Dr. James Drewniak, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Missouri-Rolla and director of the UMR Materials Research Center, has been named Curators’ Professor of electrical and computer engineering. The title will be conferred during UMR commencement ceremonies Saturday, Dec. 16. 

The University of Missouri Board of Curators approved the designation during its Oct. 6 meeting at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. 

The professorship is awarded to outstanding scholars with established reputations in their fields of study. Drewniak studies coupling physics and numerical modeling for electromagnetic compatibility in printed and integrated circuits, power electronics and electric machinery, electromagnetic packaging effects and signal integrity, MEMS, numerical electromagnetic analysis and RF and microwave measurements. 

“I am very pleased that the Board of Curators has selected Dr. Drewniak for this high academic honor,” says UMR Chancellor John F. Carney III. “This public recognition of his research accomplishments is richly deserved and brings added prestige to the electrical and computer engineering department.”

Drewniak joined the UMR faculty in 1991 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering. He was named associate professor in 1997 and was named professor in 2001. He has served as director of the UMR MRC since 2002.                  

Drewniak has authored or co-authored numerous journal and magazine articles and book reviews. Since joining the UMR faculty, he has received eight Faculty Excellence Awards and four Outstanding Teaching Awards. In 1996 he received the Outstanding Student Advising Award from the MSM-UMR Alumni Association.         

Drewniak is also a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu. A senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Drewniak received certificates of appreciation and acknowledgment from the group’s Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society in 1999 and 2001, respectively. He earned Best Paper honors from the IEEE International EMC Symposium in 1994 and 1996, and, in 2000, he earned Best Paper honors at the 16th Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics.         

Prior to joining UMR, Drewniak held research assistant positions in the bioacoustics and electromagnetics laboratories at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While at the University of Illinois, Drewniak received a Knowles Fellowship in Electrical Engineering, an Ernest A. Reid Teaching Incentive Fellowship and a General Electric Teaching Incentive Grant.         

Drewniak received bachelor of science, master of science and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985, 1987 and 1991, respectively.