.Background - Organization

Educational and Professional Experience

Dr. Shankar has a BS ('71) in Telecommunications Engineering from Karnataka university, Dharwar, India, MS ('77) and Ph.D. ('82) degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, and an MBA (2000) from the Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL. His areas of specialization for the Ph.D. were computer engineering and biomedical engineering. He joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Florida Atlantic University (FAU), Boca Raton, FL, in 1982, and has been a full professor with the Computer Science and engineering Department at FAU since 1991. The College of Engineering recognized his contributions by publishing a profile in their 1996 annual newsletter. During his MBA he has consulted with several faculty members in the College of Business with the intent to chart out a viable growth plan for CSI and incorporate lessons learnt at a few major US universities in developing a hotbed of innovation at CSI. He is a senior member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). Dr. Shankar holds Professional Engineering (PE) license in the State of Florida and a Fellow of the American Heart Assocition (FAHA). He has brought $4.05 M in research grants and royalties during his tenure at the university. He has 4 US patents.

During his first sabbatical leave in 1992, he led a team of 34 engineering and computer professionals on a biomedical project. The project and his US patents have yielded $1 M in royalties to the university. During his second sabbatical leave in 1998, he helped build the CSI (it was called "Center for VLSI and Systems Integration" at that time, in recognition of its emphasis on VLSI at that time) infrastructure and submit several proposals that brought together the colleges of engineering, business, and education, as well as several school counties, small businesses, and high-tech companies. During his subsequent leave of absence (2001-2002) he was with Cadence Design Systems, Inc., and held the position of TAM (technical account manager) responsible for the Motorola engineering design groups in Florida. Cadence is the leading company in the EDA (engineering design automation) industry. The interaction with Motorola engineers paved the way for a proposal to Motorola's iDEN division in 2003 when he returned to FAU. The project is entitled OPP (One Pass to Production) and has the ambitious goal of developing a radical methodology to engineer a new cell phone in 24 hours. This may be compared to the then (in 2003) product development time of 18 to 24 months. Motorola approved and has funded our center (since then re-christened as the Center for Systems Integration, to represent the expanded scope of the center) at a total of about $1.05 million over the past 5 years (2003-2007). Significant progress has been made in meeting the goal. More details are provided elsewhere. This project is a highly cross-disciplinary project involving faculty members and students in several subdisciplines within computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. Dr. Shankar, with his knowledge in many of these fields, and his management skills, has created a thriving cross-disciplinary community in an university setting that is addressing a key issue of industrial competitiveness.

Professional Recognition

Moderator, Industry Panel Session, Radical Productivity Enhancement, IEEE Systems Conference, Honolulu, HI, Aprill 2007
Member, Panel Discussion on Education Alternatives for Combining Engineering and Management, IEMC, Newfundland, September 2005
Dean's Faculty Award, Annual Award for Outstanding Faculty, College of Engineering, December 2003.
Plaque of appreciation, Presented by Mr. Jaime Borras, Corporate VP and CTO, iDEN, Motorola, for leadership in implementing 'One Pass to Production' and 'Digital Six Sigma' program, September 2003.
Leadership award, by Dr. Borko Furht, CSE Dept., FAU, for leading the department in establishing collaborative relationship with Motorola that has led to 3 grants and 3 potential grants to various faculty members, March 2003.
Member, Panel Discussion on Education Alternatives in Biomedical Engineering, Biocomplexity Conference, Dartmouth, July 2002
Team of the Year award to our Motorola Enterprise Team at Cadence Design Systems, Inc, January 2002. I was a senior member of the team.
Session Chair, Grand Unification, First SMT Conference, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, November 1996
Industry - University Collaboration, Round Table Discussion, Invited Participant, SouthCon, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Spring 1995
NSF and FAU/Manufacturing Engr. program - NSF workshop on Mechatronics, CalPoly, Summer 1995
Motorola and Cascade sponsorship- Cell Generation for automatic retargeting to different technologies, Phoenix, AZ, Spring 1995
Motorola sponsorship - University - Industry collaboration in mixed mode design, Analogy Conference, Livonia, MI, Fall 1994
Invited to be editor of Intel's ETANN user group newsletter.
nvited to be a member of Biomedical Engineering Subcommittee, Florida High Technology and Industry Council, 1990.
Plaque presented by Drs. Barrett, Pandya, B. Szabo and R. Szabo in appreciation of hard work, guidance and leadership (September 1990).
Member, Microelectronics and Materials Subcommittee, Florida High Technology and Industry Council, (1988-1992).