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When Tony Mancuso sets his mind on doing something, it’s pretty much as good as done.
 The big difference between Mancuso and most students is that he entered ECE at age 46, making him a “non-traditional student.” He is now part of a team in Alaska that is responsible for the design, maintenance and upgrades of the state’s communications system.
“I worked hard [at ECE] and had the benefit of experience and wisdom — things my classmates worked without,” said Mancuso. “It was great to compete and collaborate with my ECE friends. I was inspired by their questioning of everything and their persistence in finding answers.”
Though Mancuso enjoyed his previous career, his desire to learn motivated him to go back to school.
“I liked the work but there were many things I wanted to understand that could only be learned through study,” said Mancuso.
In his three years at ECE Mancuso earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) as a full-time student while working as an intern at Sandia National Laboratories.
He graduated in May 2014 and started working for the State of Alaska in July 2014.
Tony recommends that graduates take the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (FE). It is a $225 test, which is the first step in the process leading to the Professional Engineer (PE) license.
Just like becoming a CPA defines an accountant and "passing the bar" allows a student to practice law, a PE gives a person the authority to sign and seal engineering plans and provide services to the public.
“I learned that the FE Exam certifies an engineering graduate to serve as an engineer in training and is the first step in obtaining a PE license,” said Mancuso.
Mancuso is well on his way to becoming a professional engineer now that he has earned his BSEE and has passed the FE and he’s working as hard as ever. He’s even considering an EE-masters program in atmospheric effects on electromagnetic wave propagation.
“I thought things would slow down after school but after a slow and peaceful drive to Alaska, the pace is nice and fast, just as I need it. Living the dream,” he said.
 The UNM Provost Chaouki Abdallah and the President of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Daniel Peña, have signed a double degree program agreement within both universities together with the UNM Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the UC3M School of Engineering.
The agreement allows UNM students pursuing an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering to also obtain an M.S. in Telecommunications or Multimedia and Communications at UC3M in Spain. Students of UC3M pursuing one of these degrees in Spain, can also obtain an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UNM.
UNM students wanting to obtain a Master in Telecommunications must pass 30 credit hours corresponding to one of the ECE paths, and then spend a year at UC3M, where they need to take four specific courses, taught in English, an d complete their Masters’ thesis.
 Manel Martínez-Ramón, Prince of Asturias Endowed Chair at UNM and Ramiro Jordán, Associate Professor, have been working to establish relationships between UNM and UC3M. Martínez-Ramón says that though classes will differ from the courses that would be taken at UNM, they will enrich students’ education.
“This is actually good because they will acquire knowledge in courses that have been developed with different objectives, to educate professionals with profiles that are quite different from the ones of the university of origin,” said Martínez-Ramón, “This will broaden the capacities of the students, and their scope.”
In addition to educational enrichment, this program will help students to develop new perspectives.
“I wish I had a penny for each time I heard, ‘In this country people live better than in any other,’ in Spain, the USA, France, Germany, and in other countries,” said Martínez-Ramón, “Living abroad makes you get rid of the concepts ‘better’ and ‘worse’ to adopt concepts like ‘different.’”
Martínez-Ramón also says that this exchange program will benefit students on the UNM campus.
“Studying abroad is not only a benefit for those who travel, but also for those who host the students,” said Martinez-Ramon, “Talking, living and sharing things with foreigners of any country is always an enriching experience that benefits the society.”
This is an opportunity for UNM students to obtain an additional M.S. valid in Europe, and to get immersed in the culture and language of Spain.
Students who are interested in joining the program should contact either Manel Martínez-Ramón or Ramiro Jordán.
Nothing spells sweet success like a second edition, especially in academia where textbooks aren't selling like hotcakes. This feat is particularly noteworthy when the subject matter is microwaves — which can hardly be called light reading.
ECE Professsor Christos Christodoulou’s book, Radio Propagation and Adaptive Antennas for Wireless Communication Networks, recently achieved the milestone of a second edition and he’s feeling good about it, “It is one of the most updated and most thorough books in this area,” he said proudly.
The book was published by John Wiley & Sons, a global publishing company founded in 1807 that specializes in academic publishing. According to Kai Chang, editor of the Wiley Series in Microwave and Optical Engineering, which included Christodoulou’s book, the book was originally published in October  2006 and several thousand of them have been sold to “professional people and for classroom use as a textbook.”
