Student Blogs
PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering
 | Jonathan is a 1st year Ph.D. Research Engineer and Student in the Bicoastal Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering Program. He is a former freelance wireless engineering consultant and former RF Engineer from EDO Communications & Countermeasures Systems. His ECE research interests include evolved hardware, machine learning, robotics, and green technologies. |
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Guess Who Won the Engineers Week CIT Library Blog Contest?!
Hi Folks! I'm excited to announce that my blog entry was selected for the CIT Library Blog's "Engineers Week" Contest! Basically, I wrote up an entry on how I've been able to use the library as a remote student and what the experience has been like for. Check out my "award-winning" piece below:
http://search.library.cmu.edu/rooms/portal/page/21330_Engineering__CIT
Jonathan Becker
Electrical & Computer Engineering
I am an ECE Ph.D. student currently located at the Silicon Valley campus in the west coast. As such, I have yet to physically step foot in any of the Carnegie Mellon libraries. That's not to say that I do not use any of the library services, as part of my Ph.D. research involves finding, reading, and evaluating published conference and peer-reviewed journal papers. For my first Ph.D. project, I am designing an anti-jamming 802.11 antenna beamformer array using genetic algorithms to find optimal antenna phase and attenuation settings. For my second project, I am designing solar antennas that can convert sunlight into usable electric currents. For both projects, I not only need to read books on related subjects, but I need to read as many conference and journal papers as I can possibly find. This way, I can understand what research has already been done in my project areas, so I can implement new technologies to help solve my engineering problems. It also helps me prepare for my quals.
Now, you may ask where the CMU libraries come in all of this? Simple! Since I cannot physically visit any of the libraries in person, I login into the CMU Library’s Virtual Private Network, and I search and download online articles. I've found this to be a great service to my learning out here in the Silicon Valley. Once I'm logged in, I have a cornucopia of conference and peer-reviewed journal articles ready for me to download and read.
posted by becker-phd @ 5:45 PM
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