South Dakota State University, web site: http://www.sdstate.edu/,

downloaded February 29, 2014.
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[3]Jerome Lohr College of Engineering: web site:
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[4]Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, South
Dakota State University, web site:
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Sensing, Vol. 51, No. 13, Mar 2013.
[13]G. Chander, D. Helder, N. Mishra, A. Shrestha, “Assessment of
Spectral, Misregistration, and Spatial Uncertainties Inherent in the Cross-
Calibration Study,” IEEE Transactions Geoscience and Remote Sensing,
Vol. 51, No. 13, Mar 2013.
[14]Microsoft Software Engineering Innovation Foundation (SEIF)
Awards 2014 Winners, web site: http://research.microsoft.com/en-
us/collaboration/focus/cs/seif.aspx, downloaded March 31, 2014.
[15]W. Sun, R. Chambers, R. Kleinjan, J. Nelson, S. Hietpas, R. Johnson,
T. Johnson, and T. Strube, “Design and implementation of IEC 61850 in
communication-assisted protection strategy,” 2014 IEEE PES
Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, 14-17 April
2014.

***
Chapter 3: Why Study Electrical Engineering?
Professor Ram Narayanan, PhD

Professor Ram M. Narayanan

Department of Electrical Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University

Professor Ram Narayanan received his B.Tech, from IIT Chennai in 1976
and Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1988. As part of
his Ph.D. thesis, he designed, developed, and field-tested a unique high-
power millimeter-wave radar to measure the reflectance of snow and
vegetation. He served as Design & Development Engineer at Bharat
Electronics, India, during 1976-83 and as faculty member at University of
Nebraska Lincoln between 1988 and 2003. Since 2003, he is a Professor of
Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. His areas of
current interest are electromagnetic modelling, antenna design, radar and
system design and analysis, and cognitive wireless sensor networks. He is
working on several funded projects and has developed international
collaboration with researchers around the world. He is also very interested
in undergraduate and graduate education and has published widely in this
area. Overall, he has published 110 journal papers and over 300
conference presentations, and has advised 22 Ph.D. and 39 M.S. students
to graduation. Students in his lab work on real world problems and obtain
hands-on experience building and testing sensor systems, from paper
design to prototype development, to system testing and refinement, and
finally to product integration and delivery to the sponsor. He pushes
students to work hard and strive to “Get Ahead, not just Get By.” He
encourages students to write weekly reports and supports their travel to
professional conferences to present papers as first authors.
The Ubiquity of Electrical Engineering

Today’s child is inextricably connected to the field of electrical

engineering even before he/she is born. While still in the mother’s womb,
ultrasound sonograms based on electrical engineering principles monitor
his/her health. Instruments based on electrical engineering principles keep
track of the mother’s and baby’s health during and after delivery. In most
cases, the baby is born in a hospital room which is illuminated by lighting
based on electrical engineering principles. The news about the baby’s safe
delivery will be communicated to relatives and friends using email or
telephone, which are based on electrical engineering principles. Most
probably, the baby will go home in a car containing computers and sensors
based on electrical engineering principles to ensure a safe and pleasant
ride. The same lighting provides the ability to see and work at night after
the baby comes home.

As the baby grows into a toddler, he/she will play video and computer
games that are designed using principles of electrical engineering. In
school, the child will use technological innovations, such as computers and
cell phones which are based on electrical engineering principles. As a
teenager, he/she will enjoy music on his/her I-Pod and will attend music
concerts, which are made possible using electrical engineering concepts. In
college, electrical engineering principles will touch the student in a myriad
of ways, in the classroom as well as in the laboratory. The student will
record data using instruments and process data on computers, which are all
based on electrical engineering principles. The student will write reports on
computers made possible by electrical engineering principles.

As a young professional, he/she will exploit high technology in all spheres

of activity, all of which will be made possible using electrical engineering
principles. He/she will use GPS technology in the car to safely and quickly
reach his/her destination. At some point, the professional will fly airplanes,
and the sensors and the navigation aids contained within will be made
possible by electrical engineering principles. Frequently, during one’s adult
years, one will watch television, use the telephone, and look at weather
reports, all of which are made possible using the concepts of electrical
engineering. You may use several electrical appliances at home, such as
microwave ovens, room heaters, air conditioners, refrigerators,
dishwashers, and washing machines, which are made to run efficiently
based on electrical engineering principles. In later years, health monitoring
and diagnosis will be made by sophisticated instruments and equipment
designed using electrical engineering principles.

Therefore, you will find no escape from being touched by some aspect of
electrical engineering in your daily life from the time you wake up until the
time you retire for the night. Look around you, and your eyes will fall on
something or the other that is based on the fundamental principles of
electrical engineering. In order to appreciate the benefits of electrical
engineering, just imagine a day without light bulbs, cell phones,
computers, cars…..…pretty scary, isn’t it?

Electrical engineering is an exciting field that has been on the cutting edge
of technology for more than a century. Originating in the 19th century with
the development of electric power and the advent of telephone and wireless
communications, electrical engineering continues to have lasting impact
not only on technology and the engineering profession, but on all of
society. Recent advances such as integrated computing and
communications systems and the proliferation of microchips and
microelectronic hardware have revolutionized the ways we live and work,
as well as how we interact as a society and how we spend our leisure time.

Clearly, over the past 100 years or more, significant developments have
occurred in the field of electrical engineering which have made our lives
safer, more comfortable, more productive, and more exciting. Despite these
advances, the field of electrical engineering is growing by leaps and
bounds almost daily…..the I-Phone or the PC you purchased last year is
now due for an upgrade with more and more features! The time is
opportune for you to enter this field and become a trailblazer by
developing new technologies, products, and services based on the
principles of electrical engineering. The professional activities of electrical
engineers often directly affect the everyday lives of most of the world’s
population.
Electrical engineering is an extremely exciting field of endeavor which is
made possible by electrons that move about creating small currents.
Several billion electrons can be harnessed to create larger currents. By
intelligently routing these currents, you can make unique things happen!
Past examples include high definition television, embedded computer
systems, solar power generators, microprocessor chips, electronic
amplifiers, laser sources, robots and intelligent systems, power distribution,
information technology, to name a few. Electrical engineers learn the
physics of electricity, magnetism, and optics, work with signals at
frequencies from zero to beyond the optical range, and use tools as varied
as computers and wire cutters.

The field of electrical engineering has several areas for you to get involved
in, based on your aptitude and interests. Examples are networks and
electronic circuits, electromagnetic fields and waves, signal processing,
microprocessors, communication and control systems, solid state
electronics, electrical power systems, computer engineering, analog and
digital electronics, optoelectronics, instrumentation, remote sensing,
robotics and automation, microwaves, radar, and power generation,
transmission, and distribution. I am sure you know someone working in
one or more of the above areas who can provide you more detailed
knowledge.

The career prospects for electrical engineers are always extremely bright.
Due to the rapid advancement in technology and the rapid inroads being
made in developing countries, the world needs a lot more electrical
engineers compared to the supply of graduating seniors. In addition, among
engineering majors, starting salaries are generally the highest (on average)
for electrical engineering graduates compared to other disciplines
everywhere in the world.
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering

The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) is among the top

engineering schools in the world providing a diverse and exciting array of
opportunities for electrical engineering students and scholars. When you
are ready to explore college selections, I suggest you take a real close look
at what Penn State has to offer, because I am sure you will something of
your interest at this top school. The web site of the Penn State Electrical
Engineering Department is http://www.ee.psu.edu.

The Penn State Electrical Engineering Department, established in 1893, is

among the largest, oldest, and the most innovative in the nation. We offers
B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering. In 2012, the
Electrical Engineering graduate program was ranked 25 by U.S. News and
World Report. Approximately 520 students are enrolled in the
undergraduate program, and approximately 220 students are enrolled in the
graduate program, with more than half pursuing doctoral degrees. We have
more than 40 professional faculty, including 15 IEEE fellows. We offer
approximately 90 courses from freshman to graduate level, encompassing
all areas of electrical engineering. We also have a vibrant research
program, at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Faculty and students are engaged in courses and research in the following
fields at Penn State:

Communications and Networking, which includes topics related to digital

communications, computer networking, intelligent networks, multimedia
communications, mobile computing, local area wireless networks (RF and
Optical), mobile communications, wireless communication and
networking, optical fiber communications, optical networking, information
theory, satellite communications, propagation measurements and modeling.

Control Systems, which includes topics addressing multiobjective and

probabilistic robust control, intelligent distributed control, adaptive control,
and quantum control of linear and nonlinear electrical systems.
Electromagnetics, which includes topics such as computational
electromagnetics, wave scattering and propagation, wave interactions with
complex media and novel materials, electrodynamics, antenna analysis and
design, radar scattering cross section and antenna measurements, computer
visualization, RF and microwave systems, MMIC, EMI, and EMC, and
electronic packaging.

Electronic Materials and Devices, which includes topics related to

materials and devices for electronic, photonic, bioelectronic and MEMS
applications, amorphous and crystalline silicon, III-V compounds, organic
thin films, ferroelectric and piezo-electric; development of novel device
structures and manufacturing methods, device and circuit simulation and
modeling, device and material characterization.

Optical Materials and Devices, which addresses topics related to electro-

optics, photonic and nonlinear optical materials, devices and applications,
tunable photonic crystals, laser switching and optical information
processing, liquid crystalline materials and devices, fiber optics and
waveguides, and holography.

Power Systems, which includes areas such as power system planning,

operation, and control, intelligent system applications to power systems,
computational tools for power electronic design, quiet motor drives, and
renewable and green energy.

Signal and Image Processing, which relates to topics addressing including

multidimensional signal processing, signal reconstruction theory and
algorithms, signal compression, spectral estimation, image processing,
medical image analysis, neural networks, multiple target tracking in clutter,
adaptive filtering, and data fusion.

Remote Sensing and Space Systems, which encompasses active (radar and
lidar) and passive (radiometry) remote sensing of the atmosphere, radar,
radiometer, and lidar systems, rocket and satellite instrumentation,
atmospheric electrodynamics, meteoric effects in the ionosphere, modeling
of atmospheric processes, and plasma physics.
Several state-of-the-art research laboratories, directed by EE faculty and
housing state-of-the-art facilities and instrumentation, are available for use
for research and education of undergraduate and graduate students, such as

Center for Information and Communication Technology Research

Laboratory for Advanced Signal Processing, Communications, and
Networking Science
Wireless Communications and Networking Laboratory
Multi-agent Networks Laboratory
Quantum Control Systems Laboratory
Robust Machine Intelligence and Control Laboratory
Communications and Space Science Laboratory
Antenna and Radio Engineering Laboratory
Electromagnetic Communication Laboratory
Computational Electromagnetics and Antennas Research Laboratory
Applied Optoelectronics & Photonics Laboratory
Integrated Circuits and Device Research Laboratory
International Center for Actuators and Transducers
Electronic Research Group
Hierarchical Nanomanufacturing Techniques Group
MEMS Nanoscale and Devices Group
Nanoscale Circuits and Systems Laboratory
Chemical Vapor Deposition Laboratory
Semiconductor Surface Processing and Characterization Laboratory
Solid State Electronic Materials Research Group
Ultrafast and Nonlinear Optics Laboratory
Liquid Crystals and Nonlinear Optics Laboratory
Optical Engineering Laboratory
Power Electronics Laboratory
Applied Signal Processing and Instrumentation Research Laboratory
Atmospheric Electrodynamics Group
Electromagnetic Modeling and Remote Sensing Laboratory
Radar and Communications Laboratory
Radar Electrodynamics and Aeronomy Laboratory
Systems Design Laboratory
 Multidimensional Image Processing Laboratory
Laboratory for Perception, Action, and Cognition
Information Processing and Algorithms Laboratory

Students and faculty frequently work in multidisciplinary research areas

and therefore their work straddles several laboratories listed above. In
addition, close collaboration exists with other departments within Penn
State, such as Computer Science and Engineering Mechanical Engineering.
Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Civil Engineering,
Engineering Science and Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics,
Materials Research Institute, and Penn State Hershey Medical Center, to
name a few. There also exist significant connections to research groups at
several universities around the world, as well as to government and
industry. Therefore, I guarantee that you will receive a first-class education
at Penn State which will prepare you for leadership positions in science,
technology, and engineering management upon graduation.

In addition, Penn State has unique opportunities tailored for undergraduate

students, such as the Engineering Environmental Institute, Center for Space
Research Programs, and The Applied Research Laboratory. In addition,
Penn State also hosts the student chapters of IEEE (Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers), OSA (Optical Society of America), and SPIE
(International Society of Optical Engineering) which bring in speakers
from academia, government, and industry, and which also provide career
guidance from our faculty.

Most graduate students receive teaching or research assistantships to

support their graduate study, and undergraduate students also frequently
receive support to assist in the faculty research.
The Nexus Between Theory and Practice in Electrical Engineering

It is important to realize that theory is developed under an ideal set of

conditions, while practice occurs in a real-world, often non-ideal setting.
The connection between theory and practice is the connection between
science and engineering.

The older generation of electrical engineers frequently developed their

creative aspirations by tinkering with electronics and radio kits at home,
and by disassembling and repairing home appliances. Unfortunately, these
days, such opportunities have been replaced by video games, cell phones,
and throwaway electronic appliances, which do not provide any
opportunities for active learning.

One cannot be an engineer just by reading textbooks and solving

homework problems. Unless you are able to actually see how your
classroom knowledge is applied to real problems, you will lose interest and
enthusiasm. As I mentioned, electrical engineering is one of the broadest
engineering disciplines, which focuses on applying the laws of physics
governing electricity, magnetism and light to develop products and
services for the benefit of human kind. In addition to the traditional roles of
designing, analyzing and working with components, circuits, and systems
that utilize electrons and photons, electrical engineers are also often
engaged in systems integration, information technology, and software
development, and frequently serve on multidisciplinary teams. Hands-on
laboratory experience going hand-in-hand with classroom instruction will
provide you with the skills to solve challenging problems you will confront
in your career. In order to connect theory and practice, you will need the
following:

A solid foundation in mathematics, physical sciences, humanities and

social sciences, and the fundamentals of engineering design and
analysis
The technical knowledge and critical thinking skills required for the
professional practice of electrical engineering, and for seeking
advanced degrees
 The development of communication skills, teamwork, lifelong
learning, and understanding of professional, ethical and social
responsibility within a global context

Let me provide an example in the areas of signal processing. In the

classroom, you will learn about Fourier series analysis wherein it will be
shown that a periodic signal (a signal that repeats every time period) can be
decomposed into its fundamental frequency and harmonics. You may solve
several problems in class using a variety of periodic signals, but these may
not evoke a great deal of enthusiasm in your mind.

However, a visit to the laboratory will make it all very clear. In the
laboratory, you will see Fourier series in action by using a signal generator
to generate a square wave signal and by analyzing its frequency content on
the oscilloscope. You will also be able to determine the relative amplitudes
of the fundamental frequency and he harmonic frequencies. Your curiosity
will force you to generate different waveforms and look at their Fourier
components, thereby reinforcing the knowledge you learned in the
classroom. You will notice that the relative amplitudes of the frequency
components does not exactly match your derivation, and you will wonder
why. Your professor will tell you that the signal generator has some
distortion, so the generated square wave is not exactly a clean square wave.

Another example is from electromagnetics. You will learn about the Friis
transmission formula which calculates the received power at an antenna as
a function of the transmitted power, the antenna gains, and the distance
between the antennas. It will be derived in class that the received power
falls off as the square of the distance between the transmit and the receive
antennas. Let’s go to the laboratory and rig up a simple transmit-receive
system using a microwave signal generator to feed the transmit antenna
and connecting a microwave detector to the receive antenna to measure
received power. When you double the distance between the antennas, you
will notice that the power drops off approximately to one-fourth, but not
quite. Alarmed, you may call the professor, who will tell you that in the
laboratory, in addition to the direct path signal between the antennas (on
which assumption the Friis transmission formula is based on), there are
other multiple paths (or multipaths) due to reflections from walls or other
equipment that cause more power to be picked up by the receive antenna,
thus deviating from the ideal conditions.

