Biographies

The Students

 Elizabeth MacLean is a first year student at Drexel University from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who is working toward a degree in electrical engineering and hopes to find a job after college that allows her to research and improve upon the functioning and evolution of everyday technologies such as smart phones, tablets, and other less common yet still fascinating gadgets.  As the design of the wireless graphics device utilizing HDMI is her first almost fully independent engineering group project, Liz hopes to take away a lot of new information from the research intensive project.  In her free time, she likes to write and listen to music while contemplating the reality of time and space.
Contact: elizabeth.ruth.maclean@drexel.edu

Kevin Hoover is Ohio born and raised. He is a first year engineering student at Drexel University. He is pursuing a double major in Computer and Electrical Engineering. After graduating, Kevin hopes to work for AMD or Intel in the development of new CPU’s and GPU’s. Kevin is looking forward to working on the Wireless HDMI device. He has worked with electronics and circuitry before, but never on any sort of wireless technology. Kevin enjoys country music and hanging out with friends.

Contact: kmh427@drexel.edu

Megan Sahm is originally from central Connecticut and is currently working towards a degree in mechanical engineering. She hopes to pursue a career dealing with mechanical innovation with a focus in polymer science and materials engineering. While the idea of a wireless HDMI transmitter and receiver is not specifically a mechanical subject, she hopes to gain a deeper understanding of electrical engineering and some of the facets of mechanical engineering that also apply. Megan is excited about working on an interdisciplinary, externally advised project a such as this one. Megan is an avid reader and enjoys listening to classical music as well as familiarizing herself with the surrounding area. 
Contact: mrs428@drexel.edu

Victoria Schafer is a first year student at Drexel University from Maplewood, New Jersey who is working toward a degree in mechanical engineering and a minor in mathematics.  She hopes to find a career involving a huge focus on physics and mathematics, but is not yet set on anything too specific.  Through the work done with the wireless HDMI, she hopes to gain a better understanding of circuitry and electrical engineering as well as getting the most out of experience that involves a physical product rather than just a pen and paper.  Victoria is excited to be working on such an independent, free-formed project with a group she knows she can trust.  In her spare time, Victoria enjoys listening to music, spending time with friends, and bumblebees.
Contact: vhs24@drexel.edu

The Advising Faculty

Baris Taskin is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, where he joined as an assistant professor in 2005. Between 2003-2004, he was a staff engineer at MultiGiG Inc., Scotts Valley, CA, working on electronic design automation of integrated circuit timing and clocking. He is the coauthor of the book entitled Timing Optimization Through Clock Skew Scheduling (Springer, 2009). He is an "A. Richard Newton Award" winner from the ACM SIGDA in 2007 (for junior faculty starting new programs in EDA), a recipient of the Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2009 and the Distinguished Service Award from ACM SIGDA in 2012.



Scott Lerner is a student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Drexel University. He currently works in the Drexel VLSI lab under Dr. Baris Taskin doing research in electronic design automation and clock tree optimization. He is the recipient of "A. Richard Newton Young Fellow Award" from DAC in 2014 and also received the "NextFab Innovation Award" for a Leap Motion-powered wheelchair. In addition, he is the technical chair of Drexel's IEEE Graduate society.