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Clarkson honors two for work as teacher, advisor

Posted 5/9/19

POTSDAM -- Clarkson University recently honored two people for their work as a teacher and an adviser. Mahesh Banavar, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering was announced …

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Clarkson honors two for work as teacher, advisor

Posted

POTSDAM -- Clarkson University recently honored two people for their work as a teacher and an adviser.

Mahesh Banavar, Ph.D., assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering was announced as the Clarkson University 2019 Outstanding Advisor Award winner during University Recognition Day last month. The outstanding faculty advisors of undergraduate students have been recognized during University Recognition Day since 1979. Banavar was chosen for the honor by students via advisor evaluation results from the previous fall and spring semesters.

Marko Budišić, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics, was announced as the Clarkson University 2019 Outstanding New Teacher Award winner during University Recognition Day last month. Established by the University Committee on Improvement in Teaching in 1991, this award recognizes an outstanding teacher within his or her first four years at the university. Criteria for selection include excellence in the classroom, capacity to motivate and challenge students and creativity in teaching methods and curriculum development.

“I felt deeply honored, especially because this award was based on the feedback of my student advisees, who I work with closely, and with the support my colleagues, who are actively involved in student advising and know its importance,” Banavar said in a news release from Clarkson.

A native of Bangalore, India, Banavar joined Clarkson in 2014 after serving as an assistant research professor at Arizona State University, where he also received his master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering.

Banavar is working on two primary research projects. The first study involves utilizing behavioral biometrics to identify a user on a computer system by how they interact with their devices rather than through passwords, fingerprints or retina/face recognition. He is looking to identify legitimate users and block unauthorized users based on typing behavior on keyboards and by collecting touch/swipe/gesture data on mobile devices. The study is a collaborative effort with professors Daqing Hou, Ph.D., Director of Software Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Stephanie Schuckers, Ph.D., Paynter-Krigman Endowed Professor in Engineering Science in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. It is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Center for Identification Technology Research (CITeR) and Facebook.

His second research thrust is in the area of localization in GPS-denied environments, and specifically in crowded indoor environments, where signals are corrupted by scattering and interference. Banavar and his collaborator, associate professor of mathematics Jie Sun, Ph.D., are developing algorithms that will work with noisy and incomplete data. The algorithms can also be applied to estimating the sources of atrial fibrillation in human hearts, growth rates of forest fires and the wave propagation speed of tsunamis.

Budišić received the Outstanding New Teacher Award during the “Last Lectures” on May 8.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Budišić said in a news release from the school. “I appreciate the recognition because I do work hard to improve and develop my teaching. At the same time, I am humbled as a lot of my colleagues are excellent teachers, many of them also assistant professors, instructors, lecturers and adjuncts, and I think many of them could have easily been awarded the same recognition.”

A native of Croatia, Budišić, joined Clarkson in July 2016 after serving three years as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Mathematics. He earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Budišić’s research involves working with models of ocean currents. While he does not develop these models himself, he does take the resultant equations and attempts to determine the possibility of spilled oil reaching land on the coast and if two populations of plants or animals can naturally be brought together by the ocean. The complexity of such problems requires him to communicate with engineers, oceanographers and mathematicians to ascertain how the mathematics being worked on at Clarkson relates to various human and natural processes.

Budišić acknowledged his department and the Institute for STEM Education for actively supporting faculty who want to try new teaching techniques and attend professional development programs, such as MAA Project NExT. “I appreciate working at a place where teaching is not thought of as merely a chore, but is rather valued and highlighted,” he said.