Chang, who also serves as a professor at Texas A&M University said that Christodoulou’s book is “a very good book [and] has lots of theoretical background for people working in this area. It also has practical applications.”
The first edition of the book was very popular among radio engineers and designers of wireless communication links because it allowed them to predict grade of service, quality of service and the information data rate that passed each individual link.
Christodoulou co-authored the book with Nathan Blaunstein, a professor at the Communication Systems Engineering Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheba, Israel. Christodoulou and Blaunstein shared the responsibility of writing the book equally.
“I wrote chapters regarding radio propagation in different media and on various wireless systems,” said Blaunstein, “Christos dealt with chapters and parts of chapters regarding antennas and their applications in various wireless systems.”
“Christos was the first who understood the usefulness of such a unified technique for successful applications in wireless communication systems beyond 3-G (4-G and more),” said Blaunstein
Blaunstein left the former USSR in and immigrated to Israel in 1992. He first met Christodoulou in Calfornia in 1995. “He asked me a lot of questions on my report regarding radio propagation scenarios in built-up communication environment. He first suggested for me to use a general theory of radio wave propagation, based on statistical and quantum electrodynamics, in specific engineering fields, mostly for adaptive/smart multi-beam antennas applications.”
Christodoulou has worked with Blaunstein for over 10 years. UNM and Ben-Gurion University have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on mutual scientific and educational collaboration.
Blaunstein said that his collaboration with Christodoulou has lead to important findings that will be added to the book in the new second addition.
“Christos was the first who understood the usefulness of such a unified technique for successful applications in wireless communication systems beyond 3-G (4-G and more),” said Blaunstein, “Obtaining very serious, practical results with him, we decided to introduce these very important results in the second edition of our joint book.”
No doubt these results in the second edition of their book will be hailed with as much fervor as those presented in the first edition.
 There’s change (and dust) in the air at the ECE building these days. A lot of these changes are due to construction, but some of them are much more subtle. And that’s where ECE’s new marketing director, Sarah Lynas, comes in.
Lynas was a student at the Communication and Journalism Department who was recently hired by chair Jane Lehr after she presented a campaign to enhance the image of ECE as part of a class project.
Tired, old display cases and worn-out chairs have been sent to salvage and the walls are being patched and prepped for a long-overdue new coat of paint.
“The goal of the new campaign is to increase enrollment and revitalize the department’s image,” said Lynas, “as well as to really showcase who engineers are at ECE and what they’re doing.”
Lynas is a senior studying strategic communication and applied math. She hopes to help create a new, cohesive image for the department.
Lynas has discovered that our ECE students are doing a lot more than just hitting the books. ECE students write poetry, snowboard, and so much more, she is eager to showcase these talents. On Thursday, May 27, the first poster from the new campaign went up in the ECE foyer. The new poster showcases the work of graduate student, Gangadharan Esakki.
She is also hard at work on a poster that features the talent of our resident snowboarder, Grant Heileman.
Other changes at ECE are happening to the building itself. The department is determined to make the building a more comfortable and efficient place to work and study.
 High efficiency LEDs have taken the place of fluorescent tubes in dark stairwells.
“They are Lithonia’s premier fixtures,” said electrician Ryan Ralson.
Each fixture costs about $120 and he has installed 100 of them in the building. The renovations are being paid for by UNM.
“The new lighting should pay for themselves in energy savings fairly quickly,” said Ralston.
Classrooms and offices light up after a person passes through a doorway making old-fashioned light switches a thing of the past. The new switches are wireless.
Contractors are tearing out old ductwork and replacing them with new and shiny, digitally controlled air handlers that will improve the building’s heating and cooling.
According to David Modisette, the building manager and part-time ECE instructor, changing out the building’s “air flow routing” is a work in progress and it will take some time before the work is completed.
 “I think the construction workers are doing as well as possible, given that the building is occupied,” said Modisette, “When this is completed there will be significant energy savings and people will have better control over their work space temperature and lighting. The new vents will also eliminate the loud banging caused by the old baffle actuators.”
Modisette’s third floor office is a chilly 66 degrees while the temperature in the first floor offices is so hot that many of the staff have set up temporary fans that were leftover from a previous building crisis.
“That’s because the HAC guys are installing the ductwork,” said Ralston. “After that’s done, we’ll install the electrical power that the control guys will use for the systems that control the air conditioning. And then UNM will be able to control the building remotely.”
