Vishwanath Hosts NSF REU PI Meeting

Sriram Vishwanath, with the help of the NSF, and the Electrical & Computer Engineering faculty, staff and students, led the organization of the NSF REU PI meeting in Austin this February 28th and 29th. The event brought together NSF program officers and roughly 45 professors from across the Nation to discuss ways to enable and improve undergraduate research experience and education. A subgroup of these visiting professors toured the Dell (a WNCG affiliate) manufacturing facility in Round Rock, and were full of praise for Dell hospitality and the overall experience.

Discussions at the PI meeting included ways to improve minority recruitment in research and graduate study, improving student life on campus, establishing and building on mentoring relationships between faculty & students and finally, involving industry/affiliate companies in undergraduate research.

Dr. Sriram Vishwanath received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, M.S. from CalTech and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering. His research interests include information theory, wireless communications and coding theory. His industry experience includes work at the National Semiconductor Corporation, CA and at the Lucent Bell labs, NJ. He has won a NSF CAREER Award and the 2005 IEEE Joint IT/Comsoc Best Paper Award.

Research Interests:

• Information theory
• Wireless communications
• Coding theory