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Contact Information: Sheryl Weinstein Public Relations 973-596-3436

NJIT Electrical Engineer Hosts Chronicle Program about Obtaining NSF Money

Ever wonder how professors obtain sizable government grants to buy supercomputers and, in turn, give their tech-related research a boost?  Then set your Internet dial this Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007 at noon (U.S. Eastern time) to hear NJIT electrical engineering professor Sirin Tekinay detail the process in a cyber-program sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education.  

To learn more, please visit http://chronicle.com/live/2007/11/tekinay/chat.php3 Registrants may immediately post questions and comments.

“NSF has budgeted $26-million for these grants through 2008 and that’s just the beginning,” said Tekinay.  “I hope to see that number grow in years to come.  I’d be delighted to see many people sign up to take advantage of this session.”  

Tekinay leads NSF’s Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation Program and chairs its implementation team. She joined NSF’s Division of Computing and Communications Foundations as program director for theoretical foundations in communications research in 2005. 

The program wants to help academics advance their computing and research skills  in engineering, the hard sciences as well as the social sciences. The program also aims to finance creative computational methods for compiling and interpreting data. “The idea is to expand the uses of computational thinking, and perhaps even solve some of the world's ills,” said Tekinay. 

Tekinay joined NJIT in 1997 and enjoyed a strong reputation for both teaching and research.   

She holds eight patents involving wireless geo-location systems. Her most recent patent, awarded in May 2007, was for detecting the geographical location of wireless units.  She is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and serves on the editorial board of the IEEE Communications Surveys.  In 2003, she received NJIT’s Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award.  She received her doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from George Mason University in 1994 and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul. 

New Jersey Institute of Technology, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls more than 8,000 students in bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in nearly 100 degree programs offered by six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert Dorman Honors College, and College of Computing Sciences. NJIT is renowned for expertise in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering, and eLearning. NJIT: The Edge in Knowledge.