An aspect of engineering design that is often overlooked is the human

factors angle, i.e. ensuring that the product you have developed after a
great deal of time and effort is appealing and useful to the customer.
Therefore, you will also need to understand the application of non-
electronic concepts in your design of electrical systems, such as thermal
analysis, vibration analysis, wiring and cabling considerations, packaging
and enclosure design, engineering ergonomics, and reliability and cost
analysis in instrument design. A few examples are discussed herein. If you
design a high power RF amplifier, the DC input power which is not
converted to RF output power is dissipated as heat in the device. If you do
not provide adequate heat sinking to remove this heat, the amplifier will
heat up and be destroyed. Also, if you don’t provide proper mounting and
stiffening for your printed circuit boards, vibrations caused during transit
or operation may snap the solder joints and render your circuit ineffective.
Finally, if your lettering on your control panel is too small to be readable or
if the placement of your knobs and switches on the front panel are too
close for easy operator access, your product will not sell. It is therefore
essential to keep these points in mind when designing the packaging of
your final product.

Thus, while theoretical knowledge is useful and most essential, theory

assumes perfect conditions, which are usually not available in a real
setting. Therefore, you will find that the laboratory is a type of mini-real-
world where you can not only understand the theory (i.e. basic principles)
but also get a feel for practice (i.e. real world). Thus, the importance of
theory-practice nexus for effective teaching and meaningful learning
cannot be over-emphasized.
Tips for Success in the Field of Electrical Engineering

As I stated earlier, the field of electrical engineering touches our daily lives
in more ways than one. Everything we do has some connection to one or
more principles of electrical engineering. In order to succeed as an
electrical engineer, you must have a good grounding and aptitude for
mathematics, physics, and chemistry, since you will frequently use basic
principles from these fields in electrical engineering. You must also be
very well-versed in computers and computing, and have a desire to solve
problems by thinking “outside the box.” You must be a visionary and a
risk-taker, because these attributes will help you think far into the future
and anticipate societal needs.

Another important attribute is an interest to tinker with equipment in the

laboratory and build systems to do a particular job efficiently and
economically. This involves “getting your hands dirty.” You must develop
the skill to effectively and wisely manage your time so that tasks are
completed efficiently. You must also learn to handle stress, especially
when trying to meet competing deadlines. Finally, reading technical
articles and attending technical talks, even if you don’t understand them
completely, are critical to eventual success.

While an undergraduate student, I recommend you seriously consider

obtaining some research experience by working with professors in their
laboratories. Many advantages accrue from undergraduate research
experience. Some of these are

Development of critical thinking skills

Development of problem identification abilities
Development of technical and computer skills
Evolution of the abilities to reconcile theoretical knowledge with
experimental measurements (connection between theory and
practice)

All of the above are essential ingredients for success in graduate study,
should you choose to go to graduate school. Furthermore, the above skills
and abilities will allow you to make better and more informed judgments
about the requirements for professional as well as graduate work and
success in these endeavors. I therefore strongly recommended that you find
a suitable faculty mentor at your institution and participate in a goal-
oriented research project with submission of a final report as an outcome of
the research. You can include a copy of your report in your job or graduate
application portfolio. Obtaining a recommendation letter from a professor
supervising your research project is weighed significantly higher compared
to one from a faculty member under whom you merely took a course or
two.

***
Chapter 4: Should I Study Electrical Engineering?
Professor Ted Batchman, PhD

Ted Batchman, PhD

Dean of Engineering Emeritus, and
Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering Emeritus
University of Nevada

Professor Ted E. Batchman, has the BSEE, MSEE, and PhD degrees from
the University of Kansas in 1962, 1963, and 1966, respectively. After
completing his PhD, he joined LTV Missiles and Space Division as a
Scientific Engineering Senior Specialist working on space defense systems.
In 1970, he joined the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, as
a Senior Lecturer. His research and teaching were in the areas of fiber
optics and integrated optical devices. He joined the University of Virginia
in 1975 where he continued his research in microwaves and optics. In
1988, he joined the University of Oklahoma as Director of the School of
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In July 1995, he joined the
University of Nevada, Reno as Dean of the College of Engineering. He is a
Fellow of IEEE and ASEE.

Before reading this article, take a few minutes and think about how your
life would be different without electricity and electronic devices,
computers, lights, appliances, telephones, television, radios or medical
electronics. Many young people use all of these as part of their daily lives
but never consider how rewarding it would be to help develop them or how
exciting it would be to help invent something like the integrated circuit.

Electrical engineering is both a broad field and a field filled with

opportunities. I look at my own career and it has ranged from digital
devices, to electromagnetic interference, space based infrared sensors, fiber
optic devices, lasers, social studies of new communication devices,
microwave devices, biomedical devices, electro-optic materials, liquid
crystal displays (LCD TV technology), and finally to renewable energy
studies and engineering management. This is only a small part of the broad
spectrum of fields encompassed in electrical engineering. I could have
spent my entire career in any one of these areas and still had a rewarding,
challenging and exciting career. My electrical engineering background
prepared me for working in all of these areas. When I went into a new area,
I was certainly not an expert, but I did have the fundamental background
which allowed me to study any of these areas and make a meaningful
contribution to a project. Very few areas have changed as much or have
had as large an impact on modern society as electrical engineering.
Jack S. Kilby Received the Nobel Prize for the Invention of the
Integrated Circuit

To see the contributions electrical engineers have made to our modern

world, look on the internet at the famous electrical engineers and the
contributions each has made. Much of our modern world is founded on the
contributions of these great men. But, I would like to focus for just a
moment on one of those electrical engineers, Jack S. Kilby, who received
the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the integrated circuit.

The reason I focus on Jack Kilby is that he graduated from the same small
rural high school as I did. His career started as a circuit design engineer
who was given the challenge to solve the tyranny of numbers problem with
electronic circuits. This was a major problem faced in the early 1960s by
computer design and manufacturing engineers who were unable to increase
the performance of their designs due to the huge number of components
involved. Prevailing technology required every component to be a discrete
device which was soldered by hand to other components connected with
individual wires. To improve performance, more components were need
and the size and number of circuits were limited by the wiring.

Jack Kilby came up with a technique for making and connecting

components on the same chip of material. Just think how this one electrical
engineering problem solution has changed the world as we know it today!
Everything from automobiles to cell phones have numerous integrated
circuits. Who would not like to be part of such a revolutionary change?
Many of the Best Inventors and Entrepreneurs only Had Average
Math Skills

Now we often hear young people say, “I couldn’t be an electrical engineer

because you need to know too much math.” Some people say, “I like to
build things but I am not good at math.” It is true that physics and most
engineering disciplines are based on a solid mathematical foundation, but
any foundation is built stone by stone. If you feel this way and like to build
new things, I would encourage you to honestly assess your mathematical
skills. Many young people just lack confidence in their abilities because
they do not have the best scores in math, but many of the best inventors
and entrepreneurs only had average math skills.

Yet, they had the desire and determination to learn what they needed to
become a success. I have met a number of corporate executives who have
said, “I barely made it through the math course in my engineering
curriculum.” They have gone on to become very successful engineers and
managers because they wanted to be part of building something new and
something better.
You Want to Work with People? Employment Opportunities for
Electrical Engineers

A number of young people prefer careers in medicine or the social sciences

because they feel they want to help people and do not feel that electrical
engineering is such a profession. This could not be further from the truth.
Much of modern medicine, for example, is based on the fantastic medical
equipment developed by electrical engineers. Before responding to this by
saying you want to work with people, consider that many
electrical/biomedical engineers work directly with patients developing
custom devices to allow them to live with their handicaps. Also consider
that most electrical engineering is done in teams working together to solve
problems to make our lives better.

It was not long ago that people died from heart attacks because the
“electrical system” in their heart stopped working properly. John Hopps, an
electrical engineer, was recruited on a part-time basis by the National
Research Council of Canada in the late 1940’s and designed what was
perhaps the first electronic device specifically built as a cardiac pacemaker.
It was an external unit driven by vacuum tubes. The electrical impulses
were transmitted via a bipolar catheter electrode to the atria. Earl E.
Bakken, electrical engineer, TV repairman and co-founder of Medtronic
Inc. produced the first battery-operated wearable pacemaker. A relatively
simple electronic invention, the pacemaker, gave many people a normal
life again.

I would suggest the student looking for an exciting career look at

employment opportunities for electrical engineers posted on the IEEE
website. In the electrical/biomedical engineering area, for example, there
are opportunities for a research associate in cardiovascular programs,
director of biomedical informatics, research study technician in
regenerative medicine, and a biomedical system engineer. Any of this
sound interesting?
Entrepreneurship Competitions - What a Way to Start a Career!

When exploring the opportunities in engineering and electrical or computer

engineering in particular, I recommend that the student look at the many
interesting student projects in the curriculum afforded by most
undergraduate programs. The last engineering program I was active in had
numerous opportunities for hands on student projects. Electrical
engineering students often built a micro-mouse and participated in regional
competitions.

At a previous university our students built a solar car and raced it across
Australia. Also many electrical engineering programs require students to
participate in a major project which is the climax of their engineering
education. The team project requires use of skills learned in physics,
engineering, math, computer science and business. Students then are able
to see how everything they have studied can be used to solve a real
engineering problem. Some of these projects lead to patents for the
students and university.

Entrepreneurship competitions are becoming more prevalent in engineering

programs. These competitions are student teams working together to
develop a concept for a new product, service or business. Teams are often
made up of electrical engineering and business students. The teams are
then judged on their product engineering, business plan, marketing plan
and capitalization plan. These plans are judged by a group of entrepreneurs
who have had ideas for new companies and have successfully started
companies. Some of these student plans are funded with prizes and venture
capital to help students start and operate their own company upon
graduation. What a way to start a career!

One final opportunity I should mention for the student considering

studying electrical engineering is graduate research programs. Many
electrical engineering programs afford the student an opportunity to
participate in faculty research programs. These research programs will
range across the faculty interests and could involve anything from robotics
to currency recognition. My own undergraduate students participated in my
renewable energy research project which was evaluating the economic
feasibility of wind energy in our local area. This project had numerous
benefits for urban and rural residents considering the use of renewable
energy to provide their electrical needs. What an opportunity to take the
classroom information out into the field and apply it!
What Makes a Career Exciting?

I would discourage anyone from selecting a career simply because the job
will pay a good salary. If you select a career on that basis, then it will be a
“job” and not an exciting career. But what makes a career exciting? You
should be challenged to think every day about something new and
different. You should be challenged to learn something new because the
field is dynamic and changing. You should have the freedom to discover
new things and invent new things. You will learn to be a problem solver
which prepares you for management. Electrical engineering has all of these
opportunities.

So why should you study electrical engineering? You enjoy being

challenged! You want an extremely broad range of employment
opportunities! You want a job that you enjoy going to work every day!
You want opportunities to invent new devices to help people! You would
like to become a technology manager! And finally, you want a salary that
provides you with adequate compensation! If most of these electrical
engineering career opportunities excite you, then definitely study electrical
engineering!

***
Chapter 5: Making a Big Decision – Professor Harley
R. Myler, PhD

By Harley R. Myler, PhD, PE

Wm B. and Mary G. Mitchell Endowed Chair
Phillip M. Drayer Department of Electrical Engineering Lamar University,
Beaumont, Texas

Professor Harley R. Myler has been teaching electrical engineering for

over thirty years and has seen many of his students achieve successful and
fulfilling careers at the BSEE, MSEE and doctoral levels of study. Dr.
Myler earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from the New Mexico
State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 1985 and started as an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer
Engineering at the University of Central Florida in Orlando in 1986. He is
presently the Chair of Electrical Engineering at Lamar University in
Beaumont, Texas where he not only teaches but also performs research in
digital telecommunications to include cell phones and HDTV. Dr. Myler
has consulted to telecommunications, aerospace and electronics firms and
he holds three patents. He has published four books and written over sixty
papers that have been published in electrical engineering journals and
proceedings. He has always found the practice of electrical engineering to
be satisfying and challenging and he encourages young people who are
interested in the field to pursue their dreams at the university or college of
their choice.

Deciding whether or not to pursue a career in engineering is a very big step

in a young persons future planning. There is a good deal of schooling to be
done and much of it is considered to be rigorous. Of course, that does not
at all mean that it cannot be fun and it is a given that it will be not only
satisfying, but ultimately profitable in terms of future success in the
workplace.

To get to the point of studying electrical engineering, one should see it as a

three-step process, where each step refines the decision making
progression and solidifies the final decision into one that will deliver the
greatest satisfaction in the result. The first step is to ask…
Why Study Engineering?

One dictionary gives the definition of engineering as the discipline dealing

with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical
problems. The National Academy of Engineering of the United States of
America has defined engineering as design under constraint. An important
distinction to make is the difference between science and engineering and
that is fairly easy: scientists discover, engineers design. For example,
scientists look to discover a new species, an element or particle or even a
new planet. Science is the process by which we explore our universe and
attempt to understand and explain principles and causes whether they be
physical or philosophical.

The discoveries of science are then used by engineers to solve problems

like how to communicate over vast distances or even how to cross vast
distances quickly and efficiently. If you like the idea of creating things and
solving problems, then engineering is a path you should consider for your
career.

There are many engineering disciplines to choose from once you have
decided to become an engineer and that is the second step in our decision
making process...
Which Engineering Discipline should I Study?

Take any high school physics textbook and the table of contents will give
you a rough list of the major engineering areas! Engineering disciplines
tend to focus on the area of science that they work with. Mechanical
engineers are interested in machines that move and in the various materials
that are used to build or make things. As such, the mechanical engineer is
going to use Newtonian mechanics, the physics of simple machines like
levers, pulleys and gears. They are also interested in the chemistry of
materials because the machines that they design and built must stand up to
constant wear, or intense temperature variations, caustic environments and
the like.

Civil engineers are concerned with the construction of roads, bridges, dams
and other structures that enhance our life and civilization in general. They
study the forces that are at work in our environment and with the materials
that are used to construct the structures that they design.

Chemical engineers design and build process plants that efficiently produce
chemicals that are used for a wide range of purposes. They rely a great deal
on the science of chemistry and all of the sub-disciplines associated with it.

Some engineering fields are cross disciplinary meaning that the engineer
works with two or more areas of engineering study one good example of a
cross-disciplinary field is biomedical engineering. Modern engineers tend
to be cross disciplinary by nature because large, complex projects require a
large number of different engineers working together as a team.

Since you are considering electrical engineering, let us home in on our last
step in the decision making process…
Why Study Electrical Engineering (EE)?

Electrical engineers, called “EEs” for short, are interested in the control
and utilization of energy. This energy can be in the form of electricity,
which is the flow of electrons, or in the form of light, which is the flow of
photons. There is a duality between energy and information and, as such,
EE’s are very interested in how information is transmitted, transformed and
stored. Electrical engineers design a broad range of devices and systems
from electrical power grids that supply homes and industry with electricity,
to systems that deliver telephone, radio, television, network and space
communications. EE’s design the computers that affect almost all of our
modern lifestyles. EE’s are responsible for the microprocessor systems that
control toasters and microwave ovens, automobiles and guided missiles,
toys and space shuttles just to mention a few of the myriad of applications
of these systems.

One of the skills that all EEs must develop in order to be successful is the
ability to think abstractly. What does this mean? Normally we think in
somewhat concrete terms, we look at something and based on our
experience and memory we classify what it is and if it is complex, like a
machine, we associate our knowledge of the working of its individual parts
to make a determination of how it works. For example, we can readily see
how a wheel works, or how a bridge is put together with girders and rivets.
When it comes to the behavior of electrons and photons, we cannot see
them and the electronics that are needed to manipulate them are very
complex and cannot be readily understood just by looking at them.

EEs describe electronic circuits using a special diagramming technique

known as a schematic. Reading a schematic is not natural and people who
have not studied electrical engineering would look on a schematic as a set
of unintelligible symbols and lines. The ability to read a schematic diagram
and visualize in the mind the behavior of the circuit in terms of controlling
electrons and photons is an extreme example of abstract thought. This
ability is developed in the electrical engineer via a series of courses that are
taken during their preparation in college.
Electrical engineers use a broad range of mathematical techniques to
describe the systems that they design. Mathematics is almost exclusively
abstract, especially in the advanced ways that EEs use math. For example,
to adequately describe a radio signal, an EE must know how to utilize an
area of mathematics known as complex number theory. In this theory one
encounters imaginary numbers. It takes quite a bit of abstract thought to be
able to design a radio communication system when the numbers are
imaginary!

Students who choose electrical engineering as their discipline of study and

ultimately their career are ones who enjoy the application of mathematics
to complicated systems that can only be designed using abstract concepts.
This takes the problem solving aspect of engineering to a very high level
and EEs derive an extreme level of self-accomplishment when they finish a
project.
Where should I study Electrical Engineering?

