CESCA Newsletter : April 2009

Congratulations on the inaugural issue of the CESCA newsletter! A handful of faculty members scrambled together and proposed a research group in the summer of 2003 to be a part of the College’s then new research center, ICTAS (Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science). The proposal was successful, and CESCA was born in October 2003. Since then, CESCA has grown in size. Five new members, Profs Chao Huang, Leyla Nazhandali, Jung-Min Park, Patrick Schaumont, and Yaling Yang, have joined CESCA; meanwhile the founding four members, Profs. Lynn Abbott, Michael Hsiao, Sandeep Shukla, and myself, have added a few more grey hairs here and there. The faculty members of CESCA have been active in their research since the inception of the research group. For example, five of its members are awardees of the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, which recognizes junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research and education. Then, why should we go through the trouble of initiating with new CESCA activities such as the publication of newsletters, renovation of CESCA web pages, and writing joint proposals? The main driving force behind those activities was (and probably “is”) the ECE department. The Department wanted the ECE faculty to form large research units and go after large research projects. Large projects, not only bring in more revenue to the Department, but enhance visibility of the Department and hence improve the department ranking. The Department’s demand necessitated the CESCA faculty to collaborate further in research.