Two new faculty endowments promise to supercharge research at ECE Florida, providing critical support for two of the department’s highest-performing researchers. The endowed professorships will support researchers’ labs and efforts as well as personnel and travel.
Sandip Ray
Dr. Sandip Ray, a professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was recently named the Warren B. Nelms Endowed Professor, in support of his research in trustworthy computing, automotives and the Internet of Things. Dr. Ray is also the director of industry programs at the Warren B. Nelms Institute for the Connected World.
Both the institute and the endowed professorship are named in honor of Warren B. Nelms (BSEE ’59), an ECE alumnus who worked with the internet of things before there was a name for the discipline.
Warren B. Nelms
Warren Nelms was an engineer who built his own solar “smart” house where he raised his children – who both went on to become UF engineers as well. His son and daughter-in-law, David and Daryl Nelms, honored him by generously investing $5M to help create the institute.
Nelms’ innovative spirit revealed itself early in his life—he invented an auto-dial system for telephones while still in high school. Prior to retiring, he started his own company, Computec, and invented a device, Bluebox, used to determine home energy use, cost, and efficiency.
Learn more about Warren Nelms here.
Shuo Wang
Dr. Shuo Wang, a professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was recently named the Michael Hsing Faculty Fellow, in support of his research in power electronics, electrical power, electromagnetic interference, electric vehicles, green energy conversion and grid integration, electromagnetic security, IoT security, cyber security, and hardware security.
Michael Hsing
ECE Florida Hall of Fame member Michael Hsing (BSEE ’88) is the founder and CEO of Monolithic Power Systems, an S&P 500 company. Hsing was born in Shanghai, China, and grew up during the Cultural Revolution. When he was 21, he came to the U.S. as a foreign exchange student. In 1988, he graduated from the University of Florida with his BSEE and was accepted into the graduate program. Hsing started MPS in late 1997 with a vision, reflected in the name of the company, Monolithic Power Systems – to integrate power electronics solutions onto a single chip. To execute his vision, Hsing created groundbreaking technologies using a fully integrated power process in a CMOS foundry.
By 2016, under Hsing’s leadership, MPS integrated power transistors, high-precision analog circuitries in embedded microcontrollers, and memory components onto a single silicon chip. Finally fulfilling Hsing’s vision, MPS introduced an industry first – a cost-effective, user-configurable, micro power module – an entire power system in a single package.
Learn more about Michael Hsing here.