ECE Industrial Advisory Council 2015 | ECE | SIU

ECE Industrial Advisory Council 2015

April 21, 2015

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department's Industrial Advisory Council include the following members:

Mike Abba is the Director, Smart Grid, Integration and Improvement at Ameren, IL.  He is a graduate of SIUC with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.

Rod Blake was born in Los Angeles, CA and spent most of his childhood years in Portland, OR. He received is B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. degrees from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Upon graduation, Rod accepted a VLSI design engineering position at Seagate Technology in Bloomington, MN. He quickly moved up through the engineering ranks and was promoted to Director of ES VLSI engineering. His responsibilities included all aspects of VLSI development from requirements to end of life concerns. His team was responsible for HDL Design, HDL Verification and Physical Design Synthesis and Static Timing Analysis. He managed VLSI projects with strategic suppliers as well. Rod has been part of and has led many Seagate wide initiatives as technology continues to progress and VLSI input is needed to solve complex trade-off analyses. Rod has developed a real interest in the complexities of achieving full verification of multi-million gate VLSI designs. Verification technology continues to advance maintain pace with design size, however, defining and allocating engineering resources to develop advanced tools is a key focus for Rod in his role at Seagate. Rod's current management responsibilities are now more focused on verification for Enterprise Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and Solid State Disk Drive (SSD) SOCs as well as leading verification architecture discussions for the entire VLSI organization. He also participates on an internal advanced technology core team that establishes product roadmaps and the requisite technology to enable the execution on the roadmap.

Tim Doiron is the Vice President Strategy & Product Management for Coriant’s Data line of business. In this role, he is responsible for Coriant’s data products portfolio including the Coriant 8600 Smart Routers, the Coriant 8800 Smart Routers, and the Coriant  8100 Managed Access System. Previously, Doiron was Vice President & General Manager Tellabs Mobile Routing division. Doiron has more than 24 years of telecommunications industry experience.  In addition to previous GM, product planning and product management posts at Tellabs, Doiron has held a variety of leadership positions in software engineering, product management, business development and marketing at Tellabs, ARRIS, Cadant, Ericsson and Southwestern Bell Wireless. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a Master of Business Administration from Webster University. Doiron also holds seven U.S. patents and is a long-time member of both the IEEE and the Business Marketing Association (BMA).

Dean Hooks is an Advanced Product Support Program Manager working Proprietary Programs for the Boeing Company. He also serves as Chair of the Aerospace Industries Association Product Support Committee/Product Support Executive Board. Dean has been employed at Boeing for over 29 years where he has held a wide range of technical and leadership positions. His previous assignment was as Senior Manager of Advanced Product Support developing new lines of business associated with Boeing Energy. Prior to that he was Senior Manager of Maintenance Information Systems where he and his teams in Mesa, Philadelphia, and St. Louis were responsible for the development, fielding, and support of stand-alone and first-generation Network Centric integrated maintenance information systems. Dean holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a graduate certificate in Artificial Intelligence from Washington University in St. Louis.

Rathish Jayabharathi is a Senior Staff/Technical Lead at Intel Corporation. He has a Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. During his 18 year career at Intel, he has been involved in all aspects of EDA and silicon development. He currently manages a team that designs and tests Smartphone System-on-a-Chips (SoCs).

Karl Kiefer is the President and CEO of INVOCON, Inc. He received his B.S. from Southern Illinois University and his M.S. from the University of Colorado. He served in Viet Nam as an Army Infantry Commanding Officer for a Long Range Reconnaissance Platoon. He has held Research and Development management positions with Litton, Data Systems Division; TRW, REDA Pump Division; and FMC. He founded INVOCON, Inc. in 1985. IVC is a high technology system engineering firm specializing in remote sensing and wireless data gathering networks. IVC has a wide revenue base consisting of commercial, government, and military customers. The company has provided NASA, DOD, and commercial customers with many wireless data acquisition and communications networks. IVC developed and delivered the impact detection and location system for the wing leading edge on the Shuttle for “return to flight” operations as well as MMOD detection and evaluation systems for the ISS. IVC is currently delivering wireless micro-gravity data acquisition and processing systems that will service the outboard trusses of the ISS and the JEM Module. IVC is in a concept formulation phase of a wireless vibration analysis system for launch to orbit verification of payload stress on the JAXA HTV launch vehicle. IVC has also developed and is currently delivering production impact detection systems for “smart targets” used in the verification of the MDA national missile defense system.

