Spectra Newsletter

College of Engineering and Computer Science

Project Showcase shines spotlight on seniors

DSC7986.jpgDesign of a Sustainable Green Space - Team 2[/img] The breadth, creativity and expertise of the college’s seniors were on full display April 29 at the second annual CECS Senior Design Projects Showcase. The half-day event, which featured oral presentations as well as an exhibition, was an opportunity for engineering and computer science seniors to demonstrate their mastery of their disciplines through the capstone projects that most had been working on for the entire year.

Projects ran the gamut from plans for transforming a drab parking lot into a sustainable park (Civil Engineering and Applied Mechanics) to a folding pickup truck bed extender (Manufacturing and Systems Engineering and Management); from an intelligent ground vehicle and human-powered vehicle (Mechanical Engineering) to a remote sensor network using software-defined radio on board an unmanned aerial vehicle (Electrical and Computer Engineering). [Read more…]

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Department News

DEPARTMENT NEWS

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)

OsornoBruno.jpg Bruno Osorno is working with the University of Minnesota as part of a three-year project titled “A Nationwide Consortium of Universities to Revitalize Electric Power Engineering Education by State-of-the-Art Laboratories.” Now in its second year, the consortium is making excellent progress. CSUN’s contribution will be a power electronics laboratory in CECS, with state-of-the-art equipment. Most of the equipment has been purchased and is in the testing phase; it will be ready for teaching by fall 2012. At the consortium’s annual conference, at the University of Minnesota, in August of 2011, Osorno gave a poster presentation about the CSUN laboratory. He would like to acknowledge the continuing support of his department chair, Ali Amini, and the dean of the college, S. K. Ramesh, in this ongoing effort.

Osorno also secured $5,000 from the campus IRA program to design and build a solar charging station for electric bicycles. This project will be carried out during the 2011-12 academic year.

RengarajanSembiam.jpgSembiam Rengarajan was appointed a distinguished lecturer by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society for 2010-12. He is one of nine distinguished lecturers appointed worldwide for this triennium. (For details, please see the CSUN press release issued June 8, 2011: https://blogs.csun.edu/news/2011/06/lecturer/.)

Rengarajan also received four awards from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for contributions to the development of scientific or technical innovations. These include 1) “Coupling between Waveguide-Fed Slot Arrays”; 2) “Scanning and Defocusing Properties of Microstrip Reflectarray”; 3) “Design, Analysis, and Development of a Large Ka-Band Slot Array for Digital Beam-Forming Application”; and 4) “Excitation of a Parallel Plate Waveguide by an Array of Rectangular Waveguides.”[Read more…]

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COLLEGE’S DONOR HONOR ROLL

100,000 AND ABOVE - Pradip and Rekha Choksi - Peter Leonhardt

10,000 to 99,999 - Joseph and Nancy Owens - Howard and Barbara Skurka

1,000 to 9,999 - Dennis and Tina Brodie - Thomas Brown - Maureen Hart - John Haworth - Joseph and Michelle Kwan - Nirmal and Pratima Mishra - Carole Morton - George Ortega - Rick and Dolores Ratcliffe - Joseph Rotenberg - Satish and Rashmi Shah - Robert and Joy Taylor - Scott Thomas[Read more…]

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In memoriam: Dennis Brodie

Brodie%20_DSC8475.jpg The College of Engineering and Computer Science lost a close friend when Dennis Brodie, chief operating officer of ResMed, Inc., passed away on August 31 at the age of 54. A CSUN alumnus twice over, he earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1980 and an MBA in 1985, making Dean’s List four times. Despite a demanding job and major professional responsibilities, he retained close ties to the university, contributing money and time. According to his wife, Tina, he wanted to give something back to the university and was always proud to help CSUN students. He made sure that ResMed engaged engineering and computer science students through internships and career opportunities, and he was instrumental in the development of the master’s degree program in assistive technology. From early 2008 on, he was part of the program’s planning team, regularly attending meetings and helping to map out the curriculum. He then went on to teach a seminar series in the program. He was honored with a Volunteer Service Award by the university in 2008.[Read more…]

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