Since 2000, the National Science Foundation has bestowed Early Career Development Awards on 20 of RPI’s young faculty members. The CAREER Award is the NSF’s most prestigious award for faculty in their early professional careers. The award includes financial support for research over the course of five years, the amount based on a budget request submitted by the honoree, with the minimum total award amount set at $400,000.
Murat Arcak, an assistant professor of electrical computer and systems engineering at Rensselaer, is one of this year’s recipients of the CAREER Award.
He received this award based on his research on non-linear control systems, which are used to design multipurpose, multifunction systems that can operate flawlessly in a variety of conditions. The research Arcak is doing is important because it can be used in wide ranges of operation such as those that have high speeds or large domains.
Arcak has already started considering how to spend the grant money. “I plan on using this money for supporting one graduate student and on some equipment. I will also use it to develop a new course,” said Arcak. The course will be an introductory class about non-linear systems designed for undergraduate students in their senior year. When asked what he hopes to accomplish through this course, Arcak replied, “I hope to gain students’ interest in nonlinear phenomena that appear in other areas, such as biological applications and communication networks.”
Arcak plans on expanding his research to large-scale systems. He will also continue teaching several classes at Rensselaer.
Arcak joined Rensselaer two years ago and enjoys the campus and community. He feels the advantage of a small school such as RPI is “the ability to have numerous face-to-face interactions with people in different departments.” Arcak looks forward to advancing his career at Rensselaer.
