Philosophy

Our program is flexible enough to be tailored to the student interest while providing sufficient breadth and depth to accommodate the rapid changes taking place in the field.

This program aims to enable graduates to pursue further studies at the doctoral level, enter the industry workforce or work in a research and development environment.

This program intends to offer electrical engineers an opportunity to become more productive by acquiring knowledge of advanced technologies in the Electrical Engineering field. This includes exposing the student to state of the art engineering application software.

The program also seeks to stimulate students to actively pursue continuing education and professional development options in order to stay on the cutting-edge of Electrical Engineering Science and technology.

Graduate Profile

Graduates should be able to keep abreast of the latest developments in their areas, read and analyze journal papers from their field, conduct independent research in their areas of interest (Thesis Option), write papers or technical reports, conduct technical and scientific presentations within a conference environment, and use mainstream engineering software applications.

Admission Requirements

Applicants must meet the general requirements for admission to the graduate program outlined by the Graduate School. In addition, applicants are expected to have a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, preferably from an ABET-accredited institution, a minimum general GPA of 2.8, and a GPA of 3.00 in the electrical engineering courses. After a revision of the student‟s credit transcript the department may require him/her to take certain remedial courses.

The student is normally admitted to the master‟s degree program in the field in which his or her undergraduate degree was conferred. When the student decides to do graduate work in a different field, the department, at its discretion, may require him/her to establish additional background by taking a number of undergraduate courses. The student has to earn a grade of C or better in his undergraduate work. These requirements must be fulfilled as early as possible in the student’s program. Courses taken to remedy deficiencies can not be used to fulfill course requirements for the master’s degree.

Degree Offered

The Thesis option leads to a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (M.S.E.E.) degree and the non-Thesis option leads to a Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering (M.Eng.E.E.) degree.

Thesis Option

This option provides a significant element of independent research through the completion of a thesis. This option is recommended, but not limited, to the student either seeking to pursue a doctoral degree or planning to work in a research and development environment. It consists of 9 credit-hours of core courses, 6 credit-hours of Thesis work and 15 credit-hours of elective courses for a total of 30 credit-hours. Students enrolled in this track will receive a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (M.S.E.E.).

The thesis research shall be directed by a member of the faculty, which also acts as the student‟s graduate committee chairperson. The purpose of the thesis is to expose the student to a reasonable independent research experience that enhances his/her academic development. The student should prepare, carry out and report a structured and methodical study of importance. Publication of this work in journals, conference proceedings, and /or poster presentations is strongly encouraged.

Alternative 2: Master of Engineering Degree – Master Project Requirement

Thesis Topic: The thesis topic must be approved in writing by the student graduate committee. The topic should be of sufficient relevance to illustrate the student‟s ability to conduct independent research to the extent described above.

Thesis Exam (Defense): The student will make an oral presentation followed by a session of question and answers. Students must approve an oral thesis examination before his/her graduate committee.

Continuous Enrollment: Once the graduate committee has accepted the student‟s topic the student can receive authorization to enroll in the Thesis course. It is recommended that the student maintains continuous enrollment through the Thesis Extension course.

Thesis Copies: The student will be required to submit copies of the thesis in a format approved by the Graduate School. After approval and correction, a final version of the copies will be maintained in the library.

Non-Thesis Option

The non-thesis option also provides for some degree of exposure to independent research through class projects, literature search and paper reviews. Because of the additional course load required by this alternative the student can select to specialize further in his/her area or to add more breadth to his program. This option is recommended, but not limited, to students who are not interested in seeking a higher degree (Ph.D.). Its completion requires 9 credit-hours of core courses and 30 credit-hours of elective courses for 39 credit-hours. Students enrolled in this option will receive a Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering (M. Eng. E.E.). This option does not require a comprehensive examination or final project. If a student desires to tackle a specific project, it can do so under the “Project in Signal Processing” course.

