MONELEC ALUMNI NEWS
Newsletter of Alumni of the Department of Electrical and Computer Systems
Engineering,
Clayton Campus, Monash University
Issue 2
Editor : Sue Morgan 9905 3467 smm@basil.eng.monash.edu.au
May 1994
Welcome to our second newsletter, with information about activities
in the Department and about the spectacular feats of our graduates. In this
issue we are including a list of academic staff so that you may recognise
names from your time at Monash and see just how large we are now.
In terms of undergraduate students we have about 140 in level two, 140 in
level three and 110 in level four. Since the passing-by-years regulation
was dropped it is not so easy to categorize our students' year levels. Many
are doing combinations of two different year levels, and some are even combining
levels two, three and four! It is a headache for our timetable coordinator,
Michael Conlon, but he does a fantastic job. The numbers quoted include
students in the standard BE, the five year BSc/BE (with streams in Computer
Science, Maths/Physics, and now Physiology) and in the four year BCSE (Bachelor
of Computer Science and Engineering).
This year we have about 50 research students undertaking MEngSc by research
or PhD, mostly by full-time study. We also have about 60 undertaking the
MEngSc by coursework and minor thesis, mostly by part-time study. These
are our largest numbers ever.
On July 22 we will be holding our annual SMEEA dinner here in the
University Club at Clayton. Our guest speaker will be Ian Wright, a graduate
of many years standing, with both BE and PhD degrees. He is currently Chief
Engineer of AMECON, the company now building frigates for the Australian
and New Zealand navies. He is also a member of our Faculty Board. I hope
you will make every effort to attend. Further details are enclosed with
this newsletter.
Best wishes,
Bill Brown
President, SMEEA
Dear Sue,
Thank you for the inaugural 'Monelec Alumni News' - may its existence be
lively and controversial.
It was interesting and not a little nostalgic to see the potent name 'Monelec'
again appear in the Monash Electrical Engineering context.
Some of your esteemed readers may be unaware of the colourful history of
that highly esteemed establishment 'Monelec Motors' in the period before
it restructured itself into a boutique stockbroking house after the '87
crash (car crash that is).
The year was 1970, long before Ellistronics, Rod Irving or even Dick Smith.
The only decent places you could buy bits were at McGraths and pay full
retail price, or Radio Parts where you could get 'trade' on production of
a company order. That was the era when 2N3055's were over $2.00 and the
new Fairchild uA709's were about the same. (You need to know that the fortunate
ones among us were on a Commonwealth PGA worth $45/week at the time).
It was decided to create a trading company that ostensibly consumed all
the items that impecunious EE students needed to buy cheaply (ie. electronic
bits and car parts) and the 'Monelec Motors specialising in Auto electronics'
was born, although in retrospect 'Monelec Brewery Motors specialising in
Anything Else a Young Engineer's Mind Turns To Except It Was Too Long To
Fit On The Masthead' may have been a more comprehensive business plan. (Oh
yes, it was the era before 'Business Plans' as well. How did we get on without
them?)
The stakeholders put money in the pot to have 2 phoney order books printed
each, in the name of the above company. Memory is hazy about the exact identities
but the names Armstrong, Bradley, Coles, Elias, Gliddon, Keogh, Schultz,
Watt, Wells and Wynn would not be dissimilar to those involved.
The aura of impropriety surrounding the whole exercise was palpable on the
day the books were picked up from the printer - "You don't want a receipt
for these do you?"
We didn't!
Geoff Watt (BE'68, MEngSc'72)
NEWS OF STAFF
John Bennett has returned from his sojourn at the DSTO establishment
in Salisbury, SA and is once again up to his neck in academic activities.
We can expect big things from his collaboration with Peter Dyson (Latrobe)
in the years ahead.
Binh is part of the Monash push for links with Vietnam and has been
again away in that country to drum up business. The Vice Chancellor is indebted
to Binh for his indefatigable efforts in finding the right people to negotiate
with, the right places to visit etc.
Peter Darvall, who also visits Vietnam, will be leaving the Faculty
at the end of June to take up the position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research
and Development). He has made an enormous contribution in his six years
as Dean of Engineering and will be sorely missed. Bill Melbourne will be
Dean for an interim period until a new Dean is appointed.
Bill Brown has been Associate Dean for some years. His most significant
task in this role was the reading of 300 names at the Graduation Ceremony
held on March 30 this year!
Kishor Dabke won the prestigious Faculty Teaching Award for 1993.
