Message From The Department Head

It is easy to say that 1996 was a major milestone in our history – after all, we opened our doors that year as a brand new engineering program with a vision to develop and offer one of the best engineering programs. We envisioned an ECE program that provides skills, knowledge, and expertise that are imminently relevant to today’s and tomorrow’s engineering profession. We created an innovative, combined electrical and computer engineering program that is based on project-based and hands-on learning, with every class featuring real-world project-based laboratory components along with the hallmark of our program, the Engineering Clinics. It is no wonder that our graduates – despite the young age of our program – are sought after, with over 95% of our graduates being placed in a job or a graduate school, many of whom long before graduation.

But I would like to talk about a different milestone today. Having just completed our fifth consecutive ABET accreditation of our B.S. in ECE program with no shortcomings - but only strengths, we are now poised to look into the future. In another ten or fifteen years, I have no doubt that we will look back at the 2025-2030 period as another turning point in our history. These are exciting times for us, both at the department, college, and university level. At the department level, we have just embarked on a new hiring program to bring the best and the brightest of educators and scholars into Rowan ECE Faculty. Furthermore, in no small part due to tremendous interest and growth in our enrollment, the College just completed a brand new building that more than doubled our current size. Electrical and Computer Engineering now occupies the third floor of this stunning new building with brand new state-of-the-art labs. Staying true to our commitment to small class sizes, all of our teaching labs - where the vast majority of our classes are taught - are designed for 24 students. We have also developed brand-new certificate programs in Applied Machine Learning, Cybersecurity Engineering, Power Systems, and Wind Energy. These are in addition to our certificate in Combat Systems Engineering, the first - and only one - of its kind in the nation, in close collaboration with Lockheed Martin. Tightly integrated with our certificate programs is our optional co-op program - also unique, because it gives you to a 6~9-month co-op experience while allowing you to graduate in four years.

In 2023, we started a pilot 2+2 in Electrical Engineering Technology program (two years at a community college and two years here at Rowan), which is now expanded to a regular full 4-year B.S. in Electrical Engineering Technology degree program starting in 2025. Also starting in 2025 - and responding to significant interest and demand from industry - is our new M.S. in Systems Engineering program.

Rowan ECE has always been at the forefront of AI / Machine Learning. Recognizing the dramatically growing importance of this field, we have also expanded our Virtual Reality lab into a new Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality Center (MAVRC).

At the College level, we now have additional brand-new programs, such as Biomedical Engineering and Engineering Entrepreneurship, as well as a growing, new, and innovative Ph.D. program. In just a few short years, we have reached over 30 Ph.D. students, as well as 60 M.S. and 350 undergraduate students.  At the University level, we are also growing with new programs, such as New Jersey's first Veterinary Medicine program, one of the most anticipated new museums in the world, the world-class Edelman Fossil Park, and new and modern facilities for students, including a brand new 40,000 sqft expansion of the Student Center. 

While we are growing both in size and focus areas, we are more dedicated to our original mission than ever: to provide the best engineering education that will produce agile, proficient, and competent engineers, successful in solving not only today’s but also tomorrow’s evolving and emerging engineering needs and challenges. We do so by not comprising from our educational principles – by keeping our class sizes small (our average class size is 15-24 students), by hiring new, dedicated, and student-centered faculty, by assigning an ECE faculty advisor to each student who tracks their progress, by maintaining top-notch and cutting-edge laboratory facilities, and by keeping our curriculum and projects always modern, always up-to-date.

If you are a prospective student trying to decide on the right program for you, if you are a parent trying to help your child in making that decision, if you are a business owner or an industry representative wanting to find out whether our faculty can help you solve your engineering problems, or if you are a faculty candidate looking for that special place where your passion for engineering education and research can flourish, I invite you to find out more about us - not just by browsing through these pages, but also by visiting us. Feel free to contact me at (856) 256-5372 (or by e-mail) or any one of our faculty members to find out more. We are extremely excited about our program, about our future, and we cannot wait to share that with you.

The future is what we do. Join us, and we will do that together.

Sincerely,
Robi Polikar, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Head