Fall 2001

IBM manager spends year mentoring UT women
          Lisa Kurzejeski (M.S. Manufacturing Systems Engineering 1996) wishes she had mentors back when she was a youngster contemplating an engineering career. So the IBM executive took advantage of her firm's "Faculty On Loan" program to work in UT's Women in Engineering Program (WEP) office for a year.

          At Austin's IBM facility, her title is Manager of E-Server Technology System Design and Operation. Her responsibilities extend to both anticipating server industry trends four to five years in advance and beating out the competition with better products and services.

          After several years of volunteer mentoring in connection with established WEP programs, she successfully applied for formal placement through "Faculty On Loan." From August 2000 through July 2001, she held the position of Special Assistant to the Director-with IBM paying her entire salary. Among numerous other achievements, she directed Careers in Engineering for Women, WEP's annual week-long summer activities camp for Texas middle-school girls, and launched a new comparable two-day event-WE@UT-for high school seniors. She also made WEP a presence at the July campus-wide Honors Colloquium, UT's premier recruiting initiative.

          Kurzejeski's greatest reward comes from seeing girls recognize their own competence. The middle school participants' project was to design a "kitty entertainment" machine with many moving parts. "They were building things as well as programming things," she says. "When they finally realized: 'Wow! This is really cool and I can make this robot move, and I can do all these things,'-that was the most fun."

Intel chip designer teaches students, recruits other industrial instructors
         " Teaching keeps me current with the technology," says Mark McDermott (M.S.E.E. 1988), director of Intel Corporation's Austin-based Texas Development Center. McDermott taught an undergraduate Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) course called "Computer-Aided Integrated Circuit Design" in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering last spring. Although the VLSI class was his first at UT, he's long been involved with teaching activities of one kind or another, both for past employers and independently.

          McDermott's relationship with the College dates back to the 1980s, when he worked for Motorola. While serving as project leader for the 88110 Microprocessor, he earned his master's degree here, specializing in computer architecture and engineering design automation. In 1998, Intel recruited him to start a new design center focused on next generation IA32 processors. When the company, soon after, invited him to become Intel's executive sponsor to UT, he accepted gladly. "I already knew a lot of people here," he says. He's been strengthening old ties, and building new ones, ever since.

          Currently, he's preparing the syllabus for a course he'll teach next spring as part of a new VLSI master's program. The goal is increased industry participation in the instructional effort, with corporate representatives creating, and teaching their own modules. IBM, Motorola, Cirrus Logic, Texas Instruments, Intel, Signal, and iTouch are among those signed on so far. "We've been working for the last half year to make this happen," McDermott says, with satisfaction.

Schlumberger executive develops strategic plan for UT department
          When Schlumberger created an institutional ambassador program four years ago, W. Howard Neal (B.S.E.E. 1971, M.S.E.E. 1973)-then vice president of software strategy for oilfield services-discovered a world of new opportunity. The petroleum industry giant had identified 40 universities internationally where it wanted to establish formal relationships, and UT was on the list. Shortly thereafter, the program's coordinator recruited him as ambassador to his alma mater.

          Thus began what he calls a "journey of reacquaintance" with the College of Engineering. He became active on the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Visiting Committee and rekindled old ties. That started him thinking. "I had a very nice career at Schlumberger, but I was trying to decide what to do next," he says. By last year, he had decided, "there was enough going on at UT that I could spend a significant portion of my time here." He posed the idea to Francis Bostick, then chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and to his superiors at Schlumberger. Both were enthusiastically supportive.

          Today Neal has a new position at Schlumberger, vice president of industrial relations, in which he devotes two-thirds of his time to The University. His UT projects range from developing a strategic plan for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and working to launch the new Industrial Affiliates program to teaching a section of EE302: Introduction to Electrical Engineering.

          He enjoys the interaction with faculty and students alike. "Because I've made my career in industry, I can bring a different perspective," he says. "I think some people have found that helpful."

Monsanto "Fellow" finishes career at UT
          Timothy J. Fowler (Ph.D. C.E. 1966) already possessed two degrees from British universities and a successful career as a design engineer in London and Malaysia, when he traveled to Texas in 1963 to study with celebrated structural engineering professor Phil M. Ferguson. He was recently-retired from a distinguished 28-year career at the Monsanto Company, St. Louis, when he returned to Texas once more, to teach at The University.

          Fowler, a world-recognized specialist in structural plastics, acoustic emissions and non-destructive testing, was recruited to UT in 1994 as the M.W. Kellogg Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering, to teach two graduate courses: Structural Plastics and Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation. He enjoyed the work so much that he remained at UT the past two academic years to teach the freshman core course Civil Engineering Systems while continuing his research at the Phil M. Ferguson Structural Engineering Laboratory. He loves the experience of teaching and says he'll miss it when he retires.

          "I've just enjoyed the students," he says. "The freshman class was particularly fun. It varied in numbers-sometimes there were as many as 150 students. But they were so interested, and such good quality students, it was great. I really liked it."

          He plans to retire to Tennessee in the relatively near future-once he's completed his outstanding research projects. Those include "quite a bit" of current work on structural plastic bridges for the Texas Department of Transportation.