“The TI Early Career Fellowship is very helpful for trying new ideas that have not been funded yet,” Mahbub said. “UTD found creative ways to fund preliminary work, so I was even more eager to join.”
The TI Early Career Fellowship program that began in 2020 is designed to provide early career faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Jonsson School with $50,000 per year for up to six years. The fellowship helps bridge gaps and provides opportunities for researchers who are building their careers and research portfolios, plus they have the freedom to choose how they apply the funding.
In 2019, Texas Instruments Inc. made a transformational $5 million gift on Founders Day in honor of UT Dallas’ 50th anniversary. The University was founded as the Graduate Research Institute of the Southwest by the founders of Texas Instruments Inc. — Eugene McDermott, J. Erik Jonsson and Cecil H. Green. UTD formally joined The University of Texas System in 1969.
“Visionary leaders from TI founded the University, and Texas Instruments was intently involved in forming the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as part of founding the Jonsson School,” said Dr. Dinesh Bhatia MS’87, PhD’90, head and professor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
“We are continuing their legacy today. With the Texas Instruments Early Career Fellowship Award, we are in a stronger position to attract and retain top early career faculty in electrical and computer engineering. This support enables us to provide a rich learning environment for our students and researchers and explore new frontiers of knowledge.”
Four current fellows have applied their TI Early Career Fellowships in unique ways to support their research.
“At Intel, I was able to work on state-of- the-art devices,” Dutta said. “Academia has always been my passion, but I wanted to have a background in what is most current in industry. UT Dallas happens to be a good place to do semiconductor research.”
Dutta, who conducts experimental research, was particularly interested in utilizing UT Dallas’ cleanroom facilities to test prototypes. Through the TI Early Career Fellowship, he was also able to support a PhD student.
“The funding was not restricted, which gave me a huge advantage,” Dutta said. “I was essentially able to support a PhD student and could focus more of my time on working toward larger projects and grants.”
Dutta continued, “I am grateful to receive this award. The TI Early Career Fellowship essentially allows you to keep a PhD student, fund your research and focus on bringing in grants. TI also offers other supports for new faculty, including seed grants and a research initiative.”
Building prototypes that required up-front funding for materials
The fellowship has helped him to secure national grants as he builds his research program focused on electric powertrains.
“An electric powertrain converts between electrical and mechanical energy,” Gardner said. “For example, with a wind turbine, the wind transfers mechanical energy to the spinning blades, then you have potentially a gearbox. The generator converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy, then power electronics condition the energy so that it can be transferred to the grid. On the other hand, in an electric vehicle you have electric energy coming from the battery that passes through power electronics and then is converted by the motor to mechanical energy to drive the car forward.” Gardner continued, “This fellowship has allowed me to work on a high gear ratio magnetic gear. Based on my preliminary work, I was able to get funding from both NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop it further.”
Gardner utilized the fellowship funding in three primary ways: supporting research in his lab, filling in gaps at the ends of budget cycles and building prototypes that required up-front funding for materials.
“My first doctoral student recently passed his defense,” Gardner said. “His prototype of a more fault-tolerant motor was supported by this fellowship.”
“UT Dallas is one of the fastest-growing universities in the nation, located in one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan regions,” Ghassemi said. “It’s on the rise, with increasing size, rankings and impact.”
Ghassemi previously served as an assistant professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. She was also named both a Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellow and a College of Engineering Faculty Fellow.
At UT Dallas, Ghassemi said she has appreciated having the discretion to spend the TI Early Career Fellowship funding as she saw fit.
“Our research area is close, and we have been working on some proposals and serving as committee members for our PhD students,” Ghassemi said.
She also advises new faculty to adopt Thomas Edison’s words: “Passion, patience and perseverance.”
TI Early Career Fellowship.
“The work I’m doing is surrounding wireless communication and wireless power transfer,” Mahbub said. “We have a project with brain implants. How can we enable wireless powering those implants? Then recently, we received two grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to power unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones.”
Mahbub’s area of research covers a broad range, which leads to interdisciplinary collaboration.
“It’s very small scale to very large scale,” she said. “We cover various ranges of frequencies as well, with applications from sea to sky. There are many colleagues in the department who are working on various complementary areas, and it helps in bringing brainstorming proposals from various angles.”
Mahbub has used her funding primarily to support a PhD student, as well as to advance new research. She has also used some of her funding toward travel for conferences.
“My PhD student is working on a new concept of meta surface for waveform manipulation,” Mahbub said. “We need some preliminary results to get a successful grant.”
“It’s a sustainable way to grow your research and try different ideas for future grants,” she said. “It’s a very good opportunity, and I’m thankful to have received the TI Early Career Fellowship.”
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