Over 100 people attended the ECE Solar Open House at Mesa Del Sol on Fri., Feb. 21 from noon until 3 p.m.
Upon their arrival, visitors snacked on treats and walked through the $285,000 structure.
Later, UNM President Robert Frank and Provost Chaouki Abdallah acted as keynote speakers during a ceremony held in an adjoining tent. They introduced a host of politicians and corporate dignitaries to the overflow crowd.
Known as the SHADE house (short for “Solar Homes Adapting for Desert Equilibrium”) participants in the Open House were able to study, first-hand, a luxurious structure that can produce more energy than it consumes.
Originally constructed as part of the Solar Decathalon (a collegiate competition sponsored by the US Dept. of Energy), ECE partnered with Arizona State University to form a team that designed and built the 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.
“Students had to live in this house for 10 days, cook food, wash dishes, wash and dry clothes,” marveled Chaouki Abdallah, UNM Provost. “They also had to have heat or air-conditioning – all while being monitored for how much energy and water was being used.” Abdallah proceded to introduce officials from PNM, Sandia National Labs, Sacred Power and the developer of Mesa del Sol.
Finally, ECE Prof. Olga Lavrova thanked her students for their hard work and invited everybody present to view and learn more about the SHADE house in small groups that were guided by her pupils.
The SHADE project was kicked off in January 2012 with Secretary Chu’s visit to UNM. Next month it will become the executive visitor’s suite for former President Clinton’s Global Initiative University event in Tempe, Arizona.
Click here to see the Program for the Open House!
You can take an animated tour of the SHADE house by watching the following video that was created by the Anderson School of Management, IFDM and SA+P:
Jorge Torres, of Albuquerque KOB Eyewitness News 4, recently visited the solar home at Mesa Del Sol and filed this report (after a brief 15 second advertisement):
In January 2014 ECE graduate student Jose Marcio Luna won a credit of $21,000 to carry out his experiments in the Amazon Web Services cloud.
"This award is very important for me because it indicates that I am on the right track and gives me the motivation to keep working," said Jose Marcio Luna during a recent interview.
Jose is originally from Colombia where he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electronics Engineering at the District University of Bogota. He then earned a Master of Science Degree in Electrical
Engineering here, at ECE.
“I was born in the Colombian Caribbean coast which is well known for its beautiful mixture of Indigenous African and Spanish culture. These influences have shaped my ideas,
perceptions and opinions of the surrounding reality,” said Jose who arrived at ECE from Columbia in the fall of 2007.
Elmyra Grelle, ECE graduate program coordinator at UNM, has worked with Jose since he arrived here after winning the Colfuturo Scholarship to pursue graduate
studies.
“Jose is very kind, courteous and helpful to other international students and has been diligent in earning his degrees,” said Grelle.
“I’m currently working on my PhD in Electrical Engineering with a PhD minor in Applied Mathematics under the supervision of Dr. Chaouki Abdallah. In my spare time I practice
camping, hiking and rock climbing in the New Mexican mountains,” said Jose.
“My current research looks at the development of theoretical techniques to optimize the performance of computing systems by using Control Systems theory, Discrete Event
Systems(DES) theory, optimization theory and Randomized Algorithms.”
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ECE faculty members Majeed Hayat and Sanjay Krishna have been named IEEE Fellows.
The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society, with over 400,000 members. The IEEE was designed to serve professionals involved in all aspects of the electrical, electronic and computing fields and related areas of science and technology that underlie modern civilization. The number of Fellows elected in any given year is limited to 0.1% of the membership.
"The elevation of two of our ECE faculty in the Fellow Class of 2014 is a matter of considerable pride," said Jane Lehr, department chair. "The recognition of the outstanding technical accomplishments of Professors Sanjay Krishna and Majeed Hayat is a prestigious honor and an important career milestone."
Majeed Hayat, a professor at ECE, was recognized for his contributions to the modeling of impact ionization and noise in avalanche-photodiode devices. His research has helped ensure that consumer demand for higher data volume and speed within today’s computer networks are met.
Hayat pioneered techniques that have changed the way we look at avalanche photodiode photodetectors. His work on image-processing algorithms and thermal/spectral imaging have lead to the improvement and performance of inexpensive uncooled infrared imagers.
