Thomas Wu has been elected a Senior Member, IEEE as of August 2002.

Jiann Yuan, Associate Professor of EE, received the College of Engineering and Computer Science “Distinguished Researcher Award” at the UCF Founders’ Day in April 2002. He also received the Outstanding Engineering award from the IEEE Orlando section for this year.

Fatma Nasoz, who is earning a Ph.D. in CS and is working with Dr. Christine Lisetti, received the Center for Advanced Transportation Systems Simulation (CATTS) Scholarship for summer 2002.

Patty Sharek, a Ph.D. student in EE, has received a NASA Graduate Research Fellowship to study new piezoelectric materials for frequency control and sensors. Don Malocha, Professor of EE, is the principal investigator on the grant. Patty has also been selected for a NSF Fellowship, which was delayed temporarily and has a potential start date of 2003.

In October, the UCF Programming Team preserved its 20-year record of earning a top-three or better finish in the ACM Southeast Regional Programming Contest. The UCF Bedivere team of Ben Douglass, Walter Mundt and Ryan Wilson (pictured above, L to R, with Erol Gelenbe) placed third out of 80 teams. Congratulations! Initially, the Bedivere team tied for first with Mississippi State and Florida Tech in the number of problems finished. A system of “penalty points” determined the tie breaker with UCF winning third place. Georgia Tech finished fourth, Univ. of Florida was fifth and Florida State Univ. placed seventh. A total of five groups from UCF competed in the contest, with the other four teams finishing eighth, 10th, 19th and 20th. Dr. Ali Orooji is the team’s advisor, and team coaches include Glenn Martin, Jason Daly, Phillip Dexheimer, Richard Russo and Ambrose Feinstein.