High-voltage teaching: Mungo award winner brings intensity and enthusiasm to classroom

By Chris Horn

Most of us sit on the edge of our seats only when we're anxious to see who will win the game or whodunit in a movie.

Eric Moulton sat in suspense at the beginning of his freshman electrical engineering classes, waiting to hear his professor teach more about electrical circuits.

If Tangali Sudarshan had been your professor, you could identify. This year's winner of the Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year Award, Sudarshan teaches electrical engineering with 500-watt intensity.

"It was difficult material, but he walked in every day excited about it," Moulton said. "He has a way of talking about things that makes anything interesting. I sat in my desk before each class, literally excited to hear the answers to the questions he left open-ended the class before."

In 27 years of teaching, Sudarshan has engineered a process for reaching his students and drawing them into his courses. For him, the basics of classroom learning consist of cultivating the students' sense of curiosity, engaging them with the material, and conveying a sense of excitement about the material.

"How do you rouse their curiosity? You expose them to real-world applications and provide connections to things like appliances, toasters, washing machine motors--things they use every day," he said. "If you can't visualize the course material in some concrete way, it's hard to become curious."

Sudarshan also emphasizes to students that the techniques they learn in a basic electrical circuits course, for instance, will become useful problem-solving tools in other courses and in engineering careers after graduation.

"It's about helping them to see why it's relevant to learn the material--not just to pass the course but to build a foundation for more learning," he said. "I have a reputation for being a demanding professor, but this has not deterred me from having high expectations for my students. I believe that being demanding and having high expectations will bring out the best in students and help them reach their full potential."

Moulton started as a computer engineering major but switched to electrical engineering largely because of Sudarshan. He's now an undergraduate assistant in Sudarshan's research lab.

"He has opened so many doors for me over the last year and given me so much opportunity," Moulton said. "He has given me the resources and drive to get involved in cutting-edge research."

Chris Morgan, a graduate student in the same research group and a teaching assistant in Sudarshan's circuits class, called the professor "very dedicated to undergraduate education and also committed to graduate-level research.

"I never had him for an undergraduate course, but he was my advisor and helped me plan out each semester in terms of what to take, how to prepare, and how not to get overwhelmed. It's nice to have a professor so dedicated to helping undergraduates succeed."

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