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Programs of Study

The College of Engineering offers graduate programs leading to the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in engineering science, Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering, and Master of Science (M.S.) degrees in biomedical engineering, civil engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineering, and manufacturing systems. To support these graduate programs, the College has well-equipped laboratories and computer facilities that are housed in a modern engineering complex.

The Ph.D. in engineering science program benefits from the participation of the faculty in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Energy Processes, Mining and Mineral Resources Engineering, and Computer Science (College of Science). The Ph.D. degree in engineering science is available for four concentrations: civil and environmental engineering, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and energy processes, and mining and mineral resources engineering.

Course offerings and research activities in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering include water resources optimization, groundwater flow, transport and remediation, utilization of coal bi-products, nonlinear structural analysis, soil mechanics, advanced structural design, advanced biological treatment processes, mechanics of composite materials, advanced hydraulic design and sedimentation engineering.

In the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), course work and research include large-scale integration, microelectronics and nanoelectronics, solid-state devices and materials, system integration, computer architecture, instrumentation, biomedical engineering, electromagnetics, optics, fiberoptics, networking, wireless communications, communication networks, VLSI design and testing, fuzzy logic, image processing, robust systems, control theory, robotics, neural networks, energy conversion, power systems, power electronics, expert systems, and distributed processing.

In the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Energy Processes, the areas of study and research include air pollution control, mass and heat transfer, coal conversion, electrochemical processes, thermal science, thermal systems design, solar systems design, chemical and biochemical processes, biomaterials, mechanical systems, computer-aided design, composite materials, and ceramics and tribology.

Course offerings and research activities in the Department of Mining and Mineral Resources Engineering include rock mechanics, coal mining, coal utilization and mine environment control, mine planning, fly ash utilization, coal bed methane, carbon sequestration in geologic media, and ground control problems.

The course offerings and research activities associated with the Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering are similar to those offered by the ECE department for the engineering science degree program. Likewise, courses and research in the master’s degree programs are similar to those offered through the Ph.D. program. Areas of study and research activities in the manufacturing systems master degree program include computer-aided manufacturing, reliability theory, robotics, lean manufacturing, six sigma, and automated factory systems.

To be admitted to either of the two Ph.D. programs, students must have a master’s degree, or the equivalent, in engineering. To earn the Ph.D., a minimum of 26 semester hours of course work and 24 semester hours of dissertation research is required. The course work must be completed in two areas: the area of concentration and the program core. A student must complete a minimum of 15 semester hours of course work relevant to an area of concentration and 11 hours of courses in the program core, including 2 seminar hours. A dissertation must be completed in the student’s area of research interest. A written candidacy exam covering the area of concentration is required, and an oral defense of the dissertation must be successfully completed.

Master’s degree programs have both thesis and nonthesis options. Students who choose the M.S. thesis option must complete a minimum of 30 semester hours of acceptable graduate credit, including 18 semester hours within the major department. Of the 30 semester hours, 6 must be for thesis research. Each candidate is required to write and defend a thesis. Students who choose the M.S. nonthesis option must complete a minimum of 36 (30 for ECE) semester hours of acceptable graduate credit, including at least 21 semester hours within the major department. Of these 21 semester hours, 3 should be in a course that can be devoted to the preparation of a research paper (optional for ECE). Each candidate is required to successfully complete a research paper and pass a written comprehensive examination.

Research Facilities

The laboratory facilities, located in the College of Engineering building complex near the 26-acre campus lake, are furnished with modern equipment. Laboratories are available for research in the areas of biomedical engineering, circuits and systems, communications, VLSI design and testing, electrochemical engineering, electronics, electric machines, information processing, lasers, power systems and power electronics, microelectronics, microprocessors and digital systems, microwaves, optics, control and robotics, signal processing and pattern recognition, intelligent and expert systems, fluid mechanics and hydraulics, heat transfer, holography, materials testing and stress analysis, structural analysis, friction systems, materials science and metallurgy, chemical rate processes, bioremediation, combustion, internal combustion engines, ultrasonics and catalytic research, air and water quality, coal conversion and utilization, rock and soil mechanics, blasting and fragmentation, coal combustion by-product utilization, and coal cleaning.

