Professor Gerald Sobelman Receives 2023 Graduate and Professional Education Award

ECE’s Professor Gerald E. Sobelman is a recipient of the Graduate and Professional Education Award for 2023. Each year, the University of Minnesota supported by the University of Minnesota Alumni Association and the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost presents the award to select faculty for their outstanding contributions to graduate and/or professional education. Candidates for the award are nominated by their colleges to identify and honor excellence in education. 

Sobelman’s research and teaching expertise lies in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design, an area that has been the focus of national attention because of its role in the country’s future technological leadership. He teaches some of the highest enrolled courses at the graduate level in ECE, and many of them are also offered through distance learning facilities of the University including the UNITE program. Over the course of more than 35 years as a faculty member, he has taught well over 1000 students, many of whom have gone on to pursue careers in cutting edge technology companies.

He has also contributed to graduate education through distance learning and outreach programs.  An active participant in the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, Sobelman has been thrice appointed to the position of Distinguished Lecturer (DL). An educational initiative, the Distinguished Lecturer Program awards the title to about ten individuals worldwide each year, who are then expected to deliver lectures to graduate students and others at host institutions to help them enhance their professional knowledge and keep them informed of new developments and their applications in the field of interest. The term length of a DL is two years, and over three separate terms as DL, Sobelman has delivered more than twenty lectures. 

Professor Gerald Sobelman earned his doctoral degree from Harvard University in 1979. He joined the University of Minnesota in 1986. He has previously received the Charles E. Bowers Faculty Teaching Award, awarded by the College of Science and Engineering at the University.