Curricular Sequence

The Master of Science program is a flexible program that can be tailored to the student‟s interest while providing solid grounding, through 9 credit-hours of core courses, on some of the key concepts and tools related to the electrical engineering field. For each area of interest the required undergraduate courses are defined as the minimum background or prerequisite necessary to enter the field. The students will have to enroll in these courses if they did not take them as part of their undergraduate studies. Background courses are advanced undergraduate courses and count (up to 6 credit- hours) toward the degree.

Further remedial courses could be determined, at the discretion of the department, on a one to one basis depending on the student‟s background and chosen field of study. If further remedial courses are prescribed they will not count toward the degree and will have to be approved with a grade of C or better.

Faculty

• Cruz Triana, Alfredo – Professor; Graduate Program Director; Ph.D. Computer Information Systems, Nova Southeastern University, Florida, 2002;Ph.D., Computer Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, 1992; B.A. Mathematics and Computer Science, University of North Carolina, NC, 1984;B.E.T Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of North Carolina, 1984; A.A.S. Electrical Engineering, Fayetteville, Technical Institute, NC, 1982. Research Interests: Parallel Processing, Genetic Algorithms, Fault Tolerant Computing, e-commerce, Artificial Intelligence.
• Duffany, Jeffrey – Professor, Ph.D., Computer and Information Engineering, Stevens Institute; MS Electrical Engineering, Columbia University.
• González Lizardo, Ángel – Associate Professor; Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, 2003; M.S.E.E., University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, 1994; B.S.E.E., Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela, 1984. Research Interests: Nonlinear Adaptive Control, Programmable Logic Devices, Power Systems and Machinery.
• Riera Ayala, Guillermo M. – Associate Professor; Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, George Washington University, Washington D.C., 2000; M.S.E.E., George Washington University, Washington D.C., 1996; B.S.E.E., University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez Campus, Mayagüez, PR, 1994. Registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) Puerto Rico; Certified PV Installer (AAE)                      from Puerto Rico; Energy Auditor (AAE) from Puerto Rico; Certified Energy Manager Association of Energy Engineers; Green Building Engineer Association of Energy Engineers;                       Certified Power Quality Prof. Association of Energy                     Engineers.  Research Interests: Energy Conversion, Power and Transmission,  Energy Management and Conservation,      Renewable Energy Systems, Distributed Generation, Green Electrical Systems, Power Quality and Traditional Power Systems.
• Rodríguez Jiménez, Othoniel – Professor; Ph.D., Computer Engineering and Computer Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia Missouri, 2003; M.S.E.E. and C.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978; B.S.E.E., University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, 1975. Registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) Puerto Rico. Research Interests: Data Mining, Reconfigurable Hardware, e-Learning, Entrepreneurship.
• Sarmiento Fernández, Jorge – Lecturer III; D.A. Mathematics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 1982; M.A. Mathematics, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 1979; B.S. Mathematics, IIA-World University, Hato Rey, PR, 1975; B.E.E.  Power, University of Gijon, Spain, 1971; A.A.S.Computer Science, College of Morris, New Jersey, 1995. Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Combinatorial Analysis, Graph Theory.
• Solá Sloan, Juan – Lecturer III; Ph.D., Computing and Information Science and Engineering, University of Puerto Rico, 2009. M.S.E.E., University of Puerto Rico, 1998; B.S.E.E.,  University of Puerto Rico, 1996. Research Interests: developing Linux applications, BSD socket API and protocol development, High Performance Computing environments, wireless networks, SAMBA, Netbeui,TCP/IP connectivity in UNIX to Windows environments.
• Teixeira Abarno, Marvi – Professor;  Ph.D., Physical Oceanography, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, 1999; M.S.E.E., University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, 1994; B.S.E.E., Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, 1989. Registered Professional Engineer (P.E.) Puerto Rico. Research Interests: Fast Algorithms for Digital Signal Processing, Time Series Analysis and Prediction Applied to the Geosciences, Analysis of Satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar Images Applied to the Study of the Oceans.
• Torres Batista, Nelliud D. – Associate Professor; DBA, Management Information Systems, Turabo University, 2011; MS Information System, EDP College of Puerto Rico, 1995; B.S. Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus, 1984.
• Vicente López, Luis M. – Associate Professor; Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 2009. M.S.E.E., Florida International University, 1996; B.S.E.E., Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain, 1990. Research Interests: beamforming, array processing, statistical signal processing, and adaptive filters.
• Zaharov Vasilevich, Viktor – Associate Professor; Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Odessa Polytechnic State University, Ukraine, 1993; M.S.Electrical Engineering, Odessa Polytechnic State University, Ukraine, 1983; A.S. Control System and Automatics. College of Industry Automatics. Odessa, Ukraine, 1975. Research Interests:  2G and 3G Communications, Mobile and Satellite Communication Systems, Radio Communications, Smart Antenna and its Application for Wireless Communications and Radar, Communications Standards IS-95, UMTS, IMT-2000, GSM, Signal and Image Processing Algorithms and Processors, Wavelets Transform and its Applications in Communication Systems, Kalman Filtering, Spectral and Time Series Analysis, Antennas and Wave Propagation. 

