Spira Teaching Award

Julio Urbina, associate professor of electrical engineering, recently received the 2014 Joel and Ruth Spira Excellence in Teaching Award. This award, was established in 1983 by Ruth and Joel Spira, cofounders of the Lutron Electronics Company. The prize is awarded to a faculty member who had excelled in teaching and inspiring students during the current academic year.

Fullbright Scholar

Urbina has been selected to receive a Fulbright award to Peru. As a Fulbright scholar, Urbina strives to build an educational training program that leverages teaching between Universidad Nacional de Ingeniera (UNI) in Lina, Peru and Penn State. He will teach two project-based, experiential learning courses in the field of electrical engineering at UNI. Ultimately, Urbina will identify common goals and cooperative projects to sustain and maintain both an exchange of scholars and students between Peru and the United States.

Urbina’s research at Penn State has been focused on developing radar systems using open source hardware and software tools, which includes a prototype of the next generation of meteor radars to study meteor reflections and its effect on the Earth’s upper atmosphere and also on space weather.

The Fulbright program, established in 1946, was created to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of the more than 150 countries that currently participate in the Fulbright program. The Fulbright Program is one of the most prestigious awards programs worldwide.