Prof. Jamie Phillips wins Service Excellence Award from the College of Engineering

Jamie Phillips, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, has received the Monroe-Brown Foundation Service Excellence Award from the College of Engineering. This award honors faculty who “demonstrated significant service contribution at the college and/or university levels.”

“Jamie has been by far one of the most professional and dedicated people I have worked with,” says Khalil Najafi, Schlumberger Professor of Engineering and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. “Above all, he always has the best interests of our students in mind.”

Phillips, a U-M ECE alum, joined the faculty in 2002 and has been a strong leader for curriculum improvements in the undergraduate program. He led the undergraduate academics committee for six years, was an undergraduate academic advisor for five years, and served as the Associate Chair of Undergraduate Affairs for the past six years. He was also Chair of the ECE Undergraduate Recruiting and Activities Committee, Chair of the ECE Undergraduate Academics Committee, and Coordinator for Accreditation Board for Engineering Technology (ABET) for ECE degree programs.

Recently, Phillips was the key driver behind the department’s ambitious course reform plans, through which he led the development of the new, required experiential courses. This involved building departmental support for the effort; establishing a course-development team for EECS 200 comprised of experts on robotics, energy, machine learning, and pedagogy; incorporating the student voice both while the course was under development and during the pilot offering of the course; and remodeling a CAEN classroom to be a showcase for the experiential courses.

“Jamie is an excellent role model who has helped change the culture of teaching and learning in EECS and CoE,” says Prof. Cindy Finelli, Director of the Engineering Education Research Program.

Phillips was also a key member of the team that developed the ECE Electrify Tech Camps, which provide hands-on ECE experience to high school students. He fostered a collaborative environment, and his enthusiasm was consistently reflected in camper surveys.

His paper on student motivation and performance in EECS won the IEEE Transactions on Education Theodore E. Batchman Best Paper Award in 2017.

His other awards include a Staff-Faculty Partnership Award (College of Engineering), a University Undergraduate Teaching Award, a DARPA/MTO Young Faculty Award, an EECS Department Outstanding Achievement Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and a Paul Rappaport Best Paper Award (IEEE Electron Devices Society). His title of Arthur F. Thurnau Professor is bestowed to tenured faculty whose dedication to undergraduate instruction has demonstrably impacted the intellectual development and lives of their students.

Phillips currently serves as the Director of the Lurie Nanofabrication Facility, a premier research facility. His research specializes in optoelectronic devices for next generation infrared detectors, solar photovoltaics, and energy harvesting devices for millimeter scale systems.