Contact Information

Alfredo Cruz, Ph.D.
Graduate Program Director
Email: alcruz@pupr.edu
Phone: 787-622-8000 x. 316

Laboratories

Computer and Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science Laboratories

· Networking Laboratory – This laboratory is equipped with a broad variety of networking appliances including repeaters, switches, routers, firewalls, and servers, plus wireless access points, and wired interconnection panels housed in various cabinets and racks. There are also twenty (20) dual-processor hyper-threading workstations, where the student can configure a variety of protocol stacks and network management software.

· Configurable Hardware Laboratory – This laboratory has 15 ML-5001 Evaluation Platform boards for Xilinx Virtex-5 reconfigurable gate arrays. These are connected to PC workstations that are configured with the Xilinx Integrated Software Environment which allow the creation of VHDL models for hardware-implemented functionality of substantial complexity. These models and other intellectual property modules are then compiled, simulated, debugged, synthesized and downloaded into the Evaluation Platform boards, where they can be embedded into the application environment.

· Learning Objects Research Collaborative Atelier (LORCA) eLearning Research Laboratory – This laboratory provides space, laptop computers, and several servers to support the development of eLearning and educational support tools. This laboratory is available to students conducting work on eLearning as part of their undergraduate research course, capstone course, graduate thesis course, or graduate project course.

· High Performance Computing Center – This laboratory provides a high performance, loosely coupled, parallel computing facility that was established with a grant provided by the Air Force Office of Research of the Department of Defense in 2004 for $101,089. This lab has two Beowulf PC Clusters with 64 processors each and one SGI PC Cluster with 256 processors from a grant from the NSF for $160,000. It also houses an Altix 350 supercomputer with four processors from a grant by PRIDCO. All are used to support scientific and engineering research for graduate and undergraduate students.

· Turing Laboratory for Graduate Studies – This laboratory provides faculty members and graduate students state-of-the-art equipment to support their research. The PUPR was recently awarded a grant from PRIDCO for the establishment of the Master in Computer Science (first in Puerto Rico) of $450,000 and for the acquisition, installation, and maintenance of the PCs and workstations, housed in the Turing lab. It includes 24 state of the art Dell Pc‟s, 10 SGI power workstations, 4 Apple G5 and 4 50” Plasma Monitors.

· “Window to the Caribbean” Laboratory – This laboratory creates a virtual environment that connects Puerto Rico to the rest of the world. Its main function will be to participate in collaborative academic and research projects with students, professors, industries and others entities from around the globe. The lab was financed by a grant from the Air Force Office of Research Science of the Department of Defense (AFORS DoD) in 2005 for $181,000.

· Virtual Wireless Lab for Information Security – In September 2007 the Army Research Office of the Department of Defense (ARO DoD) awarded a grant for $193,800 for a virtual wireless lab for information security.

· Signal Processing Laboratory – This laboratory is equipped with high performance Workstations with 1 GByte of RAM, flat panel monitors and a heavy duty HP Color Laser Printer. All workstations have a research license of MATLAB and Internet access.