Modisette and Ralston said all these changes to the building will be completed at the end of July.
Over 60 students crammed into the ECE118 conference room on Thurs., May 14, 2014 for Robot Fiesta. Their mission: To show how their little androids can successfully and independently, follow one of three paths that were taped out on a conference table. The awards were bragging rights and a grade.
The professor was Daryl Lee, a lecturer at ECE, and the class was “Fundamentals of Programming, “ECE 131. This joyous, and somewhat chaotic event, took place on the final exam day.
 “We use robots for the primary purpose of showing the students how quickly they can get into programming electromechanical devices, and not be stuck with just printing text to a computer screen,” said Lee.
His expectations were high but Lee understands, better than most, how difficult this task really is. When asked what these robots were supposed to do, he joked, “They’re supposed to not fall off the table.”
During his free time, Lee sings in the New Mexico Symphonic Choir and he likes to compare the software engineer’s task to that of a concert pianist.
“(Our job) is to make fairly complex work appear easy . . . The computer cannot read our minds; we must be very specific about every little thing, ” said Lee.
That task is daunting and the work of a software engineer can be frustrating but Lee said the rewards are huge.
“When the switch is flipped on, and that little monster begins following the path, the feeling of success is unbeatable,” said Lee.
After over 40 years of teaching, Lee still enjoys watching his students’ robots.
“I've worked on devices of much higher levels of sophistication. Even though I still get a rush when some new software works right, every semester I'm reminded of what it feels like to slay that first dragon. The looks on the students’ faces are its own reward,” said Lee.
As the robot fiesta drew to an end, a frustrated student complained that her robot was moving much too slowly down its path. Lee responded by saying that despite that fact, the robot was on course and moving “nice and smooth.”
“Well,” conceded the student, “I guess it works . . .”
“There’s a lot to be said for that,” said Lee.
Md. Mottaleb Hossain, a CHTM and OSE-ECE graduate student, has won the prestigious 2014 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from the International Society for Optics and Photonics. He was awarded $2,000 for his potential contributions to the field of optics and photonics.
Mottaleb has been a mentor to a number of undergraduate and high-school students working on research projects at CHTM. He has donated his time generously to many outreach activities at CHTM and OSE.
Mottaleb received Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) from Khulna University of Engineering & Technology (KUET), Bangladesh in 2009. He is now pursuing PhD in Optical Science and Engineering (OSE) at UNM.
Mottaleb works with ECE Professor Majeed M. Hayat, CHTM Associate Director and OSE General Chair and Fellow of SPIE, OSA, and IEEE on modeling, design, fabrication, and characterization of CMOS compatible avalanche photodiodes (APDs) and integrated plasmonic detectors to be used in smart-lighting applications. His research work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Smart Lighting-Engineering Research Center (ERC).
Mottaleb is the newly elected President of the Optical Society of America's UNM Student Chapter (OSA-UNM) for 2014-2015. He also served as the Vice President of OSA-UNM Student Chapter for the period of 2013-2014. He is an active graduate student member of many professional and learned societies including SPIE, OSA, IEEE, IEEE Photonics Society (IPS), IEEE EDS, and Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB).
Poster sessions can usually be found at most scientific conferences but now, thanks to a couple of energetic ECE professors, they are becoming a regular feature in our department.
Ten teams of four students squeezed into the lobby of ECE on May 1 to show off their posters to the rest of the community. This poster session marked the culmination of 32 weeks of instruction in the Senior Design class taught by Edward Nava, professor at ECE.
They were joined by the 10 member team of the newly instituted, multi-disciplinary Senior Design class taught by Dr. Rich Compeau.
 “Students will be making posters for the rest of their careers and displaying them at conferences and meetings,” said Nava. “As professional engineers, they will need to clearly summarize their work to people who are unfamiliar with it.”
The Senior Design course teaches students how to make posters and communicate their projects within a 24”x36” space. Students also learn to work in teams whose members have a variety of different technical backgrounds.
“The Senior Design course teaches students how to apply their technical skills to real-world problems,” said Nava. “They learn how to plan and manage projects that are more extensive than the typical course assignments that they have experienced thus far.
“The key to success of this program is having sponsors who are willing to pose technical problems to the teams and provide technical guidance. We are fortunate to have support from local firms, but there is always a need for additional sponsors.”