Financial Aid

Graduate teaching and/or research assistantships that carry a stipend of $1404 per month for master’s degree students and $1506 for Ph.D. students for the 2008–09 academic year, in addition to a tuition waiver, are available in the departments. A few fellowships with stipends ranging from $12,000 to $13,000 per calendar year and a tuition waiver are also available on a competitive basis.

Cost of Study

In-state graduate tuition is $328 per credit hour in 2009–10. Out-of-state tuition is 2.5 times the in-state tuition rate ($820 per credit hour). Graduate students with at least a 25 percent appointment as a graduate assistant receive a tuition scholarship. Fees vary from $589.03 (1 credit hour) to $1557.50 (12 credit hours). Students with a graduate assistantship receive a 25 percent reduction in the primary care medical fee.

Living and Housing Costs

For married couples, students with families, and single graduate students, the University has 690 efficiency and one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom apartments that rent for $499 to $720 per month in 2009–10. Residence halls for single graduate students are also available, as are accessible residence hall rooms and apartments for students with disabilities.

Student Group

As of fall 2008, there were 20,673 students at the University. The engineering departments had 313 graduate students working toward the master’s degree and 69 working toward the Ph.D., as well as 899 undergraduate students.

Location

The city of Carbondale is approximately 100 miles southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, in Jackson County, the western border of which is the Mississippi River. Immediately south of Carbondale is some of the most rugged and picturesque terrain in Illinois. The region immediately surrounding Carbondale is noted for its large peach and apple orchards. Within 10 miles of the campus are two state parks and four lakes, and much of the area is a part of the Shawnee National Forest.

The University

Southern Illinois University is in its second 100 years of providing high-quality education. Graduate studies were first offered in 1943, and the first doctoral degree was granted in 1959.

Applying

Students interested in graduate studies in engineering should seek admission to the Graduate School and acceptance in a degree program offered by one of the four engineering departments. The applicant must have a bachelor’s degree with a major in engineering, mathematics, physical science, or life science and demonstrate competence in mathematics. A student whose undergraduate training is deficient may be required to take course work without graduate credit.