Sandeep Kumar joined Silicon Laboratories in 2006 and is responsible for worldwide CAD organization, process engineering and package engineering, product and test engineering, quality assurance, failure analysis, manufacturing engineering, as well as the prototype production and reliability test labs. Dr. Kumar’s group drives the company technology strategy and supplier choices. Prior to joining Silicon Labs, Dr. Kumar managed global test engineering teams and was responsible for worldwide product and test engineering for the storage business at Agere Systems, Lucent technologies and AT&T Bell Labs. As a member of the Bell Labs technical staff, Dr. Kumar also was a member of the group that designed ISDN U-interface chips, Speaker Phone Codec and Sigma-Delta A/D converters. Dr. Kumar has a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Evansville in Indiana and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Lehigh University.

William Liao is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Export/Import manager for Wildlife Materials, Inc. and Care Trak International, Inc. From 1988 to 1996 I was in the capacity of Export/Import manager for Wildlife Materials, Inc. and Care Trak International, Inc. From 1997 to 2000 I became Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for both companies.

Jeff Nelson

Stephen Phelps has been with Caterpillar for the past 17 years, assuming engineering and team leader roles in research, control systems, and applied engineering. He has worked with SIUC as an Industrial Advisor for the I/UCRC Center for Embedded Systems for the past two years, sponsoring research via Caterpillar. Prior to joining Caterpillar, he was also a researcher at United Technologies Corporation for 11 years, in East Hartford, CT. Both his BSEE and MSEE degrees are from the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, specializing in
control systems. He is also interested in education, and has served as an adjunct instructor for both the University of Hartford, and Illinois Central College.

Paul Reynolds has worked in research and development engineering for sixteen years ranging in products from solid propellant gas generators, appliances, to medium caliber ammunition. Currently Paul is a Research and Development Engineering Manager at General Dynamics OTS Marion’s facility. He holds a Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and an Associate Degree in Computer Integrated Manufacturing from John A. Logan College.

Eric Rossi is the founder and President of EMAC, Inc. where has been employed for the last 22 years. Along with his business acumen, Eric has a wealth of knowledge in embedded systems development using a variety of hardware platforms and operating systems. During his tenure at EMAC, he led the development of EMAC's proprietary hardware and software products and has determined the strategic direction of the company. Prior to working at EMAC, Eric was employed at Southern Illinois University (SIU) at Carbondale. As an Assistant Professor, he taught classes in electronics and computer programming. Before being employed at SIU Eric was employed as an Engineering Manager for Advanced Energy Technology Inc. (AETI). Projects he managed include an Energy Management System, a Parabolic Solar Tracking System, and an Ethanol Plant Monitor and Control System. Eric worked for several electronic companies where he performed various engineering and programming tasks before working at AETI. Eric attended college at SIU where he received a Master’s Degree in Computer Science, a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronic Technology, an Associate’s Degree in Electronic Technology, and a Minor in Math.

Claudeliah Roze is currently employed as a Systems Engineer with the Department of Defense, China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) in Ridgecrest, CA. NAWS-China Lake is the center for weapons development for the Department of the Navy. As a Systems Engineer, she works with a team of Navy aircrew, civilian engineers, and defense contractors to develop local and national integrated test plans to verify the operation of algorithms, weapons, and other systems on naval aircraft. This testing is performed in a lab environment as well as in flight. She has been employed with the Department of Defense for 3.5 years. Prior to this position, she worked at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, CA as a Senior Avionics Engineer for Flight Control Systems Research. Her career began with The Boeing Company as a coop student in 2000, and I held various test and evaluation positions during her 8 years with the company.

Marcy Rugland is Kaney Aerospace’s Vice President of Business Development, joining the company in 2015.Marcy’s passion for aviation led her to join the US Air Force, where she served as an F-15 avionics technician. She joined The Boeing Company as a systems engineer on the Space Shuttle program, supporting the post-Columbia Return to Flight effort. In 2005, Marcy joined the Boeing Lab Test organization, as an electromagnetic compatibility engineer. As a manager, she led the development of the 787-9 Systems Integration Test Labs, was the Boeing South Carolina Lab Operations Leader, and was the Value Stream Leader responsible for all 737/747/767/777 lab testing. Following her support of the 787 Lithium-Ion battery effort, Marcy assumed leadership the 737 Avionics organization. Joining Kaney Aerospace in January 2015, Marcy is thrilled to be a part of such a nimble, innovative, high-energy team passionate about delivering value and delighting our customers. Marcy holds BSEE and BS Aviation Technology degrees from Southern Illinois University and an MBA from Webster University. A native of Rockford, IL, Marcy currently lives in Seattle with her husband, Paul, and two children, Jessica and Jakob. She enjoys boating, running, skiing, and playing guitar and drums.