Nava encourages organizations to contact him if they would like to sponsor a project for future senior design classes. He can be reached by e-mail at ejnava@unm.edu.
Swapnadip Ghosh, a fourth year doctoral student at ECE, has won the “Excellence in Graduate Research Award” from the UNM Chapter of Sigma Xi.
Sigma Xi, an international honor society with strong ties with IEEE, is an international honor society that recognizes undergraduates and graduate students for excellence and outstanding research in science and engineering.
Swapnadip (or “Swap” to his friends) is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including a best student speaker award and Dorothy M. and Earl S. Hoffman Travel Grant award by the American Vacuum Society. He has authored and co-authored in ten peer-reviewed journals including Applied Physics Letters and IEEE Electron Device Letters.
Swapnadip has presented his research in over 20 international conference meetings and his research has brought four United State patents to fruition. He plans to pursue his Postdoctoral research work on thin-film, low-cost photovoltaic devices based on III-V semiconductors.
"This award is recognition of my scholarly accomplishments by a scientific society from UNM. It acknowledges the fact that my research work is gradually making some impact in the scientific community. The ECE department — and especially CHTM— has allowed me to broaden my research skills and dexterity beyond my coursework," said Swapnadip whose hobbies include working out, hiking, and “occasionally looking through Journals."
Swapnadip’s dissertation, "Germanium Based Epitaxy, Devices and Ge Based QDs for Next Generation Technologies,” is being supervised by Prof. Sang M. Han.
Swapnadip will be honored at a ceremony hosted by Sigma Xi on May 19. At that ceremony Swapnadip will receive a certificate and will then be initiated into Sigma Xi as a new member.
“Swap is then responsible to organize a lecture within his department,” said Kelly Monteleone, secretary for the organization, and postdoctoral fellow at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. “At this lecture Swap will receive a check for $100.”
Three outstanding, well-rounded students from ECE were honored at the 2014 SOE Awards Banquet held on Fri., May 9th. The awards presentation took place at 11 a.m. in the auditorium of the Centennial Engineering Center and was followed by a delicious, Brazilian-style lunch in the courtyard.
Here are ECE’s proud award winners. Let’s get to know them a little better:
 Regina Eckert is studying for a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering with a focus in optoelectronics. Over the past two years, she has worked as a student intern at Sandia National Laboratories, researching the use of waveform correlation techniques for seismic signal processing. She is currently working with a group involved in developing state-of-the-art focal plane array technology. She plans to pursue a master's degree after graduating in Spring 2015, and hopes to continue to do research throughout her future career.
Regina is an avid reader, black & white film photographer, and aspiring writer. One of her short stories was published in the 2011-2012 edition of Conceptions Southwest, a UNM student magazine.
“I have enjoyed the innumerable hours I have spent in the ECE department, and I am looking forward to another year full of interesting projects and new topics.” said Regina.
 Artem Kuskov is a senior undergraduate Electrical Engineering student with an Electromagnetics track. For the past 15 months he has been a research assistant in the beams physics laboratory working on a magnetically insulated accelerator, numerical simulations of radiation transport and X-ray as well as RF diagnostic development. His current Pulsed Power project involves the design of a high voltage Marx generator for low impedance high power microwave sources.
Tem has presented his work at the 2013 International Conference of Plasma Science and has received an award to attend this year’s International Plasma and Beams Conference in Washington D.C., where he will be giving an oral presentation on his current work. His work will also be presented at the upcoming 2014 AMEREM conference. He has published in the conference proceedings as well as on the Nuclear Plasma Science Society newsletter and is working on an accelerator paper for a peer reviewed journal.
Tem will be working in the High Power Electrodynamics Group in the Accelerator Technology division at Los Alamos National Laboratory and will continue with his Graduate academic studies at the University of New Mexico’s Electrical Engineering Charged Particle Beams and Plasma Laboratories, where he will focus on radiation transport physics and radiographic sources.
 Siva Patibandla is a Graduate electrical engineering student with an emphasis in power and energy. He worked on the Solar decathlon, which brought in collegiate teams from all around the world to design sustainable, smart housing. He helped to design and deploy the photovoltaic system and the control system of the house that the UNM team built. Siva presented his work at the 2013 American solar energy society held in Baltimore. He also conducted a test on the Microgrid at the Solar Decathlon village with a team of engineers that was lead by ECE Prof. Olga Lavrova.
