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.