Choosing a university to do your career-building studies is a big decision.

There are many schools where you can earn a Bachelor of Science degree
in Electrical Engineering, the BSEE. Every program has a unique culture
and that is one of the best ways to make your decision. Does the culture of
the school fit with your lifestyle? If not, you may have a disappointing
experience. Very large schools, those with student populations over 20,000
students will have a very rich and diverse student population with
extensive extra curricular and sports activities. On what some might
consider the negative side, these schools will have large classes and
students can sometimes feel that they are “just a number.”

Small schools will not have the same extent of activity outside of class that
the large university has, but they will have a more personalized program
and most likely small classes. This can be a disadvantage in terms of the
breadth and depth of the educational experience, but it is a significant
advantage in terms of individualized attention and a strong student-
centered attitude that may not be possible in larger programs. These are
just a few things to consider when trying to decide where to pursue a
degree that will take a few years to complete.
What do I Need to Study in Electrical Engineering?

EE is one of the most abstract of the engineering professions. By abstract,

we mean that it can be very difficult to simply visualize or conceptualize
the behavior of electrical, electronic and photonic systems. For this reason,
the EE uses a great deal of mathematics to model the behavior of the
systems being designed. Before attending college, you should have taken
chemistry and physics and mathematics up through the pre-calculus stage.
This will best prepare you to begin your study of EE. If you are lacking
any of these preliminaries from your primary education, you can take them
at most universities as part of general or developmental studies programs.
These early courses are also a good way to determine if electrical
engineering is really what you want to do. Many schools sponsor after-
school robotics activities and these can be an excellent way to explore
engineering before college. Building robots involves almost all of the
engineering disciplines and EE plays a major part in the successful
development of a robot.
What can I Expect in an EE Program of Study?

As discussed above, the study of electrical engineering requires a firm

foundation of math and physics. Most likely you will need to complete
three semesters of calculus (Calc I, II & III), a semester of differential
equations, two semesters of calculus-based physics and a semester of
modern physics that includes quantum mechanics before beginning EE
specific courses. Many programs place a great emphasis both on the
theoretical and the hands on every EE student spends a good deal of time
in the lab getting hands on experience in seeing the theory at work. This is
considered one of the most important areas of training that an aspiring
engineer can take part in.

Engineering is built on a foundation of science and sometimes engineering

is called “applied science.” You will spend the first two years of your
education becoming a scientist and then the last two developing your skills
as an engineer. Good luck!

***
Chapter 6: Engineering with Aloha – Professor
Wayne A. Shiroma, PhD, Professor Aaron T. Ohta,
PhD, Jonathan H. Dang, Christopher C. Brough, and
Bryan A. Fewell

Wayne A. Shiroma, PhD

Professor and Chair of Electrical Engineering
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Wayne A. Shiroma ([email protected]) received the B.S. degree

from UH Manoa, the M.Eng. degree from Cornell University, and the
Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, all in electrical
engineering. In 1996, he joined UH Manoa, where he is currently Professor
and Chair of Electrical Engineering. He has authored or coauthored over
100 publications in the areas of phased arrays, spatial power combining,
and nanosatellites. He was also a Member of the Technical Staff with
Hughes Space and Communications, El Segundo, CA. Dr. Shiroma was the
recipient of the 2003 UH Regents Medal for Excellence in Teaching, the
ten-campus UH System’s most prestigious teaching award. Since 2001,
IEEE-HKN, the international honor society for IEEE, recognized four of
his graduating seniors as the most outstanding electrical engineering
students in the U.S.
 Aaron T. Ohta, PhD
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Aaron T. Ohta ([email protected]) received the B.S. degree from UH

Manoa, the M.S. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles,
and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, all in
electrical engineering. In 2009, he joined UH Manoa, where he is currently
an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering. He has authored or co-
authored over 80 publications in the areas of microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) and microfluidics. Dr. Ohta was the recipient of the 2012
UH Regents Medal for Excellence in Research, the ten-campus UH
System’s most prestigious research award.

Jonathan H. Dang
M.S Student, 2013 Student Engineer of the Year
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Jonathan H. Dang ([email protected]) received the B.S. degree in electrical

engineering from UH Manoa in 2013, where he is also currently working
toward a M.S. degree in the same field. As an undergraduate, he received
the 2013 Student Engineer of the Year Award by the Hawai‘i Council of
Engineering Societies. As a graduate student, he was awarded the 2014-
2015 IEEE Life Members Graduate Study Fellowship in Electrical
Engineering. His research interests include robotics, microwave circuits,
and software development.

Christopher “Topher” C. Brough

B.S. Student
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Christopher “Topher” C. Brough ([email protected]) received his

B.F.A. in Ballet from the University of Utah in 2003. After a successful
professional dance career he returned to school to embark on a second
career. He is currently a student at UH Manoa working towards a B.S. in
electrical engineering. He serves as the Treasurer for the student branch of
IEEE and student branch chapter of IEEE MTT-S. In November 2013, he
was voted Student of the Month by the Engineer’s Council at the
University of Hawai‘i.
 Bryan A. Fewell
B.S. Student
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Bryan A. Fewell ([email protected]) is currently a UH Manoa

sophomore pursuing his B.S. degree in electrical engineering. He learned
to solder at age 9, earned his amatuer radio license at 12, and by the 8th
grade had built his own CubeSat, with his YouTube video receiving almost
9000 hits. He serves as the Student Director of the PocketQube Program in
the UH Small Satellite Lab, Secretary of the UH EE Student Advisory
Board, and Rapid Prototyping Lab Technician in charge of a CNC Mill and
3D printer.

Aloha from the University of Hawai‘i, located in the middle of the Pacific
on the most isolated landmass in the world! “Aloha” has multiple meanings
in the Hawai‘ian language (hello, goodbye, affection), but we use it here to
welcome and convey to you our passion for electrical engineering in this
beautiful island paradise.
What is Electrical Engineering?

Have you ever wondered how your cell phone works? Thought to yourself
“if only my cell phone could do this, it would be perfect”? Then maybe
you should become an electrical engineer! No, we’re not talking about
fixing your family’s computer when its running slow...we’re talking about
creating the future by making the impossible, possible.

Imagine for a moment transporting yourself back in time to meet your

grandparents as kids. If you told them that one day they could have a video
chat with people on the other side of the world with a handheld device,
they would say “impossible”! And yet here we are doing just that while at
the same time taking selfies, playing Angry Birds, and downloading
movies. Almost every aspect of your life is made possible by electrical
engineering: iPhones and Galaxies, iPads, laptop computers, GoPro
cameras, Wii, and even the Internet itself! Yet there is still so much more
that could be possible. Engineers today are striving to make the future
happen, whether it be making a universal translating device, a hover board,
or establishing a colony on Mars. What would you do to make the future
happen?

A mobile phone is a great example of a single device embodying multiple

aspects of electrical engineering. Mobile phones are electrical devices,
relying upon electrical circuitry to operate. And the design of these circuits
is at the very foundation of electrical engineering. Having a phone is like
having a miniature computer in your pocket; phones contain smaller
versions of the same components found in computers, such as a central
processing unit, memory, and data storage. And all of these components
are designed and built by electrical engineers. Other elements include the
camera (digital cameras are electrical devices), accelerometers (micro-
sized devices that can be used to sense if your phone is in portrait or
landscape orientation, or if you are moving), touchscreens (these use the
principle of capacitance to sense your fingers on the screen), and even the
charger for recharging your phone’s battery.

All of the components in the mobile phone then have to work together at
the “system level”, which is the very heart and soul of the phone: the
system that allows you to call, text, email, or message anyone, anywhere
else in the world. Your phone does all of this without any wires, so how is
this information communicated? Electrical engineers have made this
possible with the radio-frequency system of the phone. This system uses
antennas, transmitters, and receivers to transmit signals using invisible
electromagnetic (EM) waves at microwave frequencies. These signals are
similar to the EM waves used to heat food in a microwave oven, although
your phone puts out much less power than a microwave oven.

But how do these waves actually carry the voice, text, and images that you
send on your phone? Well, the same way that ocean waves carry a message
in a bottle. Waves in the ocean contain no information by themselves. An
empty bottle on the waves doesn’t convey any information either. But once
you insert a message into the bottle, seal it tight, and then float it on the
waves, you now have achieved the process known in electrical engineering
as information transmission. Attaching a message to an EM wave is called
modulation.

Unlike ocean waves where the floating bottle is at the mercy of the tides
and currents, electrical engineers direct the EM waves to go where they
want and as far as they want using directive antennas. They have even
figured out ways to broadcast multiple messages to multiple recipients, and
developed error-correcting codes to recover messages if there are flaws in
the process…analogous to the bottle getting cracked and the message
getting wet.
Why Study Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawai‘i at
Manoa?

Why would you want to study EE at the University of Hawai‘i (UH)?

Well, several reasons. First, UH has a time-honored history in electrical
engineering while also pushing the frontiers with groundbreaking research.
Second, we have a great hands-on project curriculum. And finally, we do
engineering with the aloha spirit!

Engineering with ALOHA: Looking Back, Looking Forward

The UH System consists of ten campuses spread over four of the eight
main islands in the Hawai‘ian chain. The flagship campus, where the EE
program is housed, is the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. In the late 1960s
and early 1970s, UH EE researchers developed the Additive Links On-line
Hawai‘i Area Systems Network (ALOHA) protocol [1], which makes
today’s advanced wireless communications networks like WiFi possible.
Essentially, ALOHA simplifies the process of multiple users
communicating over a common channel (think multiple bottles floating on
the ocean without colliding). So the next time you send a text message, you
can tell your friends that the technology had its origins in Hawai‘i.
Engineering with ALOHA indeed!

Our department has grown since those early years, but is still small enough
that students and faculty alike feel like they’re part of an ohana (“family”
in Hawai‘ian). We offer BS, MS, and PhD degrees in electrical engineering
and the BS degree in computer engineering, focusing on three major areas:
computers (architecture, algorithms, networking, hardware and software),
electrophysics (solid-state devices and sensors, circuit design, and
microwaves and photonics), and systems (communications, controls, and
signal processing). The culmination of the undergraduate program is the
capstone design project that integrates the design content of previous
courses while satisfying realistic constraints.
But we don’t just disseminate knowledge through courses…we actually
create new knowledge through research! For example, we’re conducting
research on a unique material that not only could improve phone reception,
but maybe even conquer the world. Have you ever seen the shape-shifting
cyborg from the movie Terminator 2? If so, you know exactly what we’re
talking about: liquid metal. We’re not exactly at a shape-shifting cyborg
level yet, but we have created liquid-metal antennas that can change their
shape.

All wireless devices (mobile phones, tablets, and laptops), use antennas to
send and receive EM waves. However, an antenna’s shape and size are
designed to work best at a specific frequency, which means that if you
want to communicate at more than one frequency, you’d need multiple
antennas. By creating a shape-shifting antenna, we can transform an
antenna working at one frequency into one that works at a different
frequency [2].
Focus on Hands-on Projects

Electrical engineering is typically regarded as one of the most challenging

majors. This is partially due to the nature of the subject: unlike the physical
structures that you can see and touch in civil engineering (like bridges and
trusses) or mechanical engineering (like gears and levers), you can’t see
electrons, making the typical classroom material about electrical
engineering even more abstract.

However, one way that our department encourages learning is through

hands-on projects so that students can apply the knowledge they have
learned in classes to real problems. This is similar to the way that electrical
engineers work at companies, and is excellent at preparing students for
future careers. Projects also make the subject less abstract; it is easy to see
if a circuit is working as designed, or if a robot is performing the task that
it was programmed to do.

CubeSats and PocketQubes are great examples of UH projects [3]. Most

satellites in orbit are as big as a truck, but a CubeSat is only 10 cm x 10 cm
x 10 cm and weighs about 1 kg. Advantages include more rapid yet less
expensive production and launch costs, and the ability to accomplish some
of the same tasks of a larger satellites. Taking this miniaturization even
further, UH is now working on PocketQubes (see photo) which are ⅛ the
size of a CubeSat.
Engineering with Aloha!
(contributed by senior Topher Brough)

In Hawai‘i, “aloha” is used as a greeting to mean hello or welcome, but can

also be translated as “joyfully sharing life.” As a UH EE student, I
experience aloha in the friends I made with fellow students and the
mentors I found in encouraging faculty.

UH’s EE program is structured so that students share most of the same

classes in their first two years, making it easy to form study groups.
Between struggling with surface integrals, the wave equation, and circuit
analyses we watched funny cat videos, made jokes, and got to know each
other. We worried together about doing well on the test tomorrow, then
helped each other with questions we got wrong when our tests were
returned. In my experience, UH EE students want to succeed together,
freely sharing help and making friendships.

This aloha on campus is also fostered in shared study spaces and

collaborative projects. Working and studying with other EE students gives
you a chance to get to know them and become friends. Collaborating with
them on projects allows you to gain experience working as part of a team,
preparing you for what it is like to work as an engineer in industry. In
short, camaraderie and team-building through study groups, shared spaces,
and team projects has been part of my joyfully shared life at UH.

Another key piece of engineering with aloha is the passionate and

committed faculty who embody aloha in the subjects they teach. My
professors think that their subjects are incredibly interesting and it shows!
Whether it is semiconductors, electromagnetics, microwaves, digital
design, or signals and systems, they are absolutely jazzed about it and
delighted to share it with their students.

My professors are readily available to help students during and outside of

office hours. One of my professors even stayed late when a group of us
needed help on homework and ordered pizza! Another valuable part of my
UH education has been working on research projects with faculty. EE
students here are required to complete sophomore, junior, and senior
projects. The opportunity to work so closely with internationally
distinguished faculty makes UH a superb place to be an EE student.

Uniquely Hawai‘ian, the aloha spirit is warm and welcoming with a sense
of belonging and rightness in the world. My experience at the UH EE
department has been suffused with this joyfully shared life – this aloha –
from my fellow students and friends and from my faculty mentors. Should
you choose to study at UH it is my hope that you experience the same
engineering with aloha.
How to Succeed as an EE Major: Advice from Students and Faculty

We’ll be honest…..electrical engineering is a tough major, perhaps the

toughest degree program on campus. Here’s some survival advice.

Advice from Topher Brough (senior)

Sit in the front. It makes it easier to pay attention to the professor, and you
are not distracted by classmates in front of you talking, texting, or playing
games. You also become familiar to the professor and they can see that you
are there to learn. Bonus points if you nod slightly when they make eye
contact or say something that makes sense to you.

Ask questions. This demonstrates that you are engaged and helps you
absorb the material. Usually if you are confused about something, half the
class is too. Raise your hand and ask!

Answer questions. A good professor will ask questions of the class. A great
professor will wait for someone to answer even if the silence is
uncomfortable. Raise your hand and try to answer the question. Even if
your answer is incorrect, you made the effort. The best way to learn is to
try.

Study together. Chat up one or two of your classmates at the beginning of

the semester and ask if they’d like to study together. Get their phone
numbers and schedule a study session or time to work on homework. Right
after class is often convenient. Committing to meet someone makes you
more likely to study instead of putting it off until later, and you can help
each other with parts you find challenging.

Advice from Bryan Fewell (sophomore)

Take advantage of opportunities. In 8th grade, I built a CubeSat that was a

culmination of two previous science fairs put together. It was through this
project that I visited Professor Shiroma’s lab, where they made real
CubeSats to be launched into orbit. He mentored me and I eventually
became a part of his lab. For me, choosing UH Manoa was a no-brainer
because I would have opportunities here that I couldn’t get anywhere else.

Get out of your comfort zone. When I first joined the UH Small Satellite
Lab, I’ll admit almost everything was over my head. In hindsight, I see that
being out of my comfort zone in a completely new environment forced me
to learn at a very fast pace to keep up.

Take advantage of hand-on projects. Although knowing the theory behind

the things we do is important, I have always found that I learn much more
easily and quickly when I do hands-on project work, allowing me to see
the importance of concepts learned in class.

Advice from Professor Aaron Ohta

Take the initiative. Self-motivated students will stand out from their peers.
Professors really like students who go above and beyond what is called for
on projects and assignments. Be willing to go to your professor’s office,
find out about their research interests, and ask if you can volunteer as an
assistant.

