Son of Timatollah

This morning, through little I have done or said, I was recognized at the ERAU Daytona Beach Commencement ceremony with the James E. Lewis Outstanding Service Award.

All I have ever done, to the best of my ability, is to do what I should do; nonetheless, I am extremely proud and gratified to have been recognized for outstanding service to the University.

Here's the blurb I wrote up when they told me they needed something for the Commencement program:

Dr. Tim Wilson received Bachelor's (1985), Master's (1987), and Doctoral (1994) degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the Embry-Riddle faculty in fall 2000, initially to teach the core sequence of electrical engineering classes in the Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering program. Since then he has taught courses in all his department's programs, undergraduate and graduate, with course offerings from Organization of Programming Languages to Certification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). His current research focuses on UAS, and on what it takes to get them into the National Airspace System. He and his collaborator, Dr. Richard Stansbury, recently completed a series of technology surveys and regulatory gap analyses on UAS for the FAA's Flight Safety group at the William J. Hughes Technical Center.

He previously served as Vice Speaker of the Faculty in the 2006-2007 academic year, and as Speaker of the Faculty from 2007-2009. In spring 2010, he was appointed Chair of the new Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals, and he is that organization's representative to the National Engineers Week Foundation's Diversity Council. He led the organizing group for Embry-Riddle's recent 2010 celebration of Engineers Week. In his free time, Dr. Wilson enjoys photography, gardening, playing the keyboards, and reading non-fiction. He is currently reading biographies of the presidents of the United States in order of service. Described by one student as a "font of useless knowledge," in spring of 2008 Wilson achieved a lifetime dream by appearing as a contestant on Jeopardy! Unfortunately, his useless knowledge wasn't sufficiently adequate, as he only came in second. He and his partner of fifteen years, Mack McKinley, live in Debary.

Yeah, I'm tootin' my own. Toot, toot!

Labels: james, lewis, service award