The Citadel Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Class of 2024 Highlight!

David Calhoun is a recent Electrical Engineering major graduate. Post graduation he will be working as an electrical technician at Nucor Corporation.

We wish him all the best!

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Gavin Branyon is a recent Computer Engineering major graduate. Post graduation, he will start a position at Hitachi Rails in Batesburg-Leesville, SC as a LabView Test Engineer.

We wish him all the best!

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Noah H Kiger is a recent Electrical Engineering major graduate. Post graduation, he will work at CD controls, a company that designs and manufactures Integrated Electrical Switchgear and Energy Management Control Systems in Lavonia, GA.

We wish him all the best!

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Daniel Dockins is a recent Computer Engineering major graduate. Post graduation, he will work for NIWC as a computer engineer.

We wish him all the best!

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Brandon Smith is a recent Electrical Engineering major graduate. Post graduation, Brandon will participate in the Citadel's MCAT bootcamp, with plans to take the MCAT and apply for medical school in July.

We wish him all the best!

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Hunter Hamilton is a recent computer engineering graduate. Post graduation, he will be working with Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic as an engineer, with aspirations to become a technical expert in PLCs and communication systems while working to achieve his Fundamentals of Engineering certificate and eventually his Practices and Principles of Engineering certificate.

We wish him all the best!

In Dr. Sylmarie Dávila-Montero's Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Biomedical Applications class, students processed Encephalography (EEG) signals recorded from the Frontal cortex of a human brain. Using MATLAB and the signal processing toolbox, they looked at the frequency spectrum of the EEG signals, designed filters to extract frequency bands of interest, filtered the signals, and looked at the power spectral density of the Alpha rhythms of the brain signals to investigate if this frequency band provides information that could help differentiate a state of relaxation with closed eyes versus an alert state with opened eyes.

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Krista Farley is a recent electrical engineering major graduate. Post graduation, she will be a new professional engineer at NIWC LANT.

We wish her all the best!

It may be summer, but class is still in session! In Dr. Mazzaro's summer Circuits class, sophomore students constructed a voltage-divider circuit. They built the circuit using through-hole resistors placed on a breadboard, and they applied electricity into it using the Analog Discovery prototyping kit. The students measured the difference in voltage between different points in the circuit using a multimeter.

Class of 2024 Highlight!

Philip Carr was an electrical engineering major in the ECE department. After graduation, he was commissioned into the Arkansas Army National Guard on May 3rd, and has taken a job as an Assistant Electrical Engineer with Burns and McDonnell out of Greenville SC designing Industrial Manufacturing Facilities.

We wish him the best!

Another Year in the Books! Here are some ECE highlights from the 2023-2024 academic year:

1. ECE student Aekchanin Iamborisut was named the 23-24 First Graduate.

2. Dr. Ron Hayne received the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award and Evening Undergraduate Program Teaching Award.

3. Dr. Robert Barsanti received the Graduate Program Teaching Award.

4. Dr. Greg Mazzaro was promoted to full professor.

5. ECE senior design team "Techno Vikings" were awarded second place in engineering at Academic Excellence Day for their Automatic Dart Board.

6. Newly graduated cadets Robert Perrecone and Daniel Rathbun placed second in the annual Lockheed Martin Ethics in Engineering Competition.

7. IEEE members attended Southeast Con and Leadership Conference.

8. three of the five inductees for Academy of Engineers were ECE alumni.

9. ECE students participated in various academic activities, including: The ECE senior banquet, the ECE scholarship luncheon, Order of the Engineers Induction ceremony, Lunch and Learn, CEEDS,and industry visits.

The ECE department is proud to have had two faculty members honored at The Citadel's CGC Awards Banquet. Dr. Ron Hayne received the Evening Undergraduate Program Teaching Award, and Dr. Robert Barsanti received the Graduate Program Teaching Award. Our faculty are dedicated to their students, and we are proud to see their commitment recognized!

On April 25th, ECE faculty member Dr. Ron Hayne received The Citadel’s Faculty in Excellence in Teaching Award. This honor is presented to a Citadel faculty member who is an outstanding scholar and professor. Dr. Hayne was recognized for his curriculum development and dedication to the newly established Computer Engineering Program.

The ECE department is proud to announce Dr. Greg Mazzaro's promotion from associate professor to full professor, beginning August 16th. Dr. Mazzaro is a highly innovative scholar and researcher, with over ten patents to his name. We are honored to have him as a part of our faculty, and cannot wait to see what he does next!