Follow through. When you do strike up a relationship with a professor,

make sure that you do all that you can to make a good impression. Show
up to meetings punctually, and complete all the assignments that you are
supposed to do. If a professor thinks you are not responsible, it’ll be hard
for him/her to write a nice recommendation letter when its time to look for
a job or apply to graduate school.

Don’t be afraid to fail. If you never fail at something, you are either really
lucky, too cautious, or both. However, you must learn from your failures.
Why didn’t it work? How can you make it work? Often, a failure can be
more instructive than a success. If you fail a couple of times, those are
important learning experiences. However, if you keep on failing at the
same thing, you are not learning, you are wasting time.
Larry Martin: A UH Success Story

“I wasn’t a very good high school student,” laughs Larry Martin. “I didn’t
have good grades in high school, which is, I think, something good to hear
for some people because it’s never too late to turn it around and still be
successful, even if you weren’t a good high school student.”

Larry Martin was born and raised in Hawai‘i. After high school, he spent
one year earning money for college, then played football at a California
community college for three semesters before a knee injury sent him back
home. He earned an associate degree in liberal arts and then came to UH
Manoa as a junior. Not content to just sit on the sidelines, Larry
immediately began participating with several faculty members on their
research. His projects included working on a new class of cancer detection
biomedical sensors, helping introduce a spacecraft systems engineering
curriculum for undergraduate students, and designing a transparent patch
antenna. Larry immersed himself in the UH Small Satellite Program,
eventually becoming its Student Program Manager leading a team to
design, build, and launch a US $220K CubeSat. He also gained practical
experience with internships at Bombardier, Inc. in Pittsburgh, PA, working
on three major rail projects, and Northrop Grumman in El Segundo, CA,
where he was involved in an aircraft antenna upgrade program.

Larry committed over 150 hours of volunteer service through the Golden
Key International Honour Society. He was recognized with the IEEE Larry
K. Wilson Student Achievement Award for organizing and chairing a
successful IEEE Student Professional Awareness Conference. He and a
teammate won the UH Breakthrough Innovation Challenge.

Larry graduated with his B.S. degree in 2011 as the Outstanding

Graduating Senior in Electrical Engineering, received the 2012 Hawai‘i
Society of Professional Engineers’ Student Engineer of the Year Award
(awarded to only one senior from among all the engineering majors in the
state), and most impressive of all received the 2012 IEEE-HKN
Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Award,
recognizing him as the most outstanding EE senior in the USA.
As a graduate student, Larry continues serving as Student Program
Manager for a CubeSat that was launched into space by NASA in 2013,
serves as the 2012-2014 Student Editor of the IEEE Potentials Magazine
which has an international readership of over 100,000, and is CEO of his
own medical simulation device company, founded as a result of his first-
place win in the 2013 UH Business Plan Competition.

Did we mention he’s still a student? With a resumé like that, Larry has a
bright future ahead of him, and we’re so proud to call him one of UH’s
own!
Closing Remarks

We hope that this article’s diverse perspectives – from a sophomore, a

senior, a graduate student, a faculty member, and the department chair –
gave you an all-around picture of electrical engineering at UH Manoa, and
not only conveyed the passion that we have for electrical engineering, but
more importantly convinced you to consider it as your college major and
career choice. As mentioned earlier, one meaning of Aloha is goodbye, and
with that we bid you an Aloha a hui hou. Farewell till we meet again!

References

[1] N. Abramson, “The AlohaNet – surfing for wireless data,” IEEE

Communications Magazine, Dec. 2009, pp. 21-25.

[2] R. C. Gough, J. H. Dang, A. M. Morishita, A. T. Ohta, and W. A.

Shiroma, “Frequency-tunable slot antenna using continuous electrowetting
of liquid metal,” IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium
Digest, Tampa, FL, USA, June 2014, pp. 1–3.

[3] L. K. Martin, W. H. Jones, and W. A. Shiroma, “Small-satellite projects

offer big rewards,” IEEE Potentials, to appear July/August 2014, pp. 1-7.

***
Chapter 7: It Pays to Do Cool Research for Electrical
Engineers! - Professor Donald Y.C. Lie, PhD

Donald Y.C. Lie, Ph.D

Keh-Shew Lu Regents Chair Professor
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Adjunct Professor
Dept. of Surgery, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
(TTUHSC)
Texas Tech University

Donald Y.C. Lie received his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena. He has held
technical and managerial positions at companies such as Rockwell
International, IBM, and is currently the Keh-Shew Lu Regents Chair
Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, and an Adjunct Professor in the
Department of Surgery, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
(TTUHSC). He was a Visiting Lecturer to the University of California, San
Diego (UCSD) during 2002-2007 and co-supervised Ph.D. students. Dr.
Lie has been serving on the Executive Committees of IEEE BCTM, SiRF,
MWSCAS, TSWMCS, and on Technical Program Committees for IEEE
RFIC Symp., VLSI-DAT, ISCAS, PAWR, BIOCAS, VSPC, and IEEE-NIH
LiSSA. Dr. Lie has been awarded with the US NAVY SPAWAR SSC San
Diego Center Team Achievement Award and won 11 Best Graduate
Student Paper/Best Paper Awards Dr. Lie is an Associate Editor of IEEE
Microwave and Wireless Components Letters (MWCL) and the Associate
Editor-in-Chief for the Open Journal of Applied Biosensor (OJAB) and
Associate Editor of i-manager’s Journal on Electrical Engineering. Dr. Lie
has authored/coauthored 170 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and
holds six U.S. patents. His group published three most downloaded TOP
100 papers on the IEEE Xplore™ in Sept, 2012, June 2012, and Sept. 2009
(ranked #80, #88, and #21, respectively). His research interests are: (1)
power-efficient RF/Analog IC and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design and
test; and (2) medical electronics, biosensors, and biosignal processing.
Introduction

I have often met students who came and asked me: “why should we take
on an undergraduate research project?” Or, more often from graduate
students: “Why should I need to write a thesis for my master degree in
Electrical Engineering?” Unfortunately, my department did away with the
master thesis requirement just about four years ago, and now many
graduate students has taken the “non-thesis option” and try to join the
industry without ANY research and thesis writing experience with their
M.S.E.E. degree; all they did for their degrees were just taking classes
only; would that make them competitive in today’s highly volatile
industry?
Research Training is a MUST for EE Graduate Students, and a Big
Plus for Undergraduates

I would highly encourage all our prospective and current undergraduate &
graduate students in Electrical and/or Electronic Engineering to understand
as much of the research areas related to electrical engineering (EE) as
possible. This is very important not just for students’ studies, but also
critical for their future employment as well. If you are a graduate student, I
am a firm believer that your thesis writing experience and training process
is the most important educational experience you will ever have in your
academic tenure. Almost all of the large employers I know prefer students
trained with thesis writing and research experience over those students who
just take classes for their diplomas (Apple, Google, IBM, TI….) Unless
you do your own research and write your own research results into your
thesis, what you learned from classes will not become yours!
What Research Areas does Texas Tech University Offer?

For many engineering schools in the US, the Material Science department
may not be a stand-alone individual department; also often the Biomedical
Sciences/Bioengineering may not an individual department either. For
those schools, most material science research for electronic and optical
devices, as well as biomedical sensors and system and medical devices
research all lie within the more traditional EE department. In Texas Tech
University (TTU) we have this Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) that covers Electrical and Computer engineers work
with research projects on communications, integrated circuits (ICs) and
systems, nanoelectronics, biomedical devices; signal processing, and
computers systems that affect our daily lives. Our ECE students identify,
analyze, and solve engineering problems by applying knowledge of
mathematics, physics, material science, biological sciences, and
engineering principles. We have faculty members who work on these
following areas:
RF/Analog IC Design and System on a Chip (SoC) Design (my
research area, esp. on power-efficient and ultra-lowpower ICs and
SoC design)
Medical Electronics, Biomedical devices, sensors and biosignal
processing (my research area as well)
Pulsed power and power electronics
Sustainable energy devices
Nanophotonics
Signal/image processing
Electrical power for the national grid
Embedded computer systems
Communications
Medical Imaging
Semiconductor devices and microelectronics, including Micro
−electro−mechanical systems (MEMS) devices
Research Pays! – What Scholarships are Available?

The TTU department has about 450 undergraduate students and 150
graduate students and 25 faculty members. We offer accredited B.S.
degrees and Masters of Science and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical
Engineering at the graduate level. The TTU ECE department enjoys a total
endowment of more than 3 million dollars for student scholarships. The
department offers a number of competitive scholarships for undergraduate
students ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 per year. One unique feature of
TTU’s undergraduate ECE education is that all students need to take three
Senior design laboratory courses (i.e., Lab 3, 4, and 5) that include both
technical project and deadlines management, as well as budgeting and
presentation aspects of the problem-solving skills to prepare students for
real-life engineering projects for future industrial employment and/or
graduate studies. Many graduate scholarships and fellowships are available
for exceptional students.

For example, we also offer co−op and/or internship opportunities at the

department-level and also at the college level. A Program for
Semiconductor Product Engineering (PSPE) provides students with
industrial oriented research and development opportunities in
semiconductor product engineering and test, which has been generously
supported by Texas Instruments (TI), thanks to my endowed chair donor
and TTU distinguished alumni, Dr. Keh-Shew Lu, (CEO of Diodes Inc.
and former Sr. VP of TI), who expanded this program 12 years ago across
all TI business units to have made this program successful. Students also
have the opportunity to be involved in cutting−edge research through
senior project laboratories and individual studies with faculty. The
scholarship that is offered by the PSPE program and other graduate
research or teaching assistantships (i.e., GRA/GTA) are currently paid at
the level of $27500/yr. at 2014. More links to the ECE departmental
scholarship information and sources can be found in
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/ece/. Perspective students are welcome to contact
professors in their areas to seek potential opportunities.

The main ECE department is situated in a traditional three-story building

with a 40,000 square−foot two−story annex. In addition, the Nanotech
Center, Pulse Power Center, and Nanophotonic Center also all have lab
facilities outside the ECE department’s main building. To give an example
of the research activities in the TTU ECE dept., our ECE’s research
enterprise attracted a combined annual funding of over $7.5M in 2010. We
also offer study abroad opportunities and have exchange dual-master and
dual-PhD degree programs with several universities, such as the National
Cheng-Kung University of Taiwan (NCKU). Our Alumni occupy key
leadership positions in Industry, Academia, and National Laboratories here
in the United States and around the world (for example, the current
DARPA Director is a TTU alumni).
What do you Do Every Day for your Job, Professor Lie?

Now I would like spend the rest of this article on my own research
interests, which has brought in more than 2.3 million external research
funding to my group alone in the past 5.5 years. The official name of my
Labs at TTU is “RF/Analog-SoC Labs” (or “RF-SoC Labs” for short), as
my Lab conducts research not just Radio Frequency (RF) IC and system
design but also the analog IC research and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design
and testing. My professional research interests have been on the low-power
and power-efficient RF/Analog IC and SoC design and test, as well as the
interdisciplinary research on medical electronics and biosensing.
Therefore, we have been actively conducting applied research in the
general area of power efficient and low-power analog/RF IC and system
design and test, as well as on the medical electronics.

As one example, my research is closely related to the future hardware IC

design and test and system architecture used in the cellular industry for the
future 4G/5G power-efficient handsets, where my group has pioneered the
monolithic design of a most power efficient RF power amplifier (PA)
design technique for handsets called “envelope-tracking” in a SiGe
BiCMOS IC for 3.9G/4G LTE and WiMAX applications, which met their
stringent linearity specs with these modern spectrally-efficient modulation
techniques. This work has been well-publicized and therefore we have
been funded or collaborated with TI, IBM, ITRI, and DoD to conduct
breakthrough RF/analog IC and system design research in that important
area to save the battery life and to reduce heat dissipation and the size of
the future portable communication devices.

To show the diversity and interdisciplinary nature of my research work, I

also have been working closely with the medical doctors at TTUHSC
(TTU Health Sciences Center), where I have been serving as an Adjunct
Professor at the Department of the Surgery for 5+ years and had been
inside of the OR (Operating Room) observing the procedures of the
Cochlear Implants with my PhD student and Associate Prof. of Dept. of
Surgery Dr. Tam Nguyen who specializes in Otolaryngology and had
training in cardiology as well. I have been doing external funded research
in those interdisciplinary areas successfully such as on the SRC funded
“Ultra-Low-Power Analog Front-End IC Design for Implantable
Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) Devices” utilizing my ultra-lowpower
analog IC design and system know-hows, and the TI funded project related
to the research and development of headset-based portable ECochG
(Electrocochleography, a kind of audio evoked response (ABR) recording
technology) with potential applications on the geriatric population for non-
invasive hearing and balance evaluation (vestibular nerve recording)
diagnosis.

I am also working with clinicians of TTUHSC on TBI (traumatic brain

injury) diagnosis and rehabilitation using the custom-designed wireless gait
analysis sensor made from my Labs. I have also been working closely with
several TTUHSC physicians and clinicians on several projects, including
projects such as novel RFID monitoring for reduction of nosocomial
infections; continuous non-contact vital signs monitoring using phased
array Doppler sensor for wireless acute care and wireless assisted living;
epilepsy monitoring intervention using EEG and cerebral blood flow
sensing, etc. We have built up several prototypes and received at least three
IRB (Internal Review Board) approvals and have been conducting the
clinical trial using our RFID system since Jan. 2010 at the TTUHSC
Physicians Clinics, and our wireless gait sensor and vital signs sensor at the
TTU Audiology Clinics since 2012. The above projects just show my
strong funding record and presence and interests in interdisciplinary
biomedical research, particularly on low-power medical electronics and
working closely with the M.D.s and clinicians to resolve real-life clinically
relevant high-impact research. I am not aware of any other faculty in our
college who is currently supervising a M.D. doctoral student studying to
get his/her PhD degree.

The quantity and quality and production of what my research group has
produced in the past ~6 years at TTU can be summarized as follows:
1. Students Supervision: My research group has been fortunate to have
attracted students who are very talented and extremely dedicated and eager
to learn to conduct world-class research work that requires very high work
ethics and with highest integrity. Our alumni include 4 outstanding PhDs
and 19 MS thesis students just in a short 6 years period. Each of them has
successfully received at least one job offer (1 with 7+ offers), and one has
started his successful company that won more than millions of dollars of
contracts in 3 years. My students and I have worked very hard, building a
world-class research laboratory that has so far also produced additional 20
students who have done sponsored research projects with my research
funding and/or published research papers under my direct supervision.
About two dozen more of undergraduate students have also worked in my
undergraduate Project Labs and some also even published IEEE research
papers in my labs. For my research labs, high integrity, work ethics and
team work spirit are the three most important things that I always require
and value.

2. Publications record: In just less than 6 and a half years, my research

group have also produced 3 book chapters, 26 peer-reviewed journal
papers, 74 peer-reviewed conference papers, 3 awarded US patents, 1 US
patent applications filed (i.e., patents pending); 2 US provisional patents
filed, and 1 major book contract awarded (with Cambridge University
Press). In terms of popular publication citation, one of our journal
publications has ranked #21 as the most downloaded Top 100 papers
among all IEEE Explore (over 3+ million publications) in the month of
Sept., 2009, which is titled “Design of Highly-Efficient Wideband RF
Polar Transmitters Using the Envelope-Tracking Technique”, by J. Lopez
et al., in IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, 44, 9, pp. 2276-2294, Sept. (2009)
[1].

The reason why this Top 100 most download paper is especially
noteworthy is because IEEE, as the world’s largest professional
organization, received money for each paper downloaded from its Xplore
website. Even though many of my funded projects are sponsored by DoD
and require sponsors’ clearance to release info and publications, I have still
managed to have authored/coauthored close to 170 peer-reviewed technical
papers and book chapters and holds six U.S. patents. So far, my group has
published three most downloaded TOP 100 papers on the IEEE Xplore™
in Sept, 2012, June 2012, and Sept. 2009 (ranked #80, #88, and #21,
respectively [2,3]). Therefore, the publication record of my Labs is not
only considered to be truly outstanding at TTU, it should also be
considered strong even in a top 25 ranked ECE Department in an US
University.

It is also worth mentioning that my graduate students and I have won many
best paper awards, such as the Best Paper Award titled “A Monolithic
1.85GHz 2-stage SiGe Power Amplifier with Envelope Tracking for
Improved Linear Power and Efficiency” by R. Wu, Y. Li, J. Lopez, and
D.Y.C. Lie, at the IEEE VLSI-DAT’12 Conference 2012 where I
personally did the paper presentation to have won the prestigious prize [4].
Only 2 papers out of all 100+ papers from this high quality IEEE VLSI-
DAT conference were selected to win this Best Paper Award so it is quite
prestigious (note: this is NOT just a Best Student Paper Award).

