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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Engineering names Spira honorees

By: William G. Gilroy &
Nina Welding
Date: May 25, 2007

Thomas E. Fuja, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering, and Robert C. Nelson, professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, are the 2007 recipients of the Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Excellence in Teaching, according to James L. Merz, interim dean of the University of Notre Dame’s College of Engineering.

The award recognizes faculty in electrical engineering and aerospace and mechanical engineering for outstanding contributions to undergraduate education, classroom activities and curriculum development. It was established in 2000 by Joel Spira, the founder, chairman and director of research at Lutron Electronics, and his wife, Ruth. Known for their commitment to promoting excellence in engineering education, the Spiras have established similar awards at Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Lehigh University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University and the University of Michigan.

Fuja, whose research encompasses digital communications, error control coding, joint source-channel coding and information theory, joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1998. Prior to that, he had served on the faculty of the University of Maryland and as program director for communications research at the National Science Foundation.

A fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, he earned bachelor’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering in 1981 from the University of Michigan. He earned a master’s degree in 1983 and a doctorate 1987, both in electrical engineering, from Cornell University.

Nelson earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from Notre Dame in 1964 and 1966, respectively, and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from Penn State in 1974. He returned to Notre Dame as a faculty member in 1975, after having served as an instructor at Penn State and as a stability and control engineer at the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory.

A fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he also served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the Institute for Aerodynamics and Flow Technology — a part of the German Aerospace Center in Göttingen, Germany — during the 2002-03 academic year. His research interests include aircraft stability and control, fluid mechanics and aerodynamics.

Electrical Engineering’s Huang receives Fulbright Award

By: William G. Gilroy
Date: May 22, 2007

Yih-Fang Huang, professor of engineering and concurrent professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded a Fulbright-Nokia Scholarship to support his appointment as a visiting professor at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) for the fall 2007 semester. During his visit to Finland, Huang will carry out a program of research and deliver lectures related to wireless communication.

Huang’s award will provide support for a project titled “MIMO-OFDM for Emerging Wireless Communication Technology.” It involves a form of wireless communications called orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), in which a single data stream is transmitted on several different radio frequencies in such a way that they do not interfere with one another. Huang’s focus will be on signal processing techniques applicable to OFDM systems with multiple antennas at the transmitter and/or receiver — multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems.

Helsinki is an international center of activity in wireless communications due to the technology giant Nokia’s presence there. Nokia is sponsoring Huang’s award.

During his time at HUT, Huang will collaborate with Visa Koivunen of the Signal Processing Laboratory at HUT’s SMARAD Center of Excellence in Research.

Huang, who joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1982, served as chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering from 1998 to 2006. He received his undergraduate education at National Taiwan University, earned his master’s degree from Notre Dame, and completed his doctorate at Princeton University.

Huang’s research addresses issues in statistical communication theory (the statistical theory of signal detection and estimation, especially as they apply to wireless communication). During his 25 years at the University, he has received research funding from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Army.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is administered by the J. William Fulbright Scholarship Board, a presidentially appointed board responsible for establishing worldwide policies for the program and for the selection of Fulbright recipients. Fulbright scholarships are made possible through funds appropriated annually by the U.S. Congress and, in many cases, by contributions from partner countries and/or by private sector firms, such as Nokia. Each year, the program sends about 800 faculty and professionals to 140 countries to lecture, do research and participate in seminars.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Notre Dame elects Purdue mechanical engineer as vice president for research

By: Dennis Brown &
Gail Hinchion Mancini

May 17, 2007

Robert J. Bernhard, associate vice president for research and professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, has been elected by the University of Notre Dame Board of Trustees to the newly created position of vice president for research, effective Aug. 1. He also was appointed a full professor in the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering.

“Bob Bernhard is a gifted researcher and teacher, a skilled administrator and leader, and a successful facilitator of large-scale research programs and investments,” said Thomas G. Burish, Notre Dame’s provost. “He has the background, commitment, talent, integrity and work ethic to help propel Notre Dame’s research efforts forward. He was the unanimous choice of the faculty search committee. We are grateful that he will be joining us and excited about his leadership of our overall research efforts.”

