2007 Recipient
David Cyganski
David Cyganski, you have spent your professional career serving your alma mater. Upon receiving your master’s degree in 1977, you became an adjunct professor in the ECE department and joined the tenure track faculty in 1981 on completion of your PhD. Now professor of electrical and computer engineering, you choose to study a wide variety of topics beneficial to the university, as well as to society.
For your devotion and leadership, you’ve won many awards, including the first Joseph Samuel Satin Distinguished Fellow (1982) for showing promise as a young teacher. You were the youngest faculty member to win the Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Teaching in (1984). You’ve also received the Ichabod Washburn Alumni Award for Professional Achievement (1990), the Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Research (1996), the Weston Hadden Professorship (1999), and the Robert H. Goddard Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement (2000).
Since arriving at WPI, you’ve pioneered the use of information technology in the classroom. For example, the introduction of WPI’s first fully Web-based course – just a year after the birth of graphical Web browser technology. Your research, ranging from radar and precision radio location of first responders to Internet communications, has gathered support from leading corporations and government agencies, having won a total of more than fifty research grants to date.
Your tremendous efforts have helped WPI plan for long-term success. In the early 1980s, your participation as a member of the President’s Computer Advisory Committee helped develop the first plan to bring personal computers and computer networking to the campus. As CIO and vice president for information technology, you helped create a campus-wide computer network and laid groundwork for a more modern integrative administrative system. During your term as vice provost, you helped WPI understand and avoid a serious financial aid challenge. You have contributed many times to WPI’s strategic plans, including chairing the Planning and Implementation Committee that won community-wide approval for WPI’s first formal strategic plan. Most recently, you were part of the small interdisciplinary team that created WPI’s new and highly innovative robotics engineering undergraduate degree program – the first in the nation.
David Cyganski, for your incredible efforts and achievements, WPI is honored to present you with the William R. Grogan Award for Support of the Mission of WPI.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: August 31, 2007 11:46:26