Also my student and I won another Best Paper Award in the IEEE Sixth
Dallas Circuits and Systems Workshop (DCAS), 2010 for our clever RF-
built-in-self-testing (RF-BiST) work, where only 1 paper was selected and
awarded for this entire conference so it was very completive and quite an
honor [5]. We have also won several Graduate Student Paper Awards in
some high-profiled IEEE international conferences, such as winning in
2008 twice (one in the IEEE ICSICT where ~1000 people attended, and the
other one in IEEE SiRF08 where we won the overall 2nd place for the Best
Student Paper). Also in 2010 during the large IEEE ISCAS’10 in Paris
(~3000 attended), my student and I won another Best Graduate Student
Award there, where TTU was the only US school that won this prestigious
prize there, and again in 2011 where we won the overall 2nd place for the
Best Student Paper in IEEE SiRF’11, and the Best Graduate Student Paper
Award Winner (1st Place) at IEEE Topical Conference on RF Power
Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications (PAWR), 2013, etc.

3. Research Funding: My Labs has enjoyed solid financial support from

federal, state, and private sources in my short ~6 year tenure at TTU. This
sustained financial support, which has been provided through grants and
contracts, reaches over $2.5 million credited to me. Please note my
research specialty is on RF/analog IC and SoC design and this area
typically does not require large amount of funding as one can argue mostly
it is computer based CAD design research but no expensive equipment
needed; however, expensive IC fabrication runs are mostly required
prerequisite for high quality research. Therefore, many professors in my
field does not attract large amount of external funding. I believe my
funding levels are on-par with the average of analog/RF IC design faculty
members at a top 25 university in the States.

4. Reputation: My research group, thanks to the incredible hard and clever

work from the entire group members, has achieved a truly outstanding
reputation with local, national, and international recognition. For example:

a. In the past ~6 years I have delivered an IEEE plenary talk in the IEEE
NEWCAS conference in France, presented 16 invited IEEE papers
organized by different organizations all around the globe, and invited to
present as an expert at many IEEE Workshops and panels in some most
prestigious IEEE international conferences such as IEEE ISSCC (the most
competitive solid-state circuit conference) and IEEE RFIC Symp. (the
premier RF IC design forum). For example, I have given over 25 invited
Short Courses or Workshops sponsored by IEEE conferences, Canadian
Government, Taiwanese Government, many Universities, and private
companies. I have given invited lectures at world famous top 100
universities such as Osaka University in Japan, National Taiwan University
in Taiwan, University of Southern California in the US, National Tsing-
Hua University in China, University of Bordeaux, France, Yonsei
University in Korea, etc. I have also consulted outside campus working
with arguably the best patent laws firm in the world, and delivered invited
talks to private companies and international institutions such as Skyworks,
TI, MediaTek, Diodes Inc., SiGe Semiconductors, Richwave, etc. My
students and I have won 7 Best Graduate Student Paper Awards and Best
Paper Awards in international conferences since I came to TTU.

b. I have been serving on various IEEE Executive/Steering Committees

and Technical Program Committees (about 10). For example, I am serving
as the General Chair of IEEE SiRF’14 and IEEE BCTM’14 and TPC co-
chair of IEEE VLSI-DAT’14 just for this year. I am also serving as the
Associate Editor of one major IEEE journal: IEEE Microwave and
Wireless Components Letters (MWCL; impact factor 2.3). I have also been
invited as the Guest Editor, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC;
impact factor 3.6) and special issue editor of MWCL, etc. I have been
serving as the Associate Editor-in-Chief for the Open Journal of Applied
Biosensor (OJAB), and on the Editorial Board for the new i-manager’s
Journal on Electrical Engineering, and as the Area Editor-in-Chief for the
International Journal on Wireless and Optical Communications. I have also
served as an external previewer for many IEEE journals and funding
agencies.

c. I am contacted regularly by TTU and TTUHSC colleagues whenever a

need for a low-power electronics and clever wireless solution and sensors
as the expert in TTU.

d. I have also consulted for several established US and foreign IC design

companies and an international research institute as well, and also have
consulted on patents litigation cases for one of the largest business
litigation firms in the US as an expert witness in an ITC (International
Trade Commission) case. I am still often contacted by those high profile
patent law firms for interests to work on different cases and I think this
clearly indicates my reputation as a world-renowned researcher and as a
person of high integrity.

To summarize, my Lab is definitely conducting state-of-the-art research in

power efficient and low-power analog/RF and medical electronics IC and
system design & test, reaching world-class leaders’ status that has gathered
considerable international fame and attentions with outstanding reputation
for our very high quality research work done at TTU.
What are the Future Directions and Impacts for Your Research?

Due to limited natural resources on earth, energy related research has

become more and more visible and critically important. My research focus
on highly power-efficient or “green” analog/RFIC and system design with
self-testing capabilities, especially for broadband wireless portable
communication devices such as handsets and femto-cells design, will still
be one of the brightest research areas for the commercial electronic
industries and military applications.

The ubiquitous biomedical sensors and the advancement in medical

electronics and biomedical system research will also become more and
more important, especially for the geriatric population now that the baby
boomers are retiring in the US and the elderly population in China, India,
Europe and Japan have kept increasing at an alarming rate with a
disproportionally low birth rate. Cyber-intelligent wireless low-power
biomedical sensors will help the geriatric populations to live independently
and with better quality of life (i.e., “wireless-assisted living” and “wireless-
acute care” devices developed in my Lab).

The exciting research fields on “Big Data” and “Internet of things (IoT)”
are also highly related to my research areas, and there is a huge wireless
communication need for power-efficiency broadband video stream
requirement. For example, in 2011 Cisco IBSG predicts there will be 25
billion devices connected to the Internet by 2015 and 50 billion by 2020,
and these estimates do not take into account of the rapid advances in the
Internet or device technology [6]. The 2014 John Chambers CES Keynote
(Cisco’s CEO) puts IoT (or IoE, Internet of Everything) at a $19 Trillion
dollar opportunity [7]. The field of healthcare informatics also has a very
bright future for the job market and the well-beings of the human race [8].
The green IOT-connected people and machines will drive the next 5G
communication market ready in 2020 as well. As predicted, the booming
market of IOT and smart city can reach over 10 trillion USD in 2030 [9].

Therefore, I believe my lab is in a great position to make these

aforementioned researches impactful and relevant to both the academia and
to the electronic and healthcare industries. Its unique interdisciplinary
nature will continue to bridge this large gap among the clinicians and
engineers, which is especially needed and beneficial for the next revolution
on the IoT and Big Data. I have all the reasons to believe that my humble
Lab is well positioned to make considerable and indelible contributions to
TTU and to its surrounding community; and, with the great work of the
dedicated graduate and undergraduate students, it can yield results
beneficial to the great nation of the United States of America, and possibly
even to the world.

References

[1] J. Lopez, Y. Li, D.Y.C. Lie, J.D. Popp, K. Chen, S. Wu, T. Yang and J-
K. Ma, “Design of Highly-Efficient Wideband RF Polar Transmitters
Using the Envelope-Tracking Technique”, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits, 44,
9, pp. 2276-2294, Sept. (2009)
[2] Y. Li, J. Lopez, R. Wu and D.Y.C. Lie, “A Fully Monolithic BiCMOS
Envelope-Tracking Power Amplifier with On-Chip Transformer for
Broadband Wireless Applications”, IEEE Microwave and Wireless
Components Letters (MWCL), pp. 288-290, June (2012)
[3] Y. Li, J. Lopez, C. Schecht, R. Wu and D.Y.C. Lie, “Design of High
Efficiency Monolithic Power Amplifier With Envelope-Tracking and
Transistor Resizing for Broadband Wireless Applications”, IEEE J. Solid-
State Circuits (JSSC), pp. 2007-2018, Sept. (2012)
[4] R. Wu, Y. Li, J. Lopez, and D.Y.C. Lie, “A Monolithic 1.85GHz 2-
stage SiGe Power Amplifier with Envelope Tracking for Improved Linear
Power and Efficiency”, Tech. Dig. IEEE VLSI-DAT Conference, pp. 1-4,
Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, April 25-27 (2012)
[5] D. Webster, J. Cavazos, D. Guy, P. Patchen, and D.Y.C. Lie,
“Structural Verification of WLAN System using Simple BiSTs”, Proc.
IEEE Sixth Dallas Circuits and Systems Workshop (DCAS), pp. 1-4, Oct.
17-18, Dallas (2010)
[6]
http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/docs/innov/IoT_IBSG_0411FINAL.pdf
[7]http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid3157520889001?
bckey=AQ~~,AAAABh3C_dE~,zBkXqCU8KVY9IBgI5_6QN2ISBMA8RIvP&bclid=
[8] http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/health-informatics-
market.html
[9] http://www.nikkeibp.com/

***
Chapter 8: Electrical and Computer Engineers
Change the World – Professor Daniel D. Stancil, PhD

Daniel D. Stancil
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
North Carolina State University

Daniel D. Stancil is the Alcoa Distinguished Professor and Head of the

Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at North Carolina State
University. His early interest in radios and electronics launched an
engineering career that has been--and continues to be--fun and rewarding.
Along the way he picked up engineering degrees from Tennessee Tech
(B.S.E.E.) and MIT (S.M., E.E. and Ph.D.). He has spent many years as a
professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at both Carnegie
Mellon University and NC State. While at CMU he served as Associate
Head of the ECE Department, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in
the College of Engineering. He has been Department Head at NC State
since 2009. His research has included such varied topics as magnetic
films, optics, microwaves, wireless channels, antennas, remote labs, and
particle physics. Technology for distributing wireless signals through
HVAC ducts that Dr. Stancil and his students developed has been installed
in such major buildings as Chicago’s Trump Towers and McCormick
Place Convention Center. The demonstration of neutrino communications
by a multidisciplinary team coordinated by Dr. Stancil was recognized by
Physics World Magazine as one of the top 10 Physics Breakthroughs of
2012. Additional recognitions that his work has received have included an
IR 100 Award and a Photonics Circle of Excellence Award. Dr. Stancil is a
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a past-
president of the IEEE Magnetics Society. When not thinking about
engineering, he divides his time between hiking with his wife, playing the
euphonium, and amateur radio.
Wild Elephants in Rural Africa - A Problem in Wildlife Management
or Electrical and Computer Engineering?

In some parts of rural Africa, wild elephants can be a serious problem. If

they happen to wander into villages, they may injure people and damage
structures. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to destroy the elephant.

At first thought, this appears to be a problem in wildlife management—not

Electrical and Computer Engineering. However, a team of Electrical and
Computer Engineering students at NC State has been considering precisely
this problem as their senior Capstone Design project. Their approach is to
develop a self-powered elephant collar equipped with GPS to track and
monitor wild elephants. If the elephant comes too close to an area in which
they are unwanted, the collar delivers negative stimuli such as a mild
shock, or uncomfortable sound or vibration.

Electrical and Computer Engineering is at the core of potential solutions to

almost every major societal challenge, but as an engineer you cannot
simply design circuits, systems, and machines in a vacuum. For the
solution to be effective, people must use it, and this means that you must
have a broad understanding of the context and requirements for a solution.
You may have a brilliant technical solution, but people may not use it if it
is too expensive, too large, too heavy, the battery life is too short, it is ugly,
or it breaks too easily.

In the case of the elephant collar project, the collar must not be
uncomfortable for the elephant or cause stress when the animal is far from
restricted areas. In addition, it must be durable enough to survive while
elephants in the wild are behaving like elephants in the wild. This aspect of
the solution required close collaboration with students in the College of
Textiles who understood how to design wearable articles that are
comfortable yet durable.

The collar should not always be comfortable, however: the elephant must
have an unpleasant experience when she approaches a restricted area. To
determine the best approach, the students traveled to a game reserve in
Africa for some field experiments. One of the most effective approaches
turned out to be simply making a buzzing sound. Apparently the elephants
associated this sound with bees, and that was sufficiently unpleasant to
send them in the opposite direction!

Armed with a good understanding of the requirements, the students could

then tackle the challenge of designing an electronic device that was light,
inexpensive, low power, could charge from solar cells, could sense the
well-being of the elephant, and was capable of sending and receiving radio
signals.

Across the lab from the Elephant Collar Team, another team of college
seniors grappled with the challenge of making a 3-D full body scanner.
Creative Innovations are Driven by Out-of-the-Box Thinking and
Imagination

Creative innovations are not always driven by a need—sometimes they are

simply driven by out-of-the-box thinking and imagination. After people
realize what is possible, then the innovation finds unanticipated
applications. Smart phones are a great example of this. Electrical and
Computer Engineers (along with Mechanical Engineers, Computer
Scientists, and Product Designers, to name a few) designed a device that
had real computing power, a microphone, speakers, accelerometers, a
magnetometer and a camera in a device that would fit in your hand, was
relatively inexpensive, and looked cool. Who would have anticipated the
millions of “apps” creative people would develop as a result?

In the case of the 3-D scanner, recently-developed gaming sensors and

image reconstruction techniques made this idea attractive. However, in the
future, this technology could lead to the ability to print casts that conform
precisely to a broken limb, or other possibilities that have not yet been
imagined.

As with most engineering designs, cost, appearance, and durability were

key considerations for a practical 3-D scanner. For this they worked with a
team of Industrial Design students. The final result looks a bit like the Star
Trek transporter. A person stands on a rotating platform while sensors scan
continuously from head to toe. A data file is then created that a 3-D printer
can turn into an action figure.

While undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineers design creative

solutions using existing technology, graduate students in Electrical and
Computer Engineering create technologies that never before existed.

Horses, donkeys, camels, and yes—elephants, have been used for centuries
as beasts of burden, but students in Professor Alper Bozkurt’s iBionics
Laboratory are exploring how to use insects as beasts of burden. To be
used in this way, a creature must be able to carry something useful, and
there must be a way of steering the creature, i.e., making them turn, go, and
stop on command.
What could an Insect Carry that would be Useful?

What could an insect carry that would be useful? Imagine the challenge of
trying to locate survivors in the rubble of a collapsed building. Without
knowing where to look first, rescuers may not find a person in time to save
their life, and the use of heavy equipment to move rubble carries the risk of
moving material in a way that could further injure a trapped person.
However, there are frequently cracks and crevices among the collapsed
material that a cockroach could crawl through. If the cockroach carried
sensors such as a camera or microphone, it may be possible to have the
cockroach search the rubble much more effectively than a person could.

But how do you make a cockroach go where you want it to go? Professor
Bozkurt and his students have created electronic systems that will fit on the
back of a Madagascar hissing cockroach, and allow the insect to be remote
controlled. Small electrical impulses applied to the antennae can make the
insect turn right or left, and small impulses applied to the cerci on the rear
can make the insect start moving. Research is continuing on topics such as
how to make the electronic-neural interface more durable, how the
waveform of the electrical impulses should be shaped, and how several
insect backpacks can be wirelessly connected together to map the rubble
and relay information to first responders.
Technologies Necessary for Realizing the “Smart Grid” of Tomorrow

In another area of the Department, researchers in the Center for Future

Renewable Electrical Energy Distribution and Management (FREEDM)
are exploring technologies necessary for realizing the “smart grid” of
tomorrow. Key requirements are that the grid must be sustainable, secure,
and stable.

Students in Professor Aranya Chakrabortty’s group are studying how the

connection of wind farms can impact the stability of the power grid. The
power flowing through the grid often experiences small deviations from
the norm caused by changing loads and various other disturbances.
Normally these changes or fluctuations are corrected and smoothed out by
controls in the power generators. However, under unusual situations, the
changes can grow into oscillations that can actually bring down the power
grid. Professor Chakrabortty and his students have discovered that the
point at which wind farms are connected to the grid can either make the
grid more stable, or make it more likely for the fluctuations to grow out of
control. This is because the varying nature of the energy from wind farms
requires different control strategies than the strategies used in conventional
generation and distribution.