“What made this a unique test is the fact that there was 100% PV penetration,” said Siva. His work was submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid Issue on Distributed Energy Management Systems. He is also simulating the Microgrid in two different softwares: OpenDss and ETAP. Siva strives to understand the effects of electric car integration in to the grid in the near future and his aim is to work in the renewable energy industry once he graduates.
Five ECE students won second place in the UNM Business Plan Competition that recently took place at the Anderson School of Management.
The ECE students were Justin Johnston (BS EE), Conrad Woidyla (BS Comp E), Alexandria Haddad (MBA & BS Comp E), John-Mark Collins (BS Comp E), and Julian Lucero (BS Comp E). Michelle Urban (MBA from Anderson) was also part of the team.
The ECE team, which calls itself “Ground State,” competed against 12 other teams in a University-wide competition. They presented their business plans to 40+ venture capitalists and angel investors who picked the winners.
"Creating the business plan for an engineering product idea was a great learning experience," said team member Alexandria Haddad. "It reinforced everything that we have been studying over the last four years in ECE, and put a clear perspective on the business aspect that is involved in bringing a great product to market."
Ground State is a “big data company” which, according to Creighton Glenn of ECE’s Innovation Plaza is “a company that collects information from multiple users and derives useful suggestions for better living.”
Ground State’s prize-winning consumer product is Drive Pilot™ — a device that attaches to any vehicle made after 1996 and captures driving metrics such as speed, RPM, GPS location, and throttle position which users can access in real time. This information is used to encourage safe driving behaviors for new drivers, assist small business with fleet management, and more.
Ground State won a $20,000 cash prize, $3,500 that will be used for lawyers’ services and a year of virtual office space that will all be used to accelerate the growth of their business. The team was awarded their prize at a reception and banquet at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Albuquerque.
Justin Johnston, the Chief Technology Officer of Ground State said, “We would like to thank Dr. Ramiro Jordan and Dr. Kamil Agi for the mentorship during the initial phases of exploring the business idea.
“It is exciting to have world class professors that are genuinely interested in the success of their students here in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at UNM,” said Johnston.
Ground State also won first place in the Pitch Fiesta 2.0 sponsored by Startup New Mexico, a statewide effort led by entrepreneurs to support the growth of startups throughout New Mexico.
Elmyra Grelle, Coordinator of the Graduate Program at ECE, has won the prestigious 2013-2014 School of Engineering Staff Award. She will receive a check for $1,000 and a handsome plaque at the Student Staff Awards Banquet on Fri., May 9 from 11 am to 1:30 pm at the Centennial Engineering Center.
“The competition this year was extraordinary, making the selection process a difficult one,” said Dr. Joseph Cecchi, Dean of the School of Engineering.
Elmyra manages the application process for incoming graduate students and the degree process for those already enrolled. She advises and assists them as they navigate their way through their individual programs. She also maintains their records and processes their contracts.
"Elmyra is one of the hardest workers I know," said co-worker Yvone' Nelson. "She is always juggling multiple responsibilities and deadlines. She gives high priority to her graduate students and takes great care of them. In fact, many lovingly refer to her as their mom."
"Outside of my children, my greatest accomplishment has been making a difference in the lives of students,” said Elmyra. “I have worked with students from kindergarten to college and that's a lot of students!"
Elmyra was born and raised in Albuquerque. "I'm a two time New Mexico State alumni, carrying on a long family tradition of attending NMSU,” she said proudly.
Elmyra taught in public and private schools for 12 years before joining ECE in 2006. "I love working with the graduate students because of their desire to pursue an advanced degree, their enthusiasm about their research and their multi-national backgrounds," she said.
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COSMIAC stands for the "Configurable Space Microsystems Innovations and Applications Center." It promotes aerospace innovation through the reliable and responsible use of configurable technology in military and defense systems. 
The first is an antenna that was printed into the wall of a spacecraft that was similar to UNM's first satellite, launched in 2013.
The second example is a solar panel that was printed into the wall of a spacecraft. 
Upon their arrival, visitors snacked on treats and walked through the $285,000 structure. 
“This was the first time UNM participated in the Solar Decathlon and we are proud of the result,” said UNM President Robert Frank during his welcome and opening remarks. “(We were) working and competing shoulder-to-shoulder with other excellent Universities.” Frank then welcomed distinguished visitors from the Congressional Offices of Ben Ray Lujan and Senator Martin Heinrich.