Burish also thanked the seven faculty members of the University’s national search committee for their efforts in attracting Bernhard to Notre Dame.

“The members of the search committee worked tirelessly to identify, evaluate and recruit a strong slate of candidates for the position,” he said. “With Professor Bernhard in particular, who was sought out by the committee and did not apply for the position, the committee members were articulate and energetic in describing Notre Dame’s research vision and opportunities, and in defining its distinctive mission. They deserve much of the credit for this most successful search.”

Bernhard said the “bold vision” of Burish and Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., the University’s president, to take Notre Dame to the next level as an institution fully committed to research, undergraduate teaching and its Catholic character is “personally exciting to me. The challenge of leading the research component of that vision is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that fits my background and experience very well. I’m honored to be given this opportunity.”

He added: “I’ve been at Purdue for 25 years and had a wonderful career here. It’s very difficult to leave, particularly with all of the exciting new initiatives that have begun here in recent years.”

Bernhard is one of the nation’s leading experts on noise control, with a focus on tire and traffic noise, numerical noise control design methods, noise source identification, active noise and vibration control, and machinery noise control applications. He has directed the research of 49 engineering graduates and is the co-author of more than 170 journal and conference publications on various aspects of noise control engineering, numerical methods, vibrations and design.

Bernhard is a frequent consultant to industry and government and has had his research activities funded by more than a dozen corporations as well as by NASA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration and the National Science Foundation.

A graduate of Iowa State University, Bernhard worked from 1973 to 1977 as an engineer with Westinghouse Electric Co. in Baltimore. At the same time, he worked on and earned his master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Maryland. He returned to Iowa State in 1977 to pursue his doctorate and to serve on the engineering faculty as an assistant professor of freshman engineering.

After completing his doctoral studies, Bernhard joined the faculty of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue in 1982. He has been affiliated with the Acoustics and Noise Control Research Program of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories at Purdue, and served as its director from 1994 to 2004. He has been the director of the Institute for Safe, Quiet and Durable Highways since 1998 and for the last three years has served as Purdue’s associate vice president for research.

Bernhard holds two patents and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He has been the secretary general of the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering since 2000, is a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America and was named a distinguished noise control engineer by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering in 2003.

Bernhard and his wife, Debbi, are the parents of four children ages 25 to 16. Among his civic activities, Bernhard served on the St. Thomas Aquinas Parish Pastoral Council in West Layfayette, Ind., for four years and was president in 2006. He was a Little League baseball coach for 13 years.

Bernhard’s position is newly created and a result of the administrative restructuring of graduate education and research at Notre Dame. The new structure splits the former position of vice president for graduate studies and research into two positions that will each report directly to the provost. The reorganization was recommended by the Academic Council and the president and approved by the Board of Trustees.

Bernhard will address infrastructure and support of research — the work of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students alike — and the competition for funding dollars, as well as support for the University’s technology transfer efforts.

A new and unnamed position in the provost’s office will have oversight of graduate studies.

The search committee for the vice president for research position was composed of seven faculty members and one graduate student: Neil Delaney, philosophy and honors program; Stephen Batill, aerospace and mechanical engineering; Richard Taylor, chemistry and biochemistry; Malgorzata Dobrowolska-Furdyna, physics; Scott Monroe, psychology; Gary Bernstein, electrical engineering; Frank Collins, biological sciences; and Amber Handy, a graduate student in the Department of History.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Reading Days and Final Exam Week Schedule

May 4 - May 11th

Thursday, May 3th.......8 am - 11 pm
Friday, May 4th..........8 am - 8 pm
Saturday, May 5th.......1 pm - 8 pm
Sunday, May 6th.........1 pm - 11 pm
Monday, May 7th -
Thursday, May 10th....8 am - 11 pm
Friday, May 11th..........8 am - 5 pm