Professor Donald Yeung Named Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department Chair Joseph JaJa has announced that Professor Donald Yeung has been named ECE Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education, effective September 1. Professor Romel (Mel) Gomez will step down from this position to focus his efforts on the Embedded Systems and IoT program at the Universities of Shady Grove. The text of Dr. JaJa's statement is as follows:

“I am pleased to let you know that Prof. Don Yeung has graciously agreed to serve as our next Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education, effective September 1, 2020. In this role, he will be in charge of both the Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering programs. Prof. Yeung has been Director of the Computer Engineering Program, and in that capacity, he led the effort to revise the Computer Engineering undergraduate major to provide greater flexibility to the students. In addition, he created the area of concentration in cybersecurity, helped create the Computer Engineering minor, and he worked with the Computer Engineering faculty to introduce numerous undergraduate and graduate courses into the curriculum. Prof. Yeung also contributed significantly to the successful ABET review of ECE's undergraduate programs in 2017.

Prof. Gomez has done a fabulous job as Associate Chair during the past eight years, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for all of his contributions to the department. I would like to recognize some of his major achievements. Prof. Gomez played a leadership role in improving the curriculum and instruction delivered in our two programs, overseeing the reorganization of the Office of Undergraduate Studies, two ABET accreditation processes, and creating new off-campus programs (Southern Maryland and Shady Grove). He was instrumental in the modernization of our laboratory infrastructure, and the introduction of exciting new undergraduate courses such as ENEE 101 (Introduction to ECE) and ENEE 408R (Capstone Design Course on Electric Bikes). The rankings of our undergraduate programs have steadily improved and are currently ranked by the US News and World Report as 22 (Electrical Engineering) and 20 (Computer Engineering). Prof. Gomez has been very active in College and University wide programs, including Keystone, LSAMP, Women in Engineering, Clark Scholars selection, International Programs and others. He has served on many college and university committees such as Gen-Ed I-series and Scholarship-in-Practice, Honors College Re-visioning committee. Let's all thank Prof. Gomez for his contributions to the Department, and welcome Prof. Yeung as our next Associate Chair for Undergraduate Education.”

Published August 24, 2020