Dr. John D. Enderle, professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and director of the Biomedical Engineering program, will receive the 2007 Fred Merryfield Design Award in recognition of his distinguished accomplishments in senior design. The Merryfield Award is presented by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and is one of three national engineering awards given each year.
Dr. Enderle will officially receive the award today during the ASEE annual awards banquet in Honolulu. The award was established in 1981 by CH2M Hill – the international engineering consulting and construction firm founded by professor Merryfield – to recognize engineering educators for excellence in teaching of engineering design.
Recipients are selected for their demonstrated excellence in teaching engineering design and the ability to inspire students to high levels of accomplishment; improvement of the resources and methodology for teaching engineering design; improvement of engineering design teaching through encouragement of colleagues; cooperation with industry; and appropriate emphasis on societal concerns, professionalism and ethics.
Since joining the faculty of the University of Connecticut in 1995, Dr. Enderle has won a number of awards. In 2006, he received the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) excellence in service award and the Theo Pilkington Outstanding Educator Award (American Association for Engineering Educators). He previously was presented the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society’s service award (2004) and in 1998, he was selected a University of Connecticut Teaching Fellow.
Dr. Enderle is Editor of the annual publication on NSF Senior Design Projects to Aid Persons with Disabilities carried out by universities throughout the U.S. In commenting on Dr. Enderle’s award, Gil Devey, an NSF Program Director for the Research to aid Persons with Disabilities Program, noted “The primary goal of the Senior Design Projects activity is to provide a meaningful design experience for the engineering student that will directly aid a specific disabled individual. This entails one-on-one interactions between the engineering student and a disabled individual, as contrasted to conventional design courses that concentrate on student experience without concern for improving the lives of others.”
Dr. Enderle co-authored the text, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering (1st edition ’99, 2nd edition ’05, Academic Press), and he is Editor-in-Chief of IEEE EMB Magazine and BME Book Series Editor for Morgan and Claypool publishers. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the Academic Press Biomedical Engineering Book Series. In 2006, Dr. Enderle co-authored three short books on probability theory for biomedical engineers and authored a book on bioinstrumentation (Morgan and Claypool). He is a Fellow of IEEE, the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society. He is also a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering (CASE). His current research interest involves characterizing the neurosensory control of the human visual and auditory system from the molecular to large system level. Dr. Enderle received his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic University in 1980.
Fred Merryfield, for whom the award is named, was a sanitary engineering professor and researcher at Oregon State University for 35 years. Professor Merryfield motivated his students to measure river pollution and report their findings to the Oregon State Board of Health. He eventually was credited as the driving force behind the cleanup of the Willamette River and other estuaries in Oregon.
