(SEECS Annual Activity Report continued from page 1)

    We actively prepared for upcoming accreditation visits by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board (CSAB), which will take place this coming fall. If accreditation from ABET and CSAB is renewed, it would be for the next six years and would again provide an assurance of quality education from our school. Preparation for the audit has enabled us to improve laboratories, reconsider certain undergraduate courses for improvement and evaluate our program assessment methods and objectives. For example, a faculty committee has streamlined the introductory Electrical Engineering courses into a two-course sequence for majors and a single, separate course for non-majors.
    To enhance the quality of our learning experience, we capped undergraduate sections in Computer Science service courses to 200 students this year. These fundamental courses run smoothly now and with full student satisfaction. The same classes attracted close to 7,000 undergraduates across all disciplines, providing many with an introduction to modern computing.
    We pay tribute to Homer Gerber, Computer Science Associate Professor, and Darrell Linton, Computer Engineering Associate Professor, who decided to retire in 2002 after many years of dedicated service to our university. Also, Janusz Zalewski, Computer Engineering Associate Professor, was evaluated for tenure and left UCF to join the University of West Florida. We are grateful to them for their contributions to our community.

• Within the College of Engineering and Computer Science, SEECS grant awards amounted to $5,950,889, representing 50 percent of grants and contracts awarded to our college.
  

• This year's external research grant awards in Computer Science (including federal and industry grants) doubled over the last fiscal year, reaching $3,895,934. Over the last four years, the department's external funding has increased by 700 percent. The column chart below illustrates the external funding earned in each department.
  

• Our faculty received more than $1.8 million in new grants from the National Science Foundation this year, which is the most competitive source of research funding. More than $1.5 million of the total was awarded in Computer Science.
• Dan Marinescu, Computer Science Professor, secured $1.1 million in funding during FY 2002. The distinction made him a member of UCF's Millionaire Club and the most-funded researcher in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is conducting research in computational biology and process coordination on a computational grid.
  

• Additionally, four of the top five researchers in the College of Engineering and Computer Science are SEECS faculty. Erol Gelenbe was second, securing $661,408 in research funding, Kien A. Hua, Computer Science Professor, was third with $603,456 and Guy Schiavone, Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering, was fifth in the college, earning $457,807. Of the 80 faculty in the college who received research grants last year, 33 (or 41 percent) were from SEECS.
• Computer Science Graduate SCH grew by more than 25 percent to 3,295 in the 12 months ended May 2002. (In the last four years, Computer Science graduate SCH has grown more than 281 percent.) During the same 12-month period, Computer Engineering graduate SCH grew by 3 percent to 1,209, while Electrical Engineering graduate SCH declined by 17 percent to 2,102.
  

• Erol Gelenbe received the medal of Officer of the National Order of Merit of France in Washington, DC in 2002.
  

SEECS has remained the UCF unit with the largest number of industry-funded partnership projects. This year, joint work was conducted with Central Florida companies such as Agere Systems, Adaptec Inc., ImageSoft Technologies, GigaNet Technologies Inc., Raytheon Co., Intersil Corp., Honeywell, Boeing Co., Harris Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Theseus Logic Inc. and Schwartz Electro-Optics Inc. (SEO). New projects were developed with NASA's Kennedy Space Flight Center and new work, funded by U.S. Army STRICOM and Naval Air Warfare Center, was initiated.     Another highlight is the SEECS Industry Advisory Board. The IAB's mission is to create and foster a partnership between SEECS leadership and the various industries that are interested in our research and in our graduates as future employees. Many thanks to Dr. Michael Macedonia, Chair of IAB and Chief Scientist and Acting Technical Director at U.S. Army STRICOM; he has been instrumental in the success and growth of our industry projects.     We extend our thanks to the students, faculty, staff and alumni of UCF and to our administration, industry partners, friends and community for their support and generosity. It is through the dedication of so many that our School of EECS and its programs continue to thrive.