2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Founding a New College of Engineering at Illinois State University: An Overview of the Department of Electrical Engineering

Presented at ECE-Career Development and Program Structures

Illinois State University (ISU) is strategically expanding its academic offerings to address the growing demand for skilled engineers in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape. A vital component of this expansion plan involves establishing a brand new College of Engineering. The new college consists of two academic departments and offers three Bachelor’s degree programs, including a highly sought-after Electrical Engineering (EE) program. This initiative aims to elevate ISU’s academic profile while meeting the increasing need for expertise in critical industrial sectors, e.g., hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), industrial automation and control, power generation and transmission, renewable and sustainable energies, and wireless communications.

This paper will present the development of the ISU’s new EE program, which provides students with a solid foundation in electrical engineering principles, including basic circuits, digital logic, and embedded systems. To motivate the students joining the program from diverse backgrounds and widely varying levels of high school preparation, the program will innovatively begin with exciting courses: Freshman Explorations and Introduction to Engineering Design. Both these freshman courses offer a wide range of experiential and hands-on learning opportunities. At the Junior and Senior levels, we will offer courses in Analog and Digital Circuits, Communications, Control Systems, Embedded Systems, Power, and Robotics, thereby enabling students to learn cutting-edge technologies that are in high demand in industry. We thoroughly emphasize hands-on learning throughout the ongoing curriculum development process to prepare graduates adequately to address real-world engineering challenges in their workplaces.

The paper will discuss how the new engineering college is acquiring equipment for basic and advanced laboratories and creating collaborative/design spaces to foster the skills of creativity and innovation among students. Motivated by ISU’s strategic focus on interdisciplinarity, we will leverage the existing curricular strengths of ISU in the areas of Business, Technology, and Information Systems. We will strongly encourage interdisciplinary Senior Design projects that require students from Electrical Engineering, General Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering to form multidisciplinary teams. This paper will discuss the challenges and opportunities associated with ISU’s investment in a building exceeding 100,000 square feet. By virtue of ISU’s location, our students will have access to engineering firms such as ADM, Caterpillar, GE Renewable Energy, and Rivian for co-op experiences, internships, and project/research collaborations.

ISU’s new College of Engineering will prioritize Equity, Diversity, Access, and Belonging. With over 40% of the student body expected to come from minority and underrepresented groups, the college aims to foster an inclusive learning environment and produce a diverse STEM workforce. This paper will outline our strategies for ensuring student success through initiatives including but not limited to industry collaborations, partnerships with minority engineering societies, support from ISU’s Multicultural Center, and targeted scholarships. ISU’s new EE program will help drive Illinois’s economic/industrial growth by graduating a diverse body of employment-ready students with proficiencies in engineering design, communication skills, and teamwork.

Authors

Dr. Umar Iqbal http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7683-5045 Illinois State University [biography]

Dr. Umar Iqbal is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and a Founding Faculty Member of the College of Engineering at Illinois State University. He specializes in autonomous systems, multi-sensor integration, robotics, control, and intelligent navigation, with over 15 years of interdisciplinary experience. His research contributions include MEMS-based inertial systems, GNSS-challenged navigation, radar, LiDAR, and sensor fusion, resulting in over 50 publications and 1,050+ citations (h-index 17). Dr. Iqbal has secured more than $1.5 million in competitive funding and collaborated with industry leaders and research institutes to advance intelligent sensing technologies.

A passionate educator, he has developed and taught over 25 distinct courses, including robotics, control systems, and multisensor data fusion. His work in blended learning and engineering education innovation has earned him multiple awards, including an NSF grant and the Dr. George Adebiyi Award for Outstanding Teaching. Dr. Iqbal holds a Ph.D. from Queen's University, master’s degrees from the Royal Military College of Canada and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute, and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from UET Lahore.
Md Shahin Alam Illinois State University [biography]

Dr. Md Shahin Alam is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA. Before joining Illinois State, he served as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Western Illinois University, Quad Cities, IL, USA. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Oakland University, MI, USA, in 2021 and his M.E. in Electrical Engineering from McNeese State University, LA, USA, in 2017. He researched several topics related to optimization in the planning and operation of power distribution systems. These include but are not limited to energy management, renewable energy, energy storage, and electric vehicle integration in smart grids, remote communities, and isolated microgrids.
Jing Wang Illinois State University [biography]

Jing Wang received his Ph.D. in control theory and applications from Central South University, China, in 1997. He is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Illinois State University. Prior to this, he served in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Bradley University, Peoria, IL, where he was an Assistant Professor from 2014 to 2018, an Associate Professor from 2018 to 2024, and a Professor in 2024. From 2007 to 2014, he held positions as an Assistant Professor and Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona Beach, FL. Between 2002 and 2007, he was a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Central Florida. He has authored a book published by Springer and over 150 papers, along with four book chapters, primarily focused on nonlinear control, cooperative control, adaptive neural control, robotics, and optimization. His current research interests encompass systems and controls, the Internet of Things (IoT), cyber-physical systems, distributed control, data-driven control and machine learning, distributed optimization, and control applications in robotics, power network, and communication networks. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Dr. Vijay Devabhaktuni Illinois State University [biography]

Vijay Devabhaktuni (S’97-M’03-SM’09) received the B.Eng. degree in EEE and the M.Sc. degree in Physics from BITS, Pilani, India, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in 2003. From 2005 to 2008, he held the Canada Research Chair in Computer-Aided High-Frequency Modeling & Design, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. In 2008, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of Toledo, Toledo, as Associate Professor, and was early promoted to Professor in 2013. Between 2018 and 2021, he worked for Purdue Northwest, Hammond, as Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering. Between 2021 and 2023, he worked for University of Maine as Chair of Electrical & Computer Engineering. In 2023, Dr. Devabhaktuni joined the College of Engineering at Illinois State University as the Founding Chair of Electrical Engineering. He secured external funding close to $5M. He co-authored more than 250 peer reviewed papers with high citation indices. His interdisciplinary research interests include applied electromagnetics, biomedical applications, computer aided design, device modeling, image processing, infrastructure monitoring, neural networks, RF/microwave design, unmanned aerial vehicles, and virtual reality. He graduated more than 75 theses students at MS and PhD levels and won teaching excellence awards.

Download paper (1.1 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session