Jeff Schmidt

John Schofield is currently employed with Naval Surface Warfare Systems Crane Division as the Radar Technologies Division Chief Engineer. He graduated from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering degree. In 2010, he obtained a Master of Science, Systems Engineering degree from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.  John has held numerous leadership positions within the organization ranging from Lead Test Engineer; Engineering Supervisor; Project Chief Engineer; Radar Technologies Solid State Technologies Lead; and Division Chief Engineer.  The majority of his work is focused on the support of DoD Electronic Warfare; Radar; and Communication systems

Gary Sommer brings 23 years of experience in Management and Engineering in a diverse range of fields including Financial, Medical, Networking, Gaming, and Communications. Gary currently serves as Vice President of Engineering for Exegy driving programmable hardware, software, testing, and performance teams delivering top-performing market data appliances for high-frequency and enterprise trading customers. He has worked in engineering and management roles for BioMérieux, Celox Networks, 3Com, WMS Gaming, and U.S. Robotics. Gary received his Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

James Stewart After graduating with a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering (EE) and Master's of Science in EE from Southern Illinois University, James Stewart began his professional career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) in Crane, Indiana as an electronics engineer for DARPA's Highly Integrated Photonics (HIP) headed by Dr. Preston Marshall.  He has been active in Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) systems for 11 years supporting both the EA-6B Prowler and EA-18G Growler jamming platforms as the project site lead for Jamming Techniques Optimization (JATO).   Among other duties, James is currently a lead engineer for Next Generation Jammer's (NGJ) funded Advanced Technique Group (ATG) where he is charged with developing modulations and techniques for manipulating communications and RADAR systems.  He's also a naval lead engineer for DARPA's Adaptive Radar Countermeasures (ARC) program as well as DARPA's Communications through Extreme RF (CommEx) program.  James holds three patents in UAS technologies with the Navy and one pending with Purdue University where he is pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering.  His PhD research involves optical obscurants due to Kerker scattering suppression of silica nanospheres with metallic fractal structures and the characterization of such spheres with a novel flow cell as well as pure dielectric metasurface focusing lens using a post structure array to achieve greater than 2pi phase manipulation.  He is expected to graduate in 2015.

Matt Wilding is a Principal Engineering Manager in the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center. He received a Ph.D. in computer sciences from The University of Texas at Austin and joined Rockwell Collins in 1996. He led the machine-checked formal analysis of the AAMP7 microprocessor’s partition separation mechanism, work that culminated in a unique security certification in 2005 and has enabled development of highly trusted Rockwell Collins information assurance products. Dr. Wilding managed Rockwell Collins’ Automated Analysis group from 2004 – 2010. This research group develops and applies automated analysis to systems with safety and security critical functionality. In 2010, Dr. Wilding was appointed to manage a new Digital Vision Systems group, which works with Rockwell Collins product groups and government researchers to develop, demonstrate, and transition to products a diverse assortment of technologies including very low-power processing, novel weather radar applications, and image processing methods.

Howard Wilson received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, in 1979. Prior to joining Intel, he was with Rockwell-Collins in Cedar Rapids, IA for 5 years designing electronic flight display systems and National Semiconductor in Santa Clara, CA for 7 years designing telecommunications components. With Intel since 1992, he is currently a member of the Extreme Scale Computing team located in Hillsboro, OR, engaged in a variety of advanced silicon prototype design activities.

Scott Zogg is the Senior Director of the Embedded Information Systems department in the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center. His organization is responsible for research and advanced technology development in the areas of digital vision systems, cyber security, cross domain solutions, live virtual constructive simulation and training, and next generation flight decks. Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Zogg served for 3 years as the Director of Advanced Radio Systems in the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center and 3 years as the Principal Engineering Manager for Communication Systems in the Rockwell Collins Advanced Technology Center. As a communication systems engineer, Mr. Zogg’s spent 18 years with Rockwell Collins developing next generation communication systems including system designs for, low probability of detection, anti-jam, weapons applications, airborne tactical communications, HF data, SATCOM, VHF data and ad hoc networking. His innovations have led to 20 US patents.