Professor Stavros Georgakopoulos and Ph.D. student Shun Yao examine an antenna radiation pattern.

Professor Stavros Georgakopoulos and Ph.D. student Shun Yao examine an antenna radiation pattern.

Students in Florida International University’s (FIU) College of Engineering & Computing will be one step ahead of their future employment competition thanks to a new partnership with ANSYS that provides its robust electromagnetics simulation technology in the laboratory and classroom. By making commercial simulation technology available in an academic setting, FIU engineering students will become acquainted with sophisticated software that is widely deployed in the engineering universe, increasing their value as prospective employees. This partnership will also allow FIU faculty to conduct significant leading edge research in electrical engineering and gives ANSYS a seat on the department’s Industry Advisory Board.

Stavros Georgakopoulos, a professor in FIU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been using ANSYS software for more than a decade. Not only does he teach it in the classroom, but also takes advantage of the tools for university research projects to develop compact and reconfigurable antennas.

“Exposing my students to ANSYS in the classroom is beneficial for them because they will acquire a specific skill set that is highly sought after in the marketplace,” said Georgakopoulos. “It’s also a tremendous help for my research because it enables me to quickly and accurately design complex electronic devices and achieve optimal performance,” he said.

As part of the agreement, ANSYS also gets a seat at the university’s Industry Advisory Board, which allows it to help determine the direction and content of FIU’s engineering programs.

“ANSYS welcomes the opportunity to expand its relationship with FIU,” said Murali Kadiramangalam, academic program director at ANSYS. “Jointly developing FIU’s engineering curriculum and shaping the minds of future engineers is rewarding, especially since we consistently hear from our customers that it’s difficult to find talented engineers with ANSYS experience. Training students on our technology while they’re still in college significantly cuts down the learning curve and rapidly creates more productive engineers in the long run.”

By Jim Hellegaard