Sanjay Krishna, Director of the Center for High Technology Materials, joined ECE in 2001 and was recognized for his contributions to infrared detectors and focal plane arrays. His research into infrared sensing has helped firefighters locate people trapped in smoke-filled rooms and pilots find landing strips during bad weather.
Krishna's work has helped doctors non-invasively detect skin cancer, arthritis and diabetic neuropathy. His investigations into early skin cancer detection could help save millions of lives. He is best known for his development of novel midwave/longwave infrared detectors and focal plane arrays based on the quantum-dot-in-a-well design.
Both Hayat and Krishna received a beautifully matted and framed certificate bearing their names and a brief citation describing their accomplishments. They also received a congratulatory letter from the IEEE president and a gold sterling silver Fellow lapel pin with antique finish.
We invite those who would like to learn more to read the IEEE press releases that were recently published by the School of Engineering. To read Majeed Hayat's release, press this link. And to read about Sanjay Krishna's release, please press this link.
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Dorca Lee, a PhD student in Dr. Rafael Fierro’s robotics lab won the NASA/New Mexico Space Grant Fellowship on December 16, 2013.
Dorca began her robotics research in July 2012, when she received an NSF grant that sent her to Brazil and allowed her the opportunity to collaborate with the computer science department at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, UFMG. While there, she developed an algorithm that controls the way a large number of robots navigate an area collectively without directly specifying movements for each individual.
Dorca wrote a proposal about this work to the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium and how her project could potentially improve the way planetary exploration is done at NASA. This preliminary and promising swarm segregation algorithm won her the NASA/New Mexico Space Grant Fellowship. With this award she hopes to make improvement to her research, run lab tests, and hopefully make robotic swarms a possibility in outer space.
Dorca arrived at UNM from ETH Zurich in 2012 where she was studying electrical engineering. She has Bachelors in physics and applied math, and a Masters in electrical engineering from FSU. She plans to pursue her PhD at UNM while working with Dr. Fierro’s robotics lab.
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Eight excited high school students visited the ECE Department on November 11. These budding young scientists and engineers were part of the La Cueva High School’s Gifted Mentorship Program.
The students eagerly explored the nooks and crannies of the ECE building and also visited the plasma physics lab, the x-ray studies lab and the VLSI lab.
The high schoolers were awed by the HelCat plasma device (which looks like something out of a science fiction movie) and their curiosity was further stoked by passionate college students and professors who shared their own experiences, hopes and dreams for the future.
After the tour the students met with mentors who helped identify their interests and prepare them for an academic adventure that will begin this spring at ECE. At that time these gifted students will start working with research teams who will further nurture their interests in Electrical and Computer Engineering and prepare them for the college experience.
Edward Nava is looking forward to talking to students (or their parents) who have an interest in this unique engineering journey. Ed can be reached by e-mail at ejnava@unm.edu or give him a call at (505) 277-0809.
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Daniel Feezell, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, recently received a highly competitive DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA). The objective of the DARPA YFA program is to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and expose them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA’s program development process. [more]
UNM OSE-ECE and Smart lighting ERC PhD student, Md. Mottaleb Hossain, was awarded the prestigious SPIE Student Travel Grant to present his paper titled "Theoretical characteristics of 1.55 µm InN based quantum dot laser" at the SPIE Optics & Photonics Conference, San Diego, CA, USA, August 25-29, 2013. The SPIE Optics & Photonics Conference is the largest optical science and technology meeting in North America. Mr. Hossain was selected for this travel grant by the SPIE and the Symposium and Conference Chairs of the Optics & Photonics Symposium. [more]
Zhen Peng, Assistant Professor in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has recently received the Young Scientist Award of 2013 Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference. He has also received the Young Scientist Award of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Commission B, 2013 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Theory. [more]
The UNM School of Engineering is pleased to announce that Jane Lehr will be joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as professor and chair on August 1, 2013. Lehr is an internationally respected researcher with a record of marked distinction and significant impact in the areas of pulsed power science and technology. She brings a commitment to education, extensive experience in administration and leadership, and well-honed interpersonal skills. Lehr received her Ph.D. in 1996 in Electrical Engineering from New York University-Polytechnic. [more]
Meeko Oishi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, recently received a highly sought-after National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award.
[more]
Professors Majeed Hayat, Andrea Mammoli and Nasir Ghani have recently received a three-year $1.05 million grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to support basic research on understanding cascading failures in modern power grids.
[more]
Calling all ECE Students: Help out at NeuroGames on March 14-16 