The Faculty and Their Research

• Civil and Environmental Engineering
• James Blackburn, Professor, Ph.D., Tennessee, Knoxville, 1988. Energy production and odor reduction from livestock wastes, environmental processes, bioprocesses, pollution prevention, global warming.
• Rolando Bravo, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Houston, 1990; PE, PH, DWRE. Hydraulics and hydraulic design, hydrology, groundwater flow and subsidence.
• Gary Butson, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1981; PE. Mechanics of materials, vibrations, solid mechanics.
• Lizette Chevalier, Professor; Ph.D., Michigan State, 1993; PE. Environmental engineering, environmental hydraulics, contaminant hydrology, NAPL transport/remediation and numerical modeling.
• Bruce DeVantier, Associate Professor; Ph.D., California, Davis, 1983; PE. Soil remediation, drinking water quality, numerical modeling, finite-element modeling.
• William F. Eichfeld, Assistant Professor; M.S., Wisconsin–Madison, 1973; PE. Structural analysis, strength of materials, highways and highway construction materials.
• Roy R. Frank Jr., Assistant Professor; M.S., Southern Illinois at Carbondale, 1983; IPLSA. Surveying, photogrammetry, GIS, GPS, heavy construction.
• J. Kent Hsiao, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Utah, 2000; PE, SE. Structural earthquake engineering, structural reliability, structural design of buildings and bridges using steel, reinforced or prestressed concrete masonry and wood.
• Aslam Kassimali, Professor; Ph.D., Missouri–Columbia, 1976. Nonlinear structural analysis, structural dynamics and stability, analysis of fiber-composite structures.
• Sanjeev Kumar, Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Missouri–Rolla, 1996; PE. Dynamic soil-structure interaction, piles under lateral loads, settlement prediction of landfills, seismic analysis and design of landfills, ground motion amplification in soils, liquefaction of silts and sands, and machine foundations.
• Yanna Liang, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Utah State, 2006. Bioremediation of organic pollutants in subsurface and groundwater, bioenergy production from alternative sources, biomaterial production from biological processes.
• Xingmao (Samuel) Ma, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Missouri–Rolla, 2004. Remediation of contaminated groundwater, soil and sediment with plant-facilitated bioremediation technologies such as phytoremediation and constructed wetlands.
• John W. Nicklow, Professor and Associate Dean of Engineering; Ph.D., Arizona State, 1998; PE, PH, DWRE. Water resources and hydraulic engineering, applied hydrology, optimal control of water resources and environmental systems.
• Vijay K. Puri, Professor; Ph.D., Missouri–Rolla, 1984. Geotechnical engineering, soil dynamics, machine foundations, liquefaction of soils.
• Jale Tezcan, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Rice, 2005. Nonlinear structural behavior, neural networks in system identification and structural control, rehabilitation and retrofitting of structures damaged by earthquakes.
• Greg Wilkerson, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Colorado State, 1999; PE. Stream restoration, river mechanics, fluvial geomorphology, sedimentation and erosion, engineering hydrology, eco-hydrology.
• Shing-Chung Yen, Professor and Director, Materials Technology Center; Ph.D., Virginia Tech, 1984. Analysis of composite materials and structures, solid mechanics, structural dynamics and vibrations.
• Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Shaikh S. Ahmed, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Arizona State, 2005. Nanoelectronic devices, semiconductor device and process simulations, novel numerical algorithms for molecular dynamics, large-scale high-performance parallel cluster computing, analog and digital design with nanoscale devices.
• Nazeih M. Botros, Professor; Ph.D., Oklahoma, 1985. Digital hardware design, signal processing, digital instrumentation, neural networks, robot sensing, bioengineering.
• Ada Chen, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Duke, 2007. Biomedical imaging, image reconstruction, digital tomosynthesis, image quality analysis, signal and image processing, simulation and computing.
• Morteza Daneshdoost, Professor; Ph.D., Drexel, 1984. Electric power systems, linear systems and circuits, control systems, optimization techniques, expert systems, computer graphics, MMI.
• Glafkos D. Galanos, Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Manchester (England), 1970. Power systems, HVDC transmission, power electronic systems.
• Lalit Gupta, Professor; Ph.D., SMU, 1986. Computer vision, pattern recognition, digital signal processing, neural networks.
• Frances J. Harackiewicz, Professor; Ph.D., Massachusetts Amherst, 1990. Electromagnetics, antenna theory and design, microwaves, microstrip phased arrays, anisotropic materials.
• Constantine Hatziadoniu, Professor; Ph.D., West Virginia, 1987. Power systems modeling, simulation and control, high voltage DC transmission, power electronics, power systems transient.
• Dimitrios Kagaris, Professor; Ph.D., Dartmouth, 1994. VLSI design automation, digital circuit testing, communication networks.
• William Osborne, Professor; Ph.D., New Mexico State, 1970. Modulation and coding theory, wireless communication, space communication, telecommunication and semiconductor industries.
• Farzad Pourboghrat, Professor; Ph.D., Iowa, 1984. Systems control, robust and adaptive control, robotics, embedded systems, sensor networks.
• Xiangping Qin, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Northwestern, 2005. Cross-layer interaction; distributed resource allocation; performance optimization and scheduling algorithm design for cellular networks, WLAN, WPAN, and wireless sensor networks.
• Harini Ramaprasad, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., North Carolina State, 2008. Real-time/embedded systems, compilers, computer architecture.
• Mohammad Sayeh, Professor; Ph.D., Oklahoma State, 1985. Neural networks, optical computing, image processing, stochastic modeling, quantum electronics.