At The Citadel's 2024 Phi Kappa Phi induction, ECE student Frederick Vogel was The Citadel's nominee for the Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Fellowship. Each chapter is only allowed one nominee, and, if selected, is awarded up to $35,000 dollars for graduate studies. Cadet Vogel has been an outstanding student, and we congratulate him on all his success!

ECE faculty member Dr. Robert Barsanti was also the faculty inductee for this year. This induction is awarded to faculty with significant scholarly distinction. We are honored to have Dr. Barsanti as a part of our department!

The ECE department is honored to have had three of our incredible alumni inducted into this year's Academy of Engineers. The Academy of Engineers is a prestigious honor that highlights the successes of engineers within both their professional and community spheres.

While pursuing continuous personal and professional success, ECE honorees Eric Bailey ('84), Hernan Peña Jr. ('84), and Sandra Wright ('04) have embodied the core Citadel values regarding leadership and integrity. We would also like to congratulate Ned Sanders (CIVIL '53) and Linda Riedel (ELPM '11) for their initiation in to the Academy of Engineers.

Inductees were joined by family, faculty, staff, students, General Walters, Provost Selden, Dean Andrew B. Williams, and various supporters of the School of Engineering. We thank them for their attendance and excitement, as they are vital to the success of the ceremony.

Happy CEEDS! On April 17th, the ECE department hosted the 2024 Citadel Electrical Engineering Design Symposium (CEEDS). CEEDS showcases the year long projects ECE senior design students have undertaken in Dr. Sylmarie Dávila-Montero, Ph.D.'s senior design class. There were six teams, each responsible for developing a specific product for their client: an automatic pet door, a self-scoring dart board, an electronic harmonica, a temperature monitoring griddle, a lighting detection system, and an interactive dual-train display.

Each group presented their project to the audience, explaining the development process, outcomes, and challenges they faced along the way. The ECE department is proud to have such dedicated students, and we congratulate them on all their hard work!

Students: Jordan Aiken, Gavin Branyon, David Calhoun, Philip Carr, Daniel Dockins, Krista Farley, Shamar Goodridge, Hunter Hamilton, Riley Huckaby, Aekchanin Iamborisut, Nicholas Johnson, Tyler Kidwell, Noah H Kiger, Garrett Larson, Robert Perrecone, Daniel Rathbun, Jesse Rog, Joseph Rogers, Brandon Smith, James Short, Allen Szczepek, Joshua Tolbert, Frederick Vogel, Chase Wright, and Ming-chin Wu

Congratulations to the Class of 2024!

On April 4th, the ECE department had a banquet to celebrate our graduating seniors. Students celebrated their academic accomplishments and future endeavors with their classmates and ECE faculty.

Three Awards were also presented at the banquet:

(Student) Charles Thurston Razor award: Shamar Goodridge
(Student) Peter Gaillard Memorial award: Daniel Rathbun
(Faculty) J. Lawton and Emmah S. Ellis Teaching Award: Dr. Mark McKinney

We are so proud of all our seniors, and wish them all the best in their future endeavors!

Our ECE students had an incredible time presenting at this year's Academic Excellence Day. Students from Dr. Sylmarie Dávila-Montero, Ph.D.'s senior design class had the opportunity to present on their projections, including an automatic pet door and and self scoring dart board. We are so proud to see our student showing off all their hard work!

Students Pictured: Robert Perrecone, Nicholas Johnson, Daniel Dockins, Brandon Smith, Philip Carr, Shamar Goodridge, and Joseph Rogers.

This past weekend, Dr. Sylmarie Dávila-Montero, Dr. Mazzaro, and 7 ECE students traveled to IEEE Southeast Con in Atlanta, GA.

Our students were able to test their knowledge in a variety of different competitions. Cadets Robert Perrecone, Daniel Rathbun, & Aekchanin Iamborisut participated in the Ethics Competition. Cadets Caitlyn Tyson, Adam Shingler, & Daniel Rathbun participated in the Software Competition. Cadets Caitlyn Tyson & Shingler were joined by Erika Hernandez for the Circuit-Design Competition. Cadet Anthony Cole participated in the Networking Competition.

Our faculty also had an opportunity to present at the event, with Dr. Dávila-Montero giving a presentation on her paper, “Machine Learning Fusion Model Approach for the Real-Time Detection of Head Gestures using IMUs” at one of the technical sessions.