One solution is to attach wind farms to the grid in locations that improve
stability. However, in practice, wind farms must be located where wind
and other geographical features are most favorable—not necessarily where
it is best for the power grid. In this case, the solution is to introduce new
control algorithms that match the control efforts between the farms and
energy storage facilities.
Applied Physics and Communications

As the above examples illustrate, Electrical and Computer Engineering is a

very broad discipline that extends from applied physics, chemistry, and
biology on one end to applied mathematics and computer science on the
other end. My own personal research and teaching activities tend to be in
areas related to applied physics and communications.

One of my present interests is the possibility of making communication

systems that use neutrinos instead of radio or light waves. We sometimes
have trouble receiving cellphone signals inside of large buildings, because
the radio waves reflect from some materials and are absorbed by others.
What if there was a type of signal that could pass straight through
anything? Receiving the signal inside of a building would not be a
problem, and to talk with someone in a distant country, all you would need
to do is send the signal straight through the earth!

It turns out it is possible to make a signal like this—with elementary

particles known as neutrinos. In 2010 I coordinated a team of physicists
and engineers to demonstrate neutrino communication at Fermilab, near
Chicago. However, the characteristic that makes neutrinos interesting for
communications is also the source of the principal challenge: it is
extremely difficult to generate and detect particles that have almost no
interaction with matter! At present this requires the exotic particle
accelerators and detectors at Fermilab, so there is no immediate threat to
WiFi. However, who knows what may be possible in the distant future.

The above examples are a small sample of the design and research projects
in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at NC State. The
Department has significant disciplinary strengths in the areas of
Bioelectronics Engineering; Communications and Signal Processing;
Computer Architecture and Systems; Control, Robotics and Mechatronics;
electronic Circuits and Systems; Nanoelectronics and Photonics;
Networking; and Power electronics and Power Systems.

However, we view these areas as building blocks out of which solutions to

complex interdisciplinary challenges can be built. Large-scale themes that
run through the Department are Security, Health, and Energy. The
FREEDM Systems Center mentioned above is concerned with Energy, and
the Center for Advanced Self-powered Systems of Integrated Sensors and
Technologies (ASSIST) is concerned with Health. ASSIST is motivated by
the vision of small, self-powered sensors and systems that could help
monitor a person’s health, as well as potentially unhealthy aspects of the
environment. Both of these are competitive multi-institution Engineering
Research Centers sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and NC
State is the only university in the US that is leading two active such
centers. Research related to security is a thread through the department as
well, and includes topics such as network security, advanced sensors, and
wireless systems.
Scholarships, Fellowships, and Financial Aids

In addition to degrees in both Electrical and Computer Engineering at the

B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. levels, the stimulating intellectual environment at
NC State has spawned other more specialized—and in some cases unique
—degrees. In collaboration with the Department of Computer Science, we
offer a Professional Master of Science Degree in Computer Networking,
and as an outgrowth of the FREEDM Systems Center we offer a unique
Professional Master of Science Degree in Electric Power Systems
Engineering. Also as a result of our Engineering Research Centers, we
offer Graduate Certificate Programs in Nano-Systems Engineering and
Renewable Electric Energy Systems.

NC State is located in Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, and part of

the well-known Research Triangle Area. Raleigh has a moderate climate,
and both beaches and mountains can be reached by driving only a few
hours. The area is consistently ranked among the best places to live and
work in the US.

As a public university, a world-class education at NC State is surprisingly

affordable. In addition, a number of scholarships, fellowships, and forms of
financial aid are available for qualifying students. Also, many of our
graduate students are supported by Research or Teaching Assistantships.

I hope you will consider Electrical and Computer Engineering as a major

that will equip you to help change and improve the world. At NC State,
you will find world-class faculty and students working to do just that.

***
Chapter 9: What do I Consider to be Useful and
Interesting about Electrical Engineering? Professor
William Gosney, PhD

William M. Gosney, Ph.D., P.E.

Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Electrical Engineering
Lyle School of Engineering
Southern Methodist University, Dallas Texas

After 17 years in the semiconductor industry, Dr. Gosney joined the

Electrical Engineering Department at SMU in 1986. He earned a B.S.
degree in electrical engineering with high honors from North Carolina
State University in 1964. He completed his M.S. degree in 1966 and his
Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1970 at the University of California at
Berkley. Dr. Gosney has received funding from the National Science
Foundation, the State of Texas Advanced Technology Program, and the
Communities Foundation of Texas for his areas in research of VLSI
circuits, biomedical applications of VLSI circuits, scaning tunelling
microscopy, radio electronics, and semiconductor memories, devices, and
materials. Dr. Gosney holds 13 patents in the field of semiconductor
devices, processes, and circuits.
Not Every Student can be an Electrical Engineer!

Let me begin by saying that not every student can be an electrical engineer!

If you don’t have the talent or the aptitude for it, the study of electrical
engineering, like other fields of engineering, physics or mathematics, can
be a daunting (if not impossible) challenge. But for those students who do
have the aptitude, the study of electrical engineering is a joy. Your eyes are
opened to the ways and means of putting electrons in motion and using the
results to create world-changing technology. For example, the simple act of
passing a conductor through a magnetic field causes the electrons to be
pushed slightly to one end of the conductor (the Lorentz force), producing
an externally-available voltage (Faraday’s Law) that can be used as a
source of power to illuminate cities, provide motive power to vehicles like
automobiles or trains, or power homes and businesses.
Early Electrical Engineers and the Continuing Evolution

Early electrical engineers developed one of the first communication

businesses by learning how to send messages by Morse code over wires
(the telegraph ~1840). By the late 1800’s, electrical engineers learned how
to send Morse code messages without wires using spark-gap transmitters
and coherer receivers, making possible communication with ships at sea.
(Hertz, Marconi).

Electrical engineers also learned how to send voice messages over wires
with the invention of the telephone about 1876. But at the time, there was
no means for amplifying a voice signal, and there was a long-felt need for
such a means or device to make possible long distance telephone operation.

With the invention of the telephone, Thomas Edison invented the

phonograph—a mechanical device that would store and play back sound
(~1877). While Edison contemplated his device to be an early model of an
answering machine for telephones, he probably had no idea at the time that
it would achieve great success as a means for recording and playing back
music. Over the years, electrical engineers have learned to build better
devices that store and play back sound, including the tape recorder, the CD
player, the iPod, etc.)

Electrical engineers learned how to make incandescent lights to replaced

candles and oil lamps to light our world (~1879). With the success of the
incandescent light bulb, a whole new industry was created to supply the
electrical energy to power the light bulbs. In more recent times, electrical
engineers are replacing the older energy-inefficient incandescent lights
with more efficient compact fluorescent and LED light sources.

Electrical engineers took the early incandescent light bulb and, based on
the Edison Effect (a heated wire in vacuum emits negative charge),
discovered the audion or vacuum tube (Lee de Forest ~1906). The de
Forest audion was the first device capable of amplifying a voice signal, and
by about 1912, electrical engineers at The Bell Telephone Company had
figured out how to use the audion to develop their long distance system,
and how to manufacture them in quantities to supply their needs. With the
discovery that an audion amplifier will oscillate at high frequency if the
output is provided as feedback to the input (Edwin Armstrong), modern-
day radio transmitters were developed. The vacuum tube was the basis for
the birth of modern electronics, heralding the development of long distance
telephones, AM broadcast radio, FM static-free broadcast radio, television,
radar, and the first computers. But the vacuum tube had many limitations—
they were fragile, their filaments burned out, their filaments emitted heat,
the thermionic electron-emission properties of the filament would weaken
with time, etc.

Subsequently, electrical engineers developed the transistor (~1947) to

overcome the limitations of the vacuum tube. The transistor was small and
rugged, and it opened up the world of circuit design with device types
unavailable in the vacuum tube world. Vacuum tubes only have negative
electron charge carriers, but different transistor types have negative
electron carriers or positive hole carriers. There is no vacuum tube
counterpart to today’s complementary MOS (CMOS) circuits with both n-
channel and p-channel transistors.

The success of the transistor in the 1950’s led to early computers

incorporating thousands of hand-soldered transistors on the circuit boards.
The fundamental problem of that era was known as the “tyranny of
numbers” wherein the failure of a single connection in a large system could
render the entire system inoperative. For this reason, engineers faced the
limitation of being able to design circuits that were unbuildable. But the
“tyranny of numbers” problem was solved about 1958 with the invention
of the integrated circuit where (initially) many transistors were
simultaneously formed and interconnected by a layer of metal that was
photographically patterned and chemically etched to define the circuit
connections. The continuing evolution of electronics, starting with the
vacuum tube, then to the transistor, and then to the integrated circuit,
provides the basis for the study of electrical engineering.
Innovative Industries in Electrical Engineering - Beach Sand and
Pennies Can Produce an Industry Worth Hundreds of Billions of
Dollars

In today’s world, electrical engineers have learned to take raw materials

such as beach sand (particles of quartz) and pennies (copper) to produce an
industry whose net worth is measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Beach sand can be reduced by carbon (charcoal) at high temperatures to
produce metallurgical grade silicon, and with further refinement, highly
purified wafers of silicon can be formed on which billions of transistors
(electrically-controlled switches) are built and interconnected by many
levels copper dual-damascene metallization to form the integrated circuitry
of today’s modern computers and other electronic products. In addition to
silicon, new semiconductor technology (such as gallium nitride) promises
to extend transistor performance far beyond today’s limits.

The ability of electrical engineers to form microscopic sized circuit

elements in the 1960’s led to the development of the field microelectronics.
But it was also discovered that the same fabrication techniques used for the
fabrication of electrical circuits could also be used to fabricate microscopic
sized mechanical devices called microelectromechanical systems or
MEMs.

Electrical engineers helped form a whole new MEMs industry as a spin-off

from microelectronics, making possible again a variety of products that
previously had been unimagined. Products such as acceleratometers,
gyroscopes, sensors, micromotors, microactuators, control valves, etc. are
part of the MEMs world made possible by electrical engineers.

In the late 80’s, the demand for better television led to high-defintion
television. Again, electrical engineers recognized the similarity between
television and computers and were able to improve the technical
performance of high-definition television that could be broadcast utilizing
the same electromagnetic spectrum as the older NTSC television broadcast
system developed in the 1930’s. Another significant development in the
1980s was the mobile telephone industry, developed by electrical engineers
combining mobile radio technology with computers, leading to our modern
mobile telephone system of today.
Transistor Technologies and Integrated Circuits

Electrical engineers pushed the on-going evolution in transistor size which

began in the 1960’s by continuously refining the manufacturing processes.
How small can a transistor be and still do its job? How many transistors
can be made on a given chip? The early integrated circuits had devices
numbered in the tens, whereas modern circuits have devices numbered in
the billions. Gordon Moore (~1965) quantified the evolution of integrated
circuit complexity in his observation that integrated circuit complexity was
roughly doubling about every eighteen months. Moore’s Law was
predicated on this ongoing development, and in spite of decades of
predictions that Moore’s Law is running out, integrated circuit technology
continues to evolve.

The first integrated circuits were two-dimensional in nature. The initial

single-metal-layer chips have been replaced with many multiple layers of
interconnect. Then, electrical engineers combined two-dimensional chips
on ceramic or silicon interposer substrates to form complex systems-in-a-
package incorporating many different types of integrated circuit technology
(silicon, gallium arsenide, silicon-on-insulator), with each providing its
best attributes. Today, electrical engineers are working on three-
dimensional (3D) integrated circuits where the chips are stacked vertically
and interconnected by thru-silicon vias or other techniques.

In the early days of integrated circuit development, companies were

vertically integrated, meaning that each company had its own fabrication
facility, its own designers, its own marketing group, etc. But the costs of
the fabrication facilities increased to the point that the nineties saw the
emergence of the silicon foundry. A silicon foundry is an integrated circuit
manufacturing facility run by electrical engineers who accept designs from
a large group of smaller fab-less companies who depend on the foundry to
execute their designs in silicon or other semiconductor technologies.
Today, electrical engineers can form easily small fab-less companies to
achieve success with new circuit products.

Transistor technology has also evolved for higher voltage, higher current,
and lower internal resistance. While electrical engineers have made
transistors smaller and smaller (with lower voltages) for integrated circuit
application, other electrical engineers have redesigned transistors for high-
voltage and high power applications. Who would believe that your
ordinary smart-phone charger would contain transistors and other devices
that can withstand 700 volts, so the chargers can be plugged in and used
with different household voltages (120 volts 60 Hz AC in the US, or 240
volts 50 Hz AC in Europe) without having to use adaptors. Electrical
engineers have figured out how to build power supplies for computers that
are so efficient and dissipate so little heat that they do not even need
cooling fans or heat fins on the packages.

Electrical engineers are also working on battery technology. The best

battery technology today is the lithium-ion battery in terms of energy
storage per unit weight. Electrical engineers have developed new motor
designs that go with battery systems that can power electric cars several
hundred miles before they need to be recharged. Other electrical engineers
have developed full-scale aircraft powered by batteries; but another 10x or
better improvement in battery capacity is still needed before these systems
will be really practical.
Why Would a Student Undertake Undergraduate/Graduate and
Research Studies in Electrical Engineering?

Why would a student undertake undergraduate/postgraduaduate and

research studies in electrical engineering? Such studies open the door to the
modern-day gold rush of technology. One hundred years ago, who would
have believed that our multibillion dollar electronics industry of today is
based on the raw materials from beach sand and pennies, formed and
nurtured by generations of electrical engineers who kept pushing the
boundaries of knowledge.

Today, there are companies that build the equipment for the companies that
build the chips, companies that build the chips, companies that use the
chips to make computers, companies that use the computers to provide
services, and companies that develop services using those computers. In
their time, our grandparents and great-grandparents would have had no
concept or vision of contemporary companies like Microsoft, Google,
Facebook, etc. Correspondingly, we have no idea, as we try to peer into the
future, what new companies will emerge. But they will emerge, and the
chances are that those new companies will be technology oriented, and that
electrical engineers will provide the know-how to make them succeed.

As discussed above, these concepts are what I consider to be useful and

interesting about electrical engineering; and assuming they have the
aptitude, this why our prospective students should undertake studies in EE!

***
Chapter 10: What is Electrical Engineering and Why
I am an Electrical Engineer? – Professor Tokunbo
Ogunfunmi, PhD

Tokunbo Ogunfunmi, PhD

Associate Professor
Santa Clara University, CA

Dr Tokunbo Ogunfunmi is the Director of the Signal Processing Research

Lab (SPRL) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical
Engineering at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA. He served as the
Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development in the School of
Engineering at Santa Clara University. He earned his MS, PhD in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and BS (First Class
Honors) from University of Ife, Nigeria. His current research interests
include adaptive/nonlinear signal processing, digital signal processing,
multimedia (speech, video) and VLSI/DSP/FPGA implementations. He has
published 3 books and over 150 refereed journal and conference papers in
these and related areas. He is a Senior Associate Editor for the IEEE
journal Signal Processing Letters, an Associate Editor for IEEE
Transactions on Circuits and Systems-II and an Associate Editor for the
journal Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing. He is a Senior Member of
the Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), a Member of
Sigma Xi (the Scientific Research Society) and Member of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From 2007-2009, he
was the Chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Santa Clara
Valley Chapter. He is also a member of the IEEE Signal Processing
Society Technical Committee on Design and Implementation of Signal
Processing Systems (DISPS), the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
Technical Committee on DSP and the Chair of the IEEE Circuits and
Systems Society Technical Committee on Circuits and Systems for
Communications (CASCOM). His recent books include Principles of
Speech Coding (CRC Press, 2010) and Speech and Audio Processing for
Coding, Enhancement and Recognition (Springer, 2015).
My History as an Engineer

Electrical Engineering is a fascinating and interesting field of engineering.

I am glad to know you are contemplating a study in Electrical Engineering
or are already committed to do so.

Before I try to answer the question “What is electrical Engineering?”, I

want to first give you my history as an engineer.

As a young boy, I have always been fascinated by technology and from an

early age, always wanted to know the science and engineering underlying
the amazing use of technology. For example, the AM/FM radio was a big
deal when I was growing up and I once dismantled my father’s old
AM/FM radio to study how it works.

In high school (secondary school), I studied science but my major subjects

were (in order of interest) (i) advanced mathematics, (ii) mathematics, (iii)
physics and (iv) chemistry.

Later, I started to ponder what I wanted to become as a professional.

I recall enjoying the physics experiments we did in our science lab and
enjoying the rigor and certainty of solving math problems.

The US manned lunar landing on July 20, 1969 was a watershed event for
me. I watched it live on black and white television. It was fascinating to me
and since then; I wanted to understand how such a system can be built to
accomplish the huge task of landing a man on the surface of the moon and
returning him back to earth safely.

