Mehrizi-Sani receives national engineering teaching award

By Mary Catherine Frantz, intern, WSU Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture

Mehrizi_Sani_WSU Voiland College 1PULLMAN, Wash. – Ali Mehrizi-Sani, assistant professor in WSU’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has received the prestigious Mac E. Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Education Society.

The Mac E. Van Valkenburg Award recognizes members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) Education Society who have made outstanding contributions to teaching unusually early in their professional careers, as evidenced by teaching performance, development of new teaching methods, and curricular innovation in fields of interest to the IEEE Education Society.

Mehrizi-Sani is known for using effective and tangible teaching in his instruction. For example, Mehrizi-Sani has cracked open an Apple phone charger to show students its layout; he has also brought an electric motor to class and walked students through the design process of the electrical circuit so they could comprehend what was in the mind of its inventor.

Mehrizi-Sani utilizes hands-on learning experiences to enhance students' understanding.
Mehrizi-Sani utilizes hands-on learning experiences to enhance students’ understanding.

This year, Mehrizi-Sani was also the recipient of WSU’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science’s Early Career Excellence in Research Award. Last year, he was awarded the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture Reid Miller Excellence in Teaching Award and the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science’s Teaching Excellence Award.

Mehrizi-Sani’s awards also include the 2015 IEEE PES PSDP Technical Committee Working Group Recognition Award, and he was a 2014 NAE Frontiers of Engineering Education participant.

Mehrizi-Sani’s research focuses include renewable energy resources in the power system, microgrid management, and power system applications of power electronics. He has received several National Science Foundation awards, including one for the development of a software learning tool for his power electronics course.

He was nominated for the Mac E. Van Valkenburg Award by Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture associate dean John Schneider “for his enthusiastic, caring, and creative teaching that has increased excitement, engagement, and understanding in engineering, for contributions to the scholarship of teaching, and for recruitment of precollege students.”

The Mac E. Van Valkenburg Award will be presented to Mehrizi-Sani at IEEE’s annual conference in Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 18-21.

 

Media Contact:

  • Brett Stav, public relations/marketing director, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, 509-335-8189, brett.stav@wsu.edu