On March 2nd, The Citadel hosted the Science Olympiad state competition, where middle school and high school student competed in a series of events in the areas of biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, problem-solving, and technology. Two ECE faculty members, Dr. Greg Mazzaro and Sylmarie Dávila-Montero, Ph.D., directed the Wind Power event with the help of three of our students. They administered and a written exam on the principles of alternative energy and tested the blade assembly devices constructed by the teams prior to the tournament. In this event, thirteen teams from across South Carolina competed for a chance to advance to the national competitions.

We had an amazing turn out at The Citadel School of Engineering Spring Internship Fair! Over 50 exciting companies came out and spoke with cadet, evening, day, and veteran students. Many of the companies, including Scientific Research Corporation, Nucor Corporation, Gulfstream Aerospace, and Defense Engineering Services, directly spoke with and sought out our ECE students. We hope to keep developing our relationship with industry, and cannot thank them enough for their continued support of our students!

Our sophomores in ELEC 204 Electrical Laboratory I completed the “First-Order Circuits” experiment in our Electronics Laboratory. In this lab, our students construct, measure, and capture the behavior of resistive-and-capacitive (RC) circuits. Such circuits are used to keep DC voltages steady while they are converted from AC, or to select frequencies to transmit/receive as part of a radio or cell-phone system.

Lunch and Learn is back in session! Every Wednesday, ECE students, from k***s to seniors, come to enjoy a pizza lunch and a collaborative experience with their classmates. Upperclassmen are encouraged to assist k***s and sophomores with the foundational material, furthering the connection between ECE students. Lunch and Learn is an exciting and educational program that emphasizes the importance of student-led academic experiences.

Our ECE sophomores benefit greatly from hands-on experiences in the classroom!

In ELEC 204, Electrical Laboratory I, students completed the “Operational Amplifiers” laboratory experiment in the Electronics Laboratory. In this lab, the students construct and observe the behavior of the “op amp”, an integrated circuit (IC), which is used to convert direct-current (DC, battery) power into additional alternating-current (AC) signal strength. Such ICs are ubiquitous in radio-frequency devices such as cell phones.

We love to see our ECE students further develop their skills!

Our sophomores (a mix of cadets and veteran students) in ELEC 204 Electrical Laboratory I completed the “Linear Superposition” laboratory experiment in our Electronics Laboratory. In this lab, the students observe the consequences of multiple electrical sources (e.g. multiple batteries) applied simultaneously to the same circuit. Here, our students begin to understand how multiple signals can exist within the same electrical circuit (e.g. inside an audio system). Later, they will study how those signals can be routed and processed differently (e.g. sent to different speakers – e.g. low frequencies routed to a subwoofer).

Last week, senior cadets, veterans, active duty, and evening students were able to come together to join the esteemed Order of Engineer. Established in 1970, the Order of the Engineer is an association for graduating and professional engineers, which emphasizes the importance and responsibility of engineers. Participating Citadel students were given a presentation from keynote speaker, John Peeples, and then read out the Order of the Engineer Obligation. ECE students were presented their rings by ECE department head, Mark McKinney.

We are so proud of all our students and all that they accomplish!

Our sophomores in ELEC 204 Electrical Laboratory I completed the “Direct-Current Measurements” laboratory experiment in our Electronics Laboratory (GRIMS 311). This lab is the first of about 30 experiments that our students will perform over the next year-and-a-half in their 3-course Electrical Lab sequence. Dr. Greg Mazzaro coached the students to generate DC voltages (e.g. the type of energy output by a battery or a plug-in wall charger), and to measure the flow of electricity through 2 different circuits.

In Dr. Mazzaro's ELEC 426 Antennas & Propagation course, seniors utilized soldering irons and whatever materials they could find to construct their own antennas. The students tested the functionality of their antennas using an antenna-mount rig that ECE lab tech Bart Knapp assembled. We love seeing our cadets turn nothing into something!

We are so proud of our ECE students!

Congratulations to the 2023 Inductees to the Citadel's Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society. This Sunday, 29 juniors and seniors from across the School of Engineering were added. The inductees included both cadets and evening transfer students with 8 majoring in Civil, 2 in Construction, 6 in Electrical, and 13 in Mechanical.
The Citadel Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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The Citadel School of Engineering