• Spyros Tragoudas, Professor; Ph.D., Texas at Dallas, 1991. Design automation for VLSI, testing and verification of digital circuits, computer networks.
• Ramanarayanan Viswanathan, Professor and Interim Dean; Ph.D., SMU, 1983. Detection and estimation theory, spread spectrum communication, communication theory, signal processing.
• Haibo Wang, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Arizona, 2002. Mixed-signal VLSI design and testing, digital VLSI, VLSI design automation.
• Ning Weng, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Massachusetts Amherst, 2005. Network processing, system architecture, analytical performance modeling, low power design.
• Wei Zhang, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Penn State, 2003. Embedded systems, power-aware computing, computer architecture, compilers.
• Manufacturing Systems (Department of Technology)
• Feng-Chang Roger Chang, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State, 1985. Computer-integrated manufacturing systems, production planning and control, lean manufacturing, six sigma.
• Garth Crosby, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Florida International, 2007. Wireless communications, networks, sensor networks, network security.
• Bruce Deruntz, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Southern Illinois Carbondale, 2005. Six sigma, industrial metrology, human resource development and training.
• Julie K. Dunston, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Florida State, 1995. Neural networks, composites manufacturing, design optimization, concurrent engineering.
• Mandara Savage, Associate Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Iowa State, 1999. Machine tool dynamics, fuzzy control, human factors engineering.
• Carl Spezia, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Southern Illinois Carbondale, 2002. Power systems, industrial control systems, electric machines.
• Tomas Velasco, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Arkansas, 1991. Quality control, statistics, reliability, artificial intelligence.
• Mechanical Engineering and Energy Processes
• Serge Abrate, Professor; Ph.D., Purdue, 1983. Structures, structural dynamics, vibrations, design, composite materials.
• Om P. Agrawal, Professor; Ph.D., Illinois at Chicago, 1984. Computer-aided analysis and design of rigid/flexible multibody systems, numerical analysis, finite-element methods, continuum mechanics.
• James W. Blackburn, Professor; Ph.D., Tennessee, 1988. Biokinetics, bioremediation, biotechnology and pollution prevention.
• Philip Chu, Professor; Ph.D., South Carolina, 1982. CAD/CAM composite materials, NDE, FEA.
• Jarlen Don, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State, 1982. Materials creep and creep fatigue, surface phenomena, carbon-carbon composites.
• Asghar Esmaeeli, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Michigan, 1995. Computational fluid dynamics, phase change phenomena, particular flow, complex fluids, electrohydrodynamics, microfluids and biofluids.
• Kambiz Farhang, Professor; Ph.D., Purdue, 1989. CAD, controls, vibrations.
• Peter Filip, Professor and Director, Center for Advanced Friction Studies; Ph.D., Ostrava (Czech Republic), 1989. Carbon-carbon materials and advanced applications, friction and wear mechanisms, biomaterials, shape memory alloys, and metallurgy.
• Rasit Koc, Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Missouri–Rolla, 1989. Ceramic materials, powder processing.
• Ajay Mahajan, Professor; Ph.D., Tulane, 1994. Robotics, controls, intelligent and autonomous systems.
• James A. Mathias, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State, 2001. Thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, microtechnology, energy utilization.
• Kanchan Mondal, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Southern Illinois Carbondale, 2001. Electrochemistry, energy from coal, catalysis, reactor systems and design.
• Emmanuel C. Nsofor, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Mississippi State, 1993. Advanced energy systems, nanoscale energy transfer, thermal analysis, HVAC.
• Marek L. Szary, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Wroclaw Technical (Poland), 1977. Vibrations, acoustics.
• Alan J. Weston, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Southern Illinois at Carbondale, 1991. Chemical processes, process control.
• Tomasz S. Wiltowski, Professor; Ph.D., Institute of Catalysis (Bulgaria), 1983. Energy and environment, hydrogen production from fossil fuels, gasification, renewable energy sources.
• Dale E. Wittmer, Professor; Ph.D., Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1980. High-temperature-resistant materials, high-temperature sintering, processing and properties of composites and advanced ceramics, X-ray diffraction studies.
• Mining Engineering
• Yoginder Chugh, Professor; Ph.D., Penn State, 1971. Rock mechanics and ground control, production engineering in surface and underground coal mines, mining subsidence, management of coal combustion residues.
• Satya Harpalani, Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Berkeley, 1985. Mine ventilation and cooling, methane recovery from coal, solution mining, carbon sequestration in geologic media, utilization of mine waste.
• Manoj K. Mohanty, Professor; Ph.D., Southern Illinois Carbondale, 1997. Coal and mineral processing, applied statistics and experimental design.
• Bradley C. Paul, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Utah, 1989. Solution mining, minerals processing, underground mining, management of coal combustion residues.
• Anthony J. S. (Sam) Spearing, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Silesia Technical, 1993. Underground mining, ground support, rock mechanics.

Correspondence and Information

Southern Illinois University
For information about M.S. programs and the Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering:
Chairman, Department of (specify)
College of Engineering
Carbondale, Illinois 62901-6603


Southern Illinois University
For information about the Ph.D. in Engineering Science program and M.S. in Biomedical Engineering:
Associate Dean
College of Engineering
Carbondale, Illinois 62901-6603
Email: nicklow@engr.siu.edu