Leslie Geddes, a Purdue University distinguished professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering and recipient of the National Medal of Technology, died on Sunday (Oct. 25). He was 88. The Showalter Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering, Geddes created innovations ranging from burn treatments to miniature defibrillators and ligament repair to tiny blood pressure monitors for premature infants.

Forty-nine of the nation's brightest young engineering researchers and educators have been selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's symposium. It will be held November 15-18, 2009 in Herndon, Virginia.

The grant, entitled "Enabling Transformational Science and Engineering Through Integrated Collaborative Visualization and Data Analysis for the National User Community", is shared between Purdue University and the University of Texas at Austin

The student researcher, working with Professor Dimitri Peroulis, won for his research on High-Efficiency On-Chip Antennas.

His research is on Integrated High-Q High-Tunability Evanescent Mode Tunable Filter using Reliable MEMS Technology. His adviser is Professor Dimitri Peroulis.

The paper was co-authored by Julio Ho from BME at Purdue, Daryush Mehta from MIT-Harvard, Robert Hillman from MGH/MIT-Harvard, and Professor George Wodicka of ECE. The project is part of the collaboration between Professor Wodicka and Professor Robert Hillman, Research Director of the Center for Laryngeal Surgery & Voice Rehabilitation at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $105 million to a Purdue-led team to spearhead a center that will serve as headquarters for the operations of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, or NEES. Submitted through the Cyber Center in Purdue's Discovery Park, the grant spans five years and is the largest in the university's history. Julio Ramirez, Professor of civil engineering, will serve as the Director of the center. Professor Bagchi will be responsible for the cybersecurity of NEES hardware and software assets at the headquarters and the 14 NEES sites.

Professor Jan Allebach and a team of eight ECE faculty (Professors Boutin, Brown, Koh, Krogmeier, Lee, Love, Lu and Meyer) secured the HP Innovations in Education grant to develop and test a new teaching approach designed to boost the academic success of underrepresented minorities in engineering programs.

Purdue University is currently conducting a search for the position of Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

U.S. News & World Report has released this year's national rankings of ECE undergraduate programs. Purdue Electrical/Electronic/Communications Engineering ranks #10 among programs at doctoral-granting universities (tied for #9 last year). Purdue Computer Engineering ranks #11 (same as last year).