Industry Advisors Board (IAB)

ECET department received strong support from its Industry Advisors Board (IAB) (current officers are Chris Frederick (Chair), Jessica Smasal (Vice Chair), composed of board members from local and regional industry electrical engineering and computer hardware/software companies, with diverse sizes e.g., very small companies such as Thin Film Technologies (tens of employees), small companies such as Design Ready Control (150 employees), mid-size companies such as Itron (6700 employees), and large-size companies such as IBM (350K employees). Since 2017, the department and the department’s IAB work hard to develop an effective IAB board, in response to the call from our Deans. The IAB board worked closely with Dr. Qun (Vincent) Zhang, Chair of ECET, and developed and rectified the by-laws for the board, and re-organized the board in the fall 2018 IAB meeting.

Starting spring 2019 IAB meeting, the board and its meetings run according to by-laws, and also become more deeply involved in department program development. The department works more closely with industry and the IAB board, to receive stronger support, advices, and avocation for our programs. IAB and board members contribute to student tours, internship, support to FE exams, department seminars, department outreach, department course development and involvement (in freshman and sophomore courses).