This monumental event was a major catalyst that launched a desire in me

to study electrical engineering.
What is Electrical Engineering?

According to Wikipedia, Electrical Engineering is the field of engineering

“that generally deals with the study and application of electricity,
electronics, and electromagnetism. This field first became an identifiable
occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after commercialization of
the electric telegraph, the telephone, and electric power distribution and
use. Subsequently, broadcasting and recording media made electronics part
of daily life. The invention of the transistor and, subsequently, the
integrated circuit brought down the cost of electronics to the point where
they can be used in almost any household object.

Electrical engineering has now been subdivided into a wide range of

subfields including electronics, digital computers, power engineering,
telecommunications, control systems, radio frequency (RF) engineering,
signal processing, instrumentation, and microelectronics. The subject of
electronic engineering is often treated as its own subfield but it intersects
with all the other subfields, including the power electronics of power
engineering.”

Electrical Engineering conjures images of “electrons” which are too small

to actually see or images of “electric power transmission line” which are
very huge and bring electric power to power household appliances, etc.
Hence, there are two rough divisions in electrical engineering (i) electric
power engineering and (ii) electronics engineering

Electrical engineers deal with virtually instantaneous transmission of

electrical energy and/or information with electrical and/or communication
or control systems.

Electrical Engineering (EE) careers are interesting, exciting, and important

for meeting national and global challenges. The demand for EE grads and
interns is high. EE is one of the least visible engineering fields for most
high school (or secondary school).

The students have never “seen” an electron and do not have much
appreciation for what electrical engineers do because the field is
“invisible”.

However, electrical engineering is behind the major technological

breakthroughs of the last two centuries. Electrical engineers have brought
us a wide range of technology, new design challenges such as Mobile
cellular phones (e.g. iPhones and Android phones), Satellite
communications, wireless communications, high-speed railways, computed
imaging for health, digital photography, Electric Cars, Self-driving cars,
alternative energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, nuclear, etc.), Robotics,
cyber-physical control systems, distributed sensor networks, medical
devices, personal assistive devices, etc.

Electronic devices enable very many everyday applications. Ubiquitous

examples include the iPhone from apple Computers, Inc.
(www.apple.com), See Figure 1. Integrated circuits (chips) from Intel
Corporation (www.intel.com) and others, digital cameras, etc. are all
integrated into a single device.

Figure 1: The iPhone has been a phenomenal success. It exemplifies a

broad range of innovations integrated in one single device. (photo
copyright © San Jose Mercury News)
Communications applications are a big part of Electrical Engineering.
Satellite dish antennas for terrestrial communications and satellites in space
for global positioning system (GPS), satellites for weather reporting, etc.
We also see an explosion of mobile cellular communications applications
and many mobile cell antennas in many locations.

The automobile industry is now benefiting from EE innovations. Electric

Cars (see www. teslamotors.com) provide zero emissions thereby helping
us to maintain a more sustainable planet. Also, we have self-driving cars
from Google Inc. (www.google.com) and safer, more fuel-efficient cars
from the automobile industry. More computing processors are now used in
automobiles than in previous years to run devices like GPS to Satellite
tracking to video/audio and voice recognition, entertainment, etc. All these
require, sensors, signal processing, communications and control which are
branches of electrical engineering.

Electrical engineers work with a broad range of scale: from nano-

technology to very large complex systems such as hydro-electric power
systems. From smart grids to internet of things, etc.

Energy generation, storage, transmission (see www.pge.com) and so on

utilize a mix of solar cell arrays, wind turbines, hydro-electric plants,
AC/DC converters, etc.
Is Nanotechnology the Solution?

The Energy area is also an area undergoing tremendous innovations.

In the area of nanotechnology and devices, the questions being tackled

include:

How small can electronic devices get? Is nanotechnology the solution?

Embedded Processors are embedded in various devices for computation,

communication and control purposes. Medical Devices is the new frontier
for EE technological breakthroughs. Medical applications and devices
include prosthetics, noninvasive imaging, monitoring, etc. are some of the
many applications.

Un-usual applications exist in Sports monitoring for concussions, energy

harvesting, improved running shoes, health monitoring using Fitbit
(www.fitbit.com), iPhone devices, etc.
The Scope of Electrical Engineering and Career Opportunities

The scope/future of Electrical Engineering in terms of career opportunities

and options is extremely bright.

The largest professional organization in the world is the Institute of

Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE, usually pronounced eye-triple-
E).
It has 350,000 members worldwide. IEEE is divided into 10 regions
geographically worldwide. The IEEE has several technical societies and
technology councils which are in charge of technical areas within the
discipline.

The continual growth of the EE discipline is reflected by the growth of

number of societies over the years.

Here is a complete list of IEEE Societies at the current time:

IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society

IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society
IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
IEEE Communications Society
IEEE Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology Society
IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
IEEE Computer Society
IEEE Consumer Electronics Society
IEEE Control Systems Society
IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society
IEEE Education Society
IEEE Electron Devices Society
IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society
IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
IEEE Industry Applications Society
IEEE Information Theory Society
IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society
IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society
IEEE Magnetics Society
IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society
IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society
IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society
IEEE Photonics Society
IEEE Power Electronics Society
IEEE Power & Energy Society
IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society
IEEE Professional Communication Society
IEEE Reliability Society
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
IEEE Signal Processing Society
IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society
IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society
IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society
IEEE Vehicular Technology Society

This sheer range of technical societies within the IEEE is evidence of the
breadth of the electrical engineering profession.
Why should you Choose Electrical Engineering? The Core Courses

Today, students should choose electrical engineering because in my

opinion, it gives you the breadth and length of study and has exceedingly
rich and diverse application areas.

A typical undergraduate curriculum is shown in Fig. 2.

Figure 2 A typical four-year EE BS degree program

The core EE courses are:

Introduction to Logic Design, Introduction to Digital Systems
Architectures,
Electric Circuits I and II, Electromagnetics, Linear Systems and Electronic
Circuits.

Examples of Elective courses include: Digital Signal Processing, Advanced

Logic Design, Electronic Circuits, Power Electronics, Control Systems,
Communication Systems, Mechatronics, Digital Integrated Circuit Design
and Semiconductor Devices and Technology.
Figure 3 Additional information about EE BS degree program at SCU
A Research Degree in Electrical Engineering and Research
Laboratories

Prospective students are encouraged to undertake a research degree in

Electrical Engineering (such as MS or PhD).

This is because you are more knowledge-able and potentially more

valuable to a prospective employer by additional study at the graduate
level.

However, even if they choose not to undertake a graduate degree program,

there are still plenty of jobs available for them.

Figure 4 Typical Options for BS degree graduates

The Electrical Engineering program at SCU is supported by a set of well-

equipped laboratories. Some are dedicated solely for lower division
courses such as circuits and electronics. In addition the department has a
diversity of research and teaching laboratories listed next.

The Signal Processing Research Laboratory (SPRL) conducts research into

theoretical algorithm development in adaptive/nonlinear signal processing,
speech/audio/video signal processing, and their applications in
communications, biotech, Voice-over-IP networking, and related areas.
The lab supports student research in algorithms and real-time
implementations on Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and Field
Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Laboratory equipment includes
UNIX workstations, PCs, digital oscilloscopes, video cameras, wireless
LAN networking equipment, DSP boards, and FPGA boards.

Figure 5 Signal Processing Research Lab at SCU

The ASIC Testing Laboratory supports research conducted by graduate

students from the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Engineering. Computer-aided testing packages from industry and the
public domain are used in projects such as fault modeling and analysis.
Projects include design for test on RTL-level for digital and mixed signal
circuits, and design for reliability based on the defect-based testing.

The Communications and Microwave Laboratory provides a full range of

modern measurement capability from 0-22 GHz, including a number of
automatic network analyzers and modern spectrum analyzers. It also has
extensive computer-aided design and simulation capability, based largely
on modern commercial software running on workstations. Interconnection
of hardware measurements and computer simulation is stressed.

The Digital Systems Laboratory (operated jointly with the Department of

Computer Engineering) provides complete facilities for experiments and
projects ranging in complexity from a few digital integrated circuits to
FPGA-based designs. The laboratory also includes a variety of
development systems to support embedded systems and digital signal
processing.

The Electronic Devices Laboratory is dedicated to teaching and research

topics on electronic devices, materials, and their manufacturing
technologies. Current research topics include impact of process variations
on the analysis and optimization of VLSI circuits, photovoltaic devices,
and MOS device modeling, including quantum mechanical interface charge
distribution effects.

The Intelligent Control Laboratory provides an experimental environment

for students in the area of control and system engineering. It includes a
computer-controlled robotic system, several servo-experimenters, and a
torsional mechanical control system. The equipment provides students with
a wide range of qualitative and quantitative experiments for learning the
utility and versatility of feedback in computer-controlled systems.

The Latimer Energy Laboratory (LEL) supports a very wide range of

activities relating to photovoltaics (PV), from K-12 outreach through
graduate engineering. The laboratory focuses on measurement of solar
radiation, measurement and characterization of artificial light sources,
study of physical characteristics of PV cells, and electrical characteristics,
including I-V curves. Instrumentation includes: pyranometers, VIS-IR
spectrometers, metallurgical microscopes, source meters, and related
computers.
Figure 6 Latimer Energy Lab at SCU

The Nanoelectronics Laboratory provides teaching and research facilities

for modeling, simulation, and characterization of devices and circuits in the
nanoscale. Ongoing research topics include silicon heterostructures, thin
dielectrics, high-frequency device and circuit parameter extraction, carbon
nanostructures used as electrical interconnect and thermal interface
materials, and compact modeling of transistors and interconnects for large-
scale circuit simulation. This laboratory is part of the campus-wide Center
for Nanostructures, established to conduct, promote, and nurture nanoscale
science and technology interdisciplinary research and education activities
at the University, and to position the University as a national center of
innovation in nanoscience education and nanostructures research.

Figure 7 The Center for Nano-structures at SCU

The Image and Video Processing Laboratory supports graduate student

research on algorithms and implementations for image analysis, image
reconstruction and super-resolution, and stereo imaging. Laboratory
equipment includes cameras for image acquisition, computational
resources, and FPGAs for real-time testing.

The Multimedia Education Laboratory (operated jointly with the

Department of Computer Engineering) is dedicated to the development and
delivery of multimedia educational resources and to the development of
tools to create and present these resources. The laboratory is equipped with
eight UNIX workstations with high-speed ATM networking.

The Robotics Systems Laboratory is an interdisciplinary laboratory

specializing in the design, control, and tele-operation of highly capable
robotics systems for scientific discovery, technology validation, and
engineering education. Laboratory students develop and operate systems
that include spacecraft, underwater robots, aircraft, and land rovers. These
projects serve as ideal test beds for learning and conducting research in
mechatronic system design, guidance and navigation, command and
control systems, and human-machine
interfaces.

Figure 8 Robotic Systems at SCU

My current research interests include adaptive/nonlinear signal processing,

digital signal processing, multimedia (speech, video) VLSI/DSP/FPGA
implementations and artificial neural networks. Multimedia Systems refers
to systems for processing speech, audio and video data. This is part of the
Signal Processing Research Lab (SPRL).

Speech, audio and video and general digital signal processing (DSP)
devices are very common-place in everyday life. This is due to the growth
of popularity of personal digital assistants (PDA), cellular phones, and
other embedded speech/audio/video devices. One of the major applications
of DSP processors is in speech, audio and video processing.
Scholarships Available for Graduate and Undergraduate Students

SCU has many scholarships available for graduate and undergraduate

study.
For the current list of graduate and undergraduate scholarships, please see
the www.scu.edu website for more information.

I live and work in Silicon Valley, California where SCU is located. Apart
from the nice weather all-year round, here, you will see several examples
of industry professionals taking advantage of academic research in
Electrical and Computer Engineering. This is due to proximity of the
industries to the research centers at local universities. There’s collaboration
and cooperation in solving engineering challenges and in transferring
recent academic research results into industry products in relatively short
amount of time.

There are also many startup companies which are founded by academic
persons and also by industry professionals.

Recently, many universities including ours, have been emphasizing

entrepreneurship and innovation as part of their engineering curriculum.

In conclusion, I wish you the best in the study of this fascinating field of
engineering.

More information about SCU is at www.scu.edu. More information about

SCU Engineering can be found at www.scu.edu/engineering.

***
Chapter 11: Professors are Proud of their Students
and Welcome their Energy and Creativity in Pursuing
Common Dreams – Professor Donald Ucci, PhD

Donald Ucci, PhD

Professor of Electrical Engineering
Miami University
Dr. Donald Ucci graduated with a Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering in
1979 from the City University of New York. He has been an electrical
engineering faculty member at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Miami University (where he is
currently Professor), as well as having worked in industry and performing
consulting duties with various engineering companies. Professor Ucci
served as a Summer Faculty Fellow on several occasions with the U.S. Air
Force and Navy and has numerous publications. His main area of interest
in communications and signal processing, most recently focusing on
wireless communications. Dr. Ucci teaches a wide variety of courses
including circuits, communications, digital systems, electronics,
probability/statistics,and signal processing. He enjoys working with both
undergraduate and graduate students.
The Future of Electrical Engineering and Electrical Engineers is
Bright, Vast, and Promising

1. So, our curious students would like to first know what actually the
academic discipline/major of Electrical Engineering is. How do you find
the scope/future of Electrical Engineering in terms of career opportunities
and options? Why should the students choose Electrical Engineering as
their undergraduate or postgraduate major?

Many years ago, Electrical Engineering (EE) was confined to generation,

transmission, and distribution of power/energy to homes, businesses, and
major industries. While these efforts are still essential and studied widely
by those seeking EE degrees, many new fields emerged in the past 50 or so
years and many advances have been made in all aspects of EE pursuits.

EE now encompasses some of the most creative and fascinating areas of

engineering research, development, design, implementation, and
technology. The areas now include: electronics (including sensors),
computer hardware & software (and computing techniques), signal
processing (including image processing, medical imaging, bioengineering),
communication (including communication electronics, wireless
technology, smart-phones, etc.), information theory, control systems (most
of the advances in mechanical systems, such as cars and machines, are
being made in the electrical domain), electric vehicles, Global Positioning
Systems (GPS) that are in vast use in today’s society, and much, much
more.

There is virtually no domain of engineering or science that does not have

some electrical (hence, EE) aspect to it! By the way, some of these
advances, such as in electronic sensing, communications (for example, the
Smart Grid), and signal processing have even had great impact on the
traditional power & energy industry, too. If one thinks about all the
possibilities just mentioned, it is clear that the future of electrical
engineering and electrical engineers is bright, vast, and promising. Hence,
it would behoove young people interesting in pursuing a career in
engineering to strongly consider the EE field and its related areas or
subdisciplines.
Research Opportunities in Electrical Engineering

2. Now, why should our prospective students undertake a research degree

in Electrical Engineering? Can you briefly discuss the research areas or
priorities in Electrical Engineering that Miami University is actively
driving/pursuing please? What are your own research interests (and any
interesting research findings)? Are there any scholarships available for our
domestic and international students at the Miami University [note: as
relevant, please provide links to scholarship information/sources]?

There are many research opportunities in EE in all the areas mentioned

above. Currently, at Miami University, we have ongoing research in GPS,
radar (SAR or Synthetic Aperture Radar in particular), wireless
communications, computer networks including optical (and opto-elastic
networking), computer technology including development and
implementation of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) with many
applications in Embedded Design (such as in Smart Grid, smart-appliances,
sensor applications). There is work being done on characterizing the
ionosphere through which GPS signals must travel and remote sensing to
detect variations in the atmospheric layers.

We have a strong presence in signal processing in our department and

much of this knowledge is applied to Radio Frequency (RF) receiver
design and real time signal processing. We have a new focus in the area of
power engineering, energy systems, power electronics, industrial electric
machines, electric vehicles, and much more. A good deal of the research
work being performed by professors and their students at Miami University
is funded by the United States Air Force, as well as the National Science
Foundation (NSF), and other sources.

There is a new program funded by the NSF to recruit students interested in

Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) with a focus on
individuals not usually attracted to areas such as Electrical Engineering,
Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science.
Interested individuals should contact our College of Engineering and
Computing for information (http://miamioh.edu/cec/index.html).
Many Academics have Used their Research to Launch Start-up
Companies

3. It has been said that the practitioners (non-academics/industry

professionals) generally are less interested in taking advantage of academic
research in Electrical Engineering. How does academic research in
Electrical Engineering benefit them? How can Electrical Engineering
research be made more relevant, useful and interesting to practitioners?

