William W. Smith Jr.

Between various engineering jobs, Whit Smith earned bachelors, masters, and Ph.D. (1990) degrees from Georgia Tech where he presently is a Senior Research Engineer, with research areas including satellite communications and digital, analog, and radio telecommunications and signal processing. Whit performs related research and development work in the academic and private sectors. Although he had previously not envisioned teaching, Whit has hosted and continues to sponsor a variety of research projects for undergraduates and pre-college students. He is currently working with several hundred students, including engineering college and high school students (the latter in his capacity as liaison between Georgia Tech and an affiliated technology-oriented magnet high school in the Atlanta area). He was pleasantly surprised to receive his Electrical and Computer Engineering School’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 2000.

Confirming that it's easy to hide from life while a student, Whit's growth as a Christian accelerated dramatically following his various escapes from academic enclaves. While having lived and worked among several relativistic constituencies including the scientifically enlightened and politically liberal, he takes great comfort in knowing that God is absolute truth and has everything under control. Whit is thankful for the personalities to and through whom God has introduced himself and continues to speak, including the InterVarsity community.

J. Gary Eden

Gary Eden, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was a National Research Council post-doctoral research associate at the Naval Research Laboratory and then was appointed a research physicist of the Laser Physics Branch. He joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1979 where he has been engaged in research in molecular spectroscopy, the discovery and development of visible and ultraviolet lasers and incoherent sources, and biomagnetism. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Optical Society of America, and the American Physical Society; is Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics; and has served as assistant dean in the College of Engineering and as associate dean of the Graduate College. Dr. Eden was the James F. Towey Scholar from 1996 through 1999, and won the ECE Outstanding Teaching Award for Faculty in 2000. In addition to his being Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, he is Associate Vice-Chancellor for Research and a research professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Microelectronics Laboratory. (More info at his Illