Update (1-10-07): Fall 2006 ECE Newsletter (PDF)

2006 Senior Capstone Design Project Descriptions (MS Word)

Fall 2006
Brian Vitale (ECE '07) and Thamer Bahassan (ECE '07) won first place at a regional Black Box competition sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE). Two other teams of Parks students also won awards: Jorge Moya (ECE '07) and Brian Sack (ECE '08) took second place, and Dan Fox (ECE '08) and Matt Robb (ECE '08) placed fifth.

As the winner of the regional competition, Parks-SLU will host next year's event.

Brian Vitale	Thamer Bahassan	Jorge Moya
Brian Sack	Dan Fox	Matt Robb

Spring 2006

The department’s students and alumni continue to be our greatest ambassadors with their continued success in all aspects of their academic, professional, and personal lives. The statistics from the last few years prove that our graduates compete with the best and excel in their chosen professions. The quality of incoming students has steadily increased over the past few years. The average ACT score of our 2005 freshman class was 28, while the average SAT score was about 1200. And our students are finding some of the best internship opportunities across the United States.

Our graduates find top-paying and rewarding jobs. The average salary for the 2005 graduates was reported to be $58,500. I am glad to report that the trend is continuing and our graduates are receiving multiple offers from top national and international corporations. The annual salaries being offered to our 2006 graduates range from $45,000 to $65,000.

We continue to receive good news about our graduates in several areas, including announcements of weddings and births. The success of our graduates is also reflected in their lives and their character. I am happy to report that one of our 2006 graduates, Chris Johansen, has been named the Atlantic 10 Conference Athlete of the year, and has received similar honors from Saint Louis University; he will be graduating with an outstanding GPA of 3.97 and has accepted an offer to work for the Department of Defense in Washington D.C. upon graduation in May. It is graduates like Chris who underscore the benefits of our Jesuit values-oriented environment and the dedicated faculty and staff who develop future leaders for our communities.

It is also gratifying to see our students graduating from and/or attending some of the top graduate programs, such as Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech, University of California Santa-Barbara, and others. Some of our graduates have also attended law school at Saint Louis University, or business school at Saint Louis University and Washington University. It is with great a pride and pleasure that we report the success of one of our recent graduates, Pouria Bastani, who passed his Ph.D. Qualifying exam at the University of California-Santa Barbara at the top of the class of 2006; he expects to receive his Ph.D. in December 2008.

The ECE faculty continues to contribute to our profession through cutting-edge research and scholarly activities. The faculty contributes to professional societies such as IEEE on the local, national, and international levels. They volunteer their time as chairs and co-chairs of major international conferences and serve on executive committees of local chapters. The number of research proposals submitted for funding is continuing to increase. We are working hard to continue delivering a high quality programs and to continue attracting the best students. Our dedicated faculty invites department students to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in innovative research.

The department faculty is also working hard in preparation for the accreditation visit by ABET in the fall of 2006. A Self Study Report is being completed for forwarding to ABET headquarters in advance of the visiting team. We greatly appreciate the assistance of our students, alumni, and industry advisory board members in the preparation for this process. Their opinions make a valuable contribution to the continuous assessment and improvement of our programs and give us confidence about the outcome of the visit in maintaining our ABET accreditation.

For further information, please call (314) 977-8300 or send an e-mail to waltheslk@SLU.EDU or gharabr@slu.edu. Please continue to support the department with your comments and resources.