Academic engineering research, in particular, focuses on the fundamental

principles and practices of the field of interest whereas industry focuses on
development and production. This is natural because academies are based
in the sciences and made and businesses need to create products that are
saleable and can maintain the companies’ existence.

In the case of EE, however, much work can be applied to practical

situations that can lead to new or improved existing products. The key is
to identify the needs of the various companies (or governmental agencies)
and focus on the fundamental issues that can be discussed, expanded,
enhanced, and provided by the academic researchers. Many academics
have used their research to launch start-up companies or been consultants
to existing industries. The starting point is opening a dialogue between
academics and non-academics.
Visit and Speak with their Major Professors Early in their Academic
Program

4. Finally, would you like to share any best practice tips with our students
and practitioners based on your observation on Electrical Engineering
education, research and practice in the USA? Is there is anything I haven’t
asked you that you feel is important for our students and practitioners to
know about Electrical Engineering?

The key to being a successful student and future practitioner of electrical

engineering is to have drive, motivation, passion, and purpose in your
endeavors. It is critical that professors instill this in students early on in
their academic careers so that they can sustain it in their careers.

The key for students is to become involved with the work their professors
love to do so that they can see and feel the excitement for the possibilities
that lie ahead. I would encourage students to visit and speak with their
major professors early in their academic program and learn that the faculty
members who serve in educating them are open to new ideas, hard work,
and inventive minds.

As often as possible, with a consideration for managing their time, students

should become engaged in solving problems, particularly in hands on
projects led by a faculty member and/or his team leader. It is important for
students to know that professors are proud of their students and welcome
their energy and creativity in pursuing common dreams.

***
Chapter 12 - You Want to be an Electrical Engineer
(Duh!) – Professor Arnie Berger, PhD

Arnold S. Berger, PhD

Associate Professor and Chair
School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
University of Washington Bothell

Professor Arnold (Arnie) Berger received his BS and PhD degrees in

Materials Science from Cornell University. After doing post-doctoral
research at Cornell he left to join the Scientific Research Staff at Ford
Motor Corporation in Dearborn, MI. Arnie spent two years at Ford where
he worked on non-destructive testing (NDT) of automotive parts with the
goal of determining failure points in automotive parts before they actually
failed. Professor Berger is an Associate Professor in the School of Science
Technology Engineering and Mathematics and is the Chair of the
Engineering and Mathematics Division in the School. He hold 4 patents
and has written two books on Embedded Systems and Computer
Architecture. Arnie is an avid cyclist and commutes daily 15 miles each
way to school on his bicycle.
Why the Future of Electrical Engineering is Limitless?

1. So, our curious students would like to first know what actually the
academic discipline/major of Electrical Engineering is. How do you find
the scope/future of Electrical Engineering in terms of career
opportunities and options? Why should the students choose Electrical
Engineering as their undergraduate or postgraduate major?

Wow! Just because I do, did it and teach it, it doesn’t mean that I can
define it as well. ☺ Let me try, you can be the judge of how well I do.
Here goes…
As the all-knowing Wikipedia says:

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the

study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. See
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering) to read the entire
description.

That’s a pretty good start, but as they say on US infomercials, “But wait!
There’s more.” Electrical engineering also involves Chemistry, Physics,
Bioengineering, Computers Science, Business and Law, to name just a few
fields that directly or indirectly start, or are closely linked, to Electrical
Engineering. It is that broad of a field.

The IEEE, pronounced “Eye-triple-E” stands for the Institute of Electrical

and Electronics Engineers and is the world’s largest professional
association for the advancement of technology. There are a lot of us out
there doing really interesting things, having fun and getting paid for it.
What a deal.

As a prospective EE student, you might be thinking that in terms of the

future. What employment picture will look like when I graduate?
Fortunately, the future for new Electrical Engineers is extremely bright.
Just look around you. Who’s going to invent and design the next iPhone, or
electric car, or wearable computing device? How about swallowing a little
pill and having it scan your digestive tract for diseases? How about
designing an affordable version of the Tesla?

In short, the future is limitless because the field of Electrical Engineering is

synonymous with technology itself. Here’s a simple fact. Air pollution due
to automobile exhausts has decreased by over 90% just due to the
introduction of on-board electronics.
Why Should you Choose to Study Electrical Engineering?

Now, why should you, the student, choose to study Electrical Engineering?
Perhaps I can best address that one as a list:
You want to be an Electrical Engineer (Duh!),
You’re curious. You like to understand how things work and maybe
make them better,
You want to do something with your life that can make an impact on
society,
You want to challenge yourself with a rigorous curriculum that will
enhanced and fine tune your creative skills and teach you how to
think critically in all facets of life, not just Electrical Engineering
You want to get an MBA or a law degree (JD ),
You want to have a career where your skillset matches your job
responsibilities,
You enjoy tinkering with electronic or mechanical devices.

Anyway, you get the point. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I
need to caution you that an Electrical Engineering curriculum is hard and
not everyone is cut out for it. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to step
into an EE program at your university without having sufficient
preparation in the basic math and sciences that are the foundation of the
engineering principles that you are studying.

In our EE program at the University of Washington Bothell, we accept

about one applicant in four. We look at the prospective student’s math,
physics and chemistry grades (not GPA) as the best predictor of success in
our program. Desire helps, but ultimately, we will only accept someone
into our program who we think can be successful and graduate.
Why should you Undertake a Research Degree in Electrical
Engineering?

2. Now, why should our prospective students undertake a research degree

in Electrical Engineering? Can you briefly discuss the research areas or
priorities in Electrical Engineering that the University of Washington
Bothell is actively driving/pursuing please? What are your own research
interests (and any interesting research findings)? Are there any
scholarships available for our domestic and international students at the
University of Washington Bothell [note: as relevant, please provide
links to scholarship information/sources]?

This is an interesting question and I assume that it refers to going to

graduate school and getting an MSEE or PhD in Electrical Engineering.
Well, if you are interested in teaching at the university level, then you need
to get a PhD degree. Sorry about that, it is just the way it is.

If you want to go into industry, then, with some exceptions the PhD degree
won’t pay you back for the investment that you make in delaying your
entry into the workforce. However, an MSEE does pay you back, and it
pays you back in very real terms. IEEE salary data shows that new EEs
entering the job market with an MSEE earn approximately $11K (US)
more per year than a new BSEE degree. But, as they say, “Your mileage
may vary.”

I said that there were exceptions. If you want to do research in industry,

then having a PhD is very beneficial. Semiconductor companies such as
Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Samsung, etc. all have EE PhD scientists
working at the frontiers of technology. We often refer to this as “Applied
Research.” My first job out of college, after obtaining my PhD was at the
Scientific Research Labs of the Ford Motor Company. I worked on
techniques to test automobile parts to see when they would fail without
actually causing the part to fail. Think about it. You’re driving along and
your car tells you that a wheel bearing will fail in another 1000 miles. Just
like HAL in 2001.
At UWB, we’re a small faculty because our program just began in 2009,
but let me tell you what our folks are up to. Let’s start with me. I am
interested in embedded systems. An embedded system is anything that has
a little computer chip in it. I am interested in the tools that you would use
to design and test an embedded system. Others on our faculty are interested
in digital communications, low-cost solar cells, biomedical devices and
sensors and smart power grids.

Finally, UW Bothell is a vibrant educational community and encourages

international students to apply and attend. Here’s a link to the web site,
http://www.uwb.edu/international-student-services.

From here you can learn all about what UWB has to offer an international
student.
How can Electrical Engineering research be Made more Relevant,
Useful and Interesting to Practitioners?

3. It has been said that the practitioners (non-academics/industry

professionals) generally are less interested in taking advantage of
academic research in Electrical Engineering. How does academic
research in Electrical Engineering benefit them? How can Electrical
Engineering research be made more relevant, useful and interesting to
practitioners?

I think I addressed that question in the previous paragraphs, but let me

expand on it. Many companies, both large and small don’t really do
research as someone at a university might define it. I spent most of my
professional career as a hardware engineer at Hewlett-Packard in Colorado
Springs, Colorado. My title was Research and Development Engineer, or
R&D Engineer. In all honesty, I did almost all “D” and no “R.” At HP, my
job was to use current technology to invent products to help our industrial
customers solve their problems. Even though I was a PhD, it was my
ability to design a circuit that kept me employed.

In today’s environment, there is very little “basic research” going on in

industry. There is research, as I’ve described above, but the majority of
research being done in industry has a salable product or service as its final
objective.

However….. There are lots of examples of basic research done at a

university that finds its way into the commercial sector. Think Google.
Some Best Practice Tips for the Students and Practitioners

4. Finally, would you like to share any best practice tips with our students
and practitioners based on your observation on Electrical Engineering
education, research and practice in the USA? Is there is anything I
haven’t asked you that you feel is important for our students and
practitioners to know about Electrical Engineering?

There are a few things that I like to tell my students. I teach advanced EE
classes, but I also teach the first EE class that our incoming students must
take. We actually call the class, “Introduction to Electrical Engineering”
rather than Circuit I. The reason is I have the task of getting our students
into the mindset of being professionals.

So, in no particular order, are some best practices that I try to instill in my
students. Sometimes it has a minor effect:

It isn’t about the degree, it is about the education. The piece of paper that
tells the world that you have successfully passed a series of classes does
not make you an Electrical Engineer. The EE degree is table stakes. It lets
you into the poker game, but it is your knowledge of the field that will
keep you in the game. Copying, plagiarizing, cheating short-circuits the
process and puts you at a disadvantage when you step into that room
during your job interview and five senior engineers are throwing circuit
design questions at you. Here’s my personal favorite.

Some audio enthusiasts argue that an amplifier made with MOSFET

transistors or vacuum tubes sound better than comparable amplifiers made
with bipolar transistors. Why do you think that is?

Join the IEEE, or some other professional society while you are a student.
Get involved in the activities of your student chapter. As a hiring manager,
I use to look at a student’s resume and one of the first places I would look
is whether they belonged to a professional society. It was a benchmark for
me. Did they take themselves seriously as an EE?
Be professional. When I see a homework assignment that looks like it was
ripped out of the student’s spiral-bound notebook 5 minutes before coming
to class I can only wonder if this is the quality of work they would hand in
to their boss at work. Also, your work is your intellectual property. Don’t
share it.

Form a study group. This is a great way to learn. You can study together
and work problems without copying each other’s homework assignments.

Your time is your most valuable resource, don’t waste it. If you come to
class and tune out, or just occupy a seat, you are wasting your time. Not
every class or every professor will be outstanding, but think about your
personal strategy for success in every class. I try to be very interactive and
intersperse group problem solving with lectures. Some students dig right
in, others skip out.
See out help when you need it. Learn how to ask questions and get help.
Don’t be afraid to meet your professor outside of class and ask for help.
They might make you squirm a little but they want you to succeed and do
well.

Another great activity is to work closely with a faculty member. Become

their grader or teaching assistant. Get involved in their research. Why not
try an independent study project with a professor? It’s a lot of fun and you
get to know someone who can write a very nice recommendation for you
when the time comes. Also, it is really nice to have your name on a
research paper before you graduate. Here’s one that I wrote with one of my
undergraduate students who was doing an independent study project with
me:

Teaching Embedded Systems Laboratory Via Remote Access, Arnold

Berger and Solomon Lane, Proceedings of the INTED 2008: International
Technology, Education and Development Conference, Valencia, Spain,
March 3-5, 2008.

So, there you have it. I love what I do and I love to excite my students
about it. Electrical Engineering is a wonderful choice, but so is Chemical
Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Civil
Engineering, Materials Engineering and the list goes on. Become an
engineer because you want to do engineering, or because it will prepare
you for whatever you ultimately want to do later on. Good luck!

***
Chapter 13: Electrical Engineering does Involve a Lot
of Hard Work, but It IS Fun and Rewarding! -
Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu, PhD

Tsu-Jae King Liu, PhD

Distinguished Professor in Microelectronics, and
Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of California, Berkeley

Professor Tsu-Jae King Liu received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in
Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. From 1992 to 1996 she
was a Member of Research Staff at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
(Palo Alto, CA). In August 1996 she joined the faculty of the University of
California, Berkeley, where she is currently the TSMC Distinguished
Professor in Microelectronics, and Chair of the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer Sciences. Dr. Liu’s research awards include
the DARPA Significant Technical Achievement Award (2000) for
development of the FinFET, the IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award (2010) for
contributions to nanoscale MOS transistors, memory devices, and MEMs
devices, the Intel Outstanding Researcher in Nanotechnology Award
(2012), and the Semiconductor Industry Association Outstanding
Researcher Award (2014). She has authored or co-authored close to 500
publications and holds over 90 U.S. patents, and is a Fellow of the IEEE.
Her research activities are presently in advanced materials, process
technology and devices for energy-efficient electronics.
Future of Electrical Engineering as an Academic Major

1. How do you see the future/potential of Electrical Engineering as an

academic major?

Electrical Engineering is foundational to electric power and energy systems

as well as information science and technology. It is a dynamic and growing
field, challenging as a course of study but ultimately very rewarding in
terms of opportunities available to successful graduates, due to increasing
demand and the continual need for new innovations to overcome the
limitations of present-day technology.

Interdisciplinary collaboration has become essential for the development of

new technologies to meet projected requirements for future power systems
incorporating renewable energy sources (e.g. sunlight and wind) and for
future information devices and systems in the Age of Ambient Intelligence.

As an academic major, EE offers flexibility to students to pursue different

areas of interest within a relatively broad field that integrates knowledge
across many disciplines. These areas include Biosystems; Communications
and Networking; Control Systems and Robotics; Power and Energy
Systems; Integrated Circuits; Physical Electronics; Micro-Electro-
Mechanical Systems; and Signal Processing.
CMOS and Beyond: Logic Switches for Terascale Integrated Circuits

2. I understand one of your research interests is in the area of Nanometer-

scale semiconductor devices and technology. Would you briefly like to
explain the details of your book “CMOS Front-End Materials and Process
Technology” to our curious students in plain English please?

The steady miniaturization (“scaling”) of transistors – electrical switches

used in integrated circuit (IC) chips – has yielded continual improvements
in the performance and cost-per-function of electronic devices over the past
four decades. This has resulted in the proliferation of information
technology with dramatic impact on virtually every aspect of life in
modern society. IC technology is reaching a state of maturity wherein
continued transistor scaling will not be as straightforward in the future as it
has been in the past.

Improved switch designs will be needed to sustain the growth of the

electronics industry beyond the next decade. A wide variety of alternative
switch designs are being investigated by researchers around the world,
many of which are based on operating principles quite different from that
of a conventional transistor. A new book which I am co-editing, titled
“CMOS and Beyond: Logic Switches for Terascale Integrated Circuits”
comprises tutorial essays that are comprehensible to EE students, to
explain the requirements and to cover the most promising candidates for
replacing the transistor.
Electrical Engineering Education also Prepares you well to Succeed in
other Professions such as Business, Medicine, and Law

3. Do you have any messages to our curious students ((in terms of best
practices, key issues or research trends etc.) who are studying or
considering studying Electrical Engineering?

Electrical Engineering advancements have improved the quality of life in

modern society and increasingly in developing regions of the world.
(Consider what life would be like without electricity and electrically
powered devices such as refrigerators, washing machines, television,
digital cameras and camcorders, cellphones and smartphones, desktop and
tablet computers, the Internet and “cloud computing”)

An EE education not only enables you to understand and apply science and
technology to make impactful contributions to society, but also prepares
you well to succeed in other professions such as business, medicine, law,
etc. (This is because teamwork, effective communication, professional and
ethical responsibility are abilities which you develop through the course of
an engineering degree program.) It does involve a lot of hard work, but it is
fun and rewarding!

***
Thank you from the Publisher
The Curious Academic Publishing would like to thank all the chapter
authors of the book for their contribution. Thank you also to the
readers/students for reading this book. We would appreciate if you could
share the Amazon link to the book: http://amzn.to/1HiXsAc. If you liked
the book, we would very much appreciate if you could leave your honest
review on the Amazon page.

The Curious Academic Publishing has also published other books on

Engineering including in Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering,
Chemical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, and Materials Science &
Engineering. If you have any comments or feedback, please email us at
[email protected].

***