Awards Received by
ECE Students, Faculty, and Alumni in 2006

Outstanding Undergraduate Award

Bharat Sankaran

Bharat Sankaran is a senior in Electrical Engineering in The Volgenau School of Information Technology & Engineering at George Mason University. He has made the Dean’s List every semester at Mason. Since his freshman year, Bharat has been a member of Mason’s prestigious University Scholars Program. Students in this program are selected on the basis of “superior academic achievement, demonstrated leadership qualities, and a strong commitment to community service.” Bharat is a member of several honor societies, including Tau Beta Epsilon, Eta Kappa Nu, Phi Beta Delta, and Alpha Lambda Delta. He has received an Academic Excellence Award from Mason’s Offi ce of Diversity Programs every year since 2003.

Bharat gained valuable work experience while still an undergraduate student. At Mason he worked as a peer assistant for the Computer Science Department, helping students in lower level programming courses learn the fundamental concepts. Since January 2005, he has worked as a research assistant at Microwave Technologies Incorporated, where he was recruited by Professor Peter Ceperley. He recently joined IT&E Professor Rao Mulpuri’s research group, where he is designing semiconductor devices for use in bio-engineering applications. 

In addition to outstanding academic achievements, Bharat has also been a leader in several student organizations. He is currently serving as president of the Mason student chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and treasurer for the Mason chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. 

As a junior, Bharat was accepted into the accelerated master’s program in electrical engineering. He will complete his master’s degree in 2007.

Dean's Special
Student Recognition Award

Renato Guevara

Renato Guevara is a senior majoring in Computer Engineering with a 3.72 Grade Point Average. Throughout his four years at George Mason University, Renato participated in the Honors Program in General Education which offers an integrated curriculum of interdisciplinary courses that satisfy the University’s General Education requirements for graduation. Renato is a recipient of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) Scholarship as well as the NVTC Bannister Scholarship.

During his junior year, Renato was installed as President of the Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society and was initiated as a member of the Tau Beta Epsilon Engineering Honor Society. He also became the treasurer for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and secretary for Mason’s AFCEA/ NOVA Student Sub-Chapter. Renato is currently leading an effort to revitalize the IT&E Student Council.

While excelling in academic studies and assuming leadership roles in student organizations, Renato has demonstrated a genuine interest in promoting IT&E programs to the broader Mason community. Specifi c examples of the programs that Renato has assisted with are as follows: Admissions events such as Open Houses and Honors Receptions; IT&E student organization related events such as the IEEE Student Professional Awareness Conference, Engineering Week, and Spirit Day; Volgenau school level events such as the IT&E Spring Gala and the IT&E 20th Anniversary Celebration. 

Renato has also taken advantage of opportunities to obtain valuable IT&E work experience while a student here at Mason. During the summer of 2004, Renato worked as an intern for Imaging Science Research, Inc. and he worked as an intern during the summer of 2005 at Sparta. To help defray additional costs associated with his studies here at Mason, Renato has been working as a “Junior Electrician” in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department since the beginning of the fall 2004 semester. After graduating in May 2006, Renato will work in the Falls Church division at Raytheon.

Outstanding Teaching Award

Kris Gaj, Ph.D.

Kris Gaj is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at George Mason University. He received the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology in Warsaw, Poland. His research focuses on hardware and software implementations of cryptography, computer arithmetic, reconfi gurable computing, and hardware/software co-design. He uses numerous examples and experiences from his research in his teaching.

Dr. Gaj was instrumental in establishing the B.S. and M.S. Programs in Computer Engineering, which were started around the time he joined GMU in 1998. In particular, he developed four new courses in the area of computer engineering and substantially updated three other existing courses. He also obtained NSF funding for the FPGA Design and Test Lab, a new educational lab including the state-of-the-art software tools and testing equipment. Currently, Dr. Gaj is the graduate coordinator for the Computer Engineering program.

Dr. Gaj’s graduate courses on cryptography and network security routinely attract large numbers of students and receive very high course ratings. As a part of these courses, Dr. Gaj has organized multiple editions of student miniconferences, open to general public, based on the students’ term projects, complete with the peer-reviewed IEEE-style papers, short conference-style presentations, and the audience-selected best presentation awards. He and his students have also developed KRYPTOS – an open-source educational software for teaching cryptology and computer-network security. Dr. Gaj’s courses on hardware description languages, FPGA and ASIC design, microcontrollers and computer arithmetic are based on the industry-standard tools and languages, and involve practical projects based on real-life applications.

Dr. Gaj is routinely praised by students for being very tough and demanding, and very nice and approachable at the same time. He has supervised numerous senior design projects, master’s theses and scholarly papers, and many of his students are now employed in the high-tech industry nationwide.

Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Award

Eliud Bonilla

Mr. Eliud Bonilla is a Senior Engineer with Northrop Grumman-TASC where he works developing communications architectures. He has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications field with special emphasis in satellite systems. He has supported a wide variety of government and industry clients including the Dept. of Defense, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the White House Communications Agency.

He has taught in the MS in Telecommunications program since 2001. At present he teaches the TCOM Graduate Seminar where students organize into teams and propose solutions for class projects in a competitive environment. Final presentations are done in front of a board composed of GMU faculty members and invited guests from industry. Past projects have included: Development of a University Microsatellite Mission, a Wireless System for the GMU Fairfax campus, and a rocket-launched project. In 2005 his students collaborated closely with the City of Fairfax to defi ne the vision and concept of a desired city-wide wireless system by applying industry accepted methodologies. Final student proposals were presented to a board composed of industry experts and City of Fairfax offi cials.

Mr. Bonilla has promoted industry collaboration with GMU, has been active in searching for partnership opportunities, and is a member of the TCOM Advisory Board. He attended the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus, for his BSEE and MSEE.