It was presented by the 'Clayton's Dean' at the Faculty Christmas Party
last December. Everyone agrees that Kishor is our best teacher and that
the award is richly deserved.
Lindy Dekker (BE'82) and James Wiles (BE'84) may be found
in Building 1. They are working on contract with Siemens on the Video Coding
project.
Russell Lang (engaged to be married next year) has also joined the
Video Coding Group. (Does he intend to spend his whole life in the Department?)
King Ngan has resigned his senior lectureship after two years in
the Department and has taken up a post at the University of Western Australia.
He supported Khee Pang very well in the Video Coding Group and took an enormous
load during Khee's illness in 1992.
Fred Ninio's appointment at Monash is now 50% in our Department and
50% still in Physics. He is lecturing in level three circuit theory and
is involved in a number of other activities.
Kemal Ajay, PhD candidate and now project leader of Kim Ng's Shape
Management Project, and wife Sally recently became parents to a third daughter
- the first of a number of babies expected within the department over the
next few months.
OUR GRADUATES TAKE BOTH IEAUST ELECTRICAL COLLEGE
PRIZES
Victor Koss (BSc/BE'92) and Wang Xinhua (PhD'92) have been
awarded the prestigious Electrical College Prizes of the IEAust in Victoria.
Undergraduate and Graduate awards are available to students completing their
respective Electrical Engineering degrees in the previous year.
The Category A (Undergraduate) award went to Victor Koss, the top student
in the BE in 1992 and winner of the Graham Beard Prize. The judges were
particularly impressed with his academic achievements, his thesis project
on a PC based Voice Messaging system, and his professional outlook. The
award carries prize money of $1000. Victor is now working for Booze-Allan.
The Category B (Postgraduate) award went to Wang Xinhua, whose PhD thesis
"Finite Element Methods for Nonlinear Optical Waveguides" was
supervised by Greg Cambrell. In addition to his outstanding academic achievements,
the judging panel particularly noted the contribution made by Dr Wang to
the field of optical waveguides in a number of papers published subsequently.
He is currently a research fellow at the University of Melbourne. His award
carries a prize of $2000. This completes a double for Xinhua who was awarded
the second Douglas Lampard Electrical Engineering Research Medal in 1993.
4TH YEAR PHOTOGRAPHS: '82, '85, '87
Bill Brown is missing copies of the above class photographs from his otherwise
complete collection. If any graduate from those years has a copy he would
like to borrow it for copying and return.
ACADEMIC STAFF 1994
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT
William Alexander Brown
PROFESSORS
William James Bonwick
(Sir John Monash Chair of Electrical Power Engi.)
Raymond Austin Jarvis
(Director, Intelligent Robotics Research Centre).
Frederick John Walter Symons
(Telecom Chair of Telecommunications and Information Engineering)
READERS
John Atkinson Bennett
David Lloyd Morgan
Khok Khee Pang
ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS
Thomas Ian Henry Brown
(Director, Centre for Biomedical Engineering)
Edward Moore Cherry
Robin Andrew Russell
Wladyslaw Mielczarski
SENIOR LECTURERS
Clive Samuel Berger
Le Nguyen Binh
Gregory Keith Cambrell
Michael Conlon
Kishor Pandharinath Dabke
Donald Grahame Holmes
Donald Bryan Keogh
Lindsay Kleeman
Bhaskaran Radha Krishnan
Kim Chew Ng
Freddie Ninio
Qi Su
David Suter
Liren Zhang
LECTURERS
Serdar Boztas
Peter Freere
Mohammed Easin Khan
ASSISTANT LECTURER
Arthur Marinakis
THE DOUGLAS LAMPARD ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH
PRIZE AND MEDAL
The rules for this award have now been approved by the Academic Board and
Council. The first awards were made last year to Rick Alexander (PhD '90)
and Wang Xinhua (PhD '92). The prize is a cheque for $1000 and the medal,
an interesting design including a diagram from Professor Lampard's capacitance
theorem paper. The prize is being funded by donations from alumni. Those
who have agreed to contribute will receive notification with this newsletter.
But any donations to the fund would be most welcome. Cheques should be made
payable to Monash University. All donations are tax deductible.
ALUMNI NEWS
David Atkinson (BE '76), after a stint as Lecturer at Swinburne and
experience with several multinational companies, is now the managing director
of STEP Electronics in Bayswater. The company specialises in design of equipment
for communications including terrestial and satellite modems and interfaces.
Michael Bruce (BE '84) is currently working as a development engineer
in Philips Telecommunications Industries in Nuremberg, Germany. He is working
in the field of high speed optical fibre transmission equipment as a System
Integration Engineer on a 3 year contract which will finish next year, and
he will then return to Australia.
Art Coolidge (BE '80) keeps busy in Oregon, looking after 3 dozen
sheep and nearly that many lambs, working as a volunteer firefighter at
a small rural fire station near his home, and riding his bike.
Adam Crow (BE '86) and wife are now parents with the birth of Jennifer
Elizabeth. 'Keystrokes', a radio show about computers that airs on 3RRR,
is put on by Adam and J J Clyne (BE '85).
Bob de Boer (BE '71) is employed by Telecom to lead the Jindalee
(over the horizon radar) project.
Norm Gale (BE '69) is now the Director of Marketing for the Magellan
Network Systems Division of Nortel. After many years with Telecom (including
some time at the Universiti Sains Malaysia), he helped to form JTEC before
moving to his current position.
Peter Gerrand (MEngSc '70), long time employee of Telecom, is now
Director of the Collaborative Information Technology Research Institute
(CITRI) (a joint venture of Melbourne University and RMIT) and Professor
of Electrical Engineering.
Ed Hawthorn (BE '86) has often thought of coming back to Monash but
has been enjoying his job at Telecom. He feels he has always been at the
frontiers of engineering design, AXE rural exchange, basic rate ISDN and
transmission and (now) switching alarm collection and performance monitoring
systems. He's presently leading a development team putting the OSI 7-layer
(although they only use 5 layers) model into practical use for collecting
alarms and performance information from the Telecom network. (Ed: yes -
he's the one who got a P2 in 4th year Communications).
Ken Hird (BE '71) is a radio engineer in the Navigational
Services Department of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority in Canberra.
Bill Brown bumped into him in a fish and chip shop in Lakes Entrance in
January.
Michael Jarvis (BE '91) (son of Ray) recently married Sophie Salpingidis
(another Monash graduate). Michael is with Telecom.
Stephen Lam (PhD '82) is the Manager of International Equities
within Commonwealth Funds Management Limited in Canberra. He visited the
Department in February on the occasion of the enrolment of his daughter,
Esther, as a science student at Monash.
Lewei Li (PhD '92) is a Research Scientist in the EE Dept
of the National University of Singapore, with research interests in microstrip
antennas and applications, waves and fields in waveguides and waveguide
antennas, and theoretical and experimental studies on rainfall attenuation
in the tropical environment.
Alan Lipton (BE '91) is pursuing a PhD in the Department and is
just back from two months in Japan where he was working collaboratively
with the University of Tokyo Department of Mechano-Informatics on vision-based
robot navigation algorithms.
Gary Lyons (BE '78) is the R&D Product Manager for Email Electronics.
The company is a strong supporter of the Faculty's Industry Scholarship
Scheme.
Keith Murray (BE '84) and his wife Cheryl now have a baby daughter,
Elizabeth. Keith's father Noel retired fom the chair of Structural Engineering
at the end of 1993. Keith is with Telecom and is working on AUSTPAC.
David Scambler (BE '73) has been appointed manager of Corporate Planning
for the Royal Melbourne Hospital. David worked at Hospitals Computer Service
from 1976 until taking up his new appointment. His interest in the "new"
computers led to his becoming a programmer at HCS in 1976, and he progressed
from programmer to program manager to their manager of corporate planning
before taking up his current position.
Barry Tritt (MEngSc '72) left the Australian Road Research Board
a year or two back and now has his own company, Industrial Process Controls.
Correction: In the last newsletter, we stated that Alan Wells
was 'still with Ford'. We were wrong. He is with the CSIRO Division of Manufacturing
Technology in Adelaide.
Society of Monash Electrical Engineering Alumni
ANNUAL DINNER
and Annual General Meeting
Friday 22nd July, 7:00pm for 7:30pm
Monash University Club, Clayton Campus
Cost: $25 per person
Guest Speaker: Ian Wright (BE '65, PhD '71)
Chief Engineer, AMECON
Ian will tell us about the building of frigates
for the Australian and NZ Navies.
Please reply to: Bill Brown
Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering
Monash University
Clayton 3168
FAX: 905 3454 email:bill.brown@eng.monash.edu.au
by 1 July enclosing payment (Cheques payable to SMEEA).
I wish to attend the Alumni dinner on Friday 22 July
Name:
Number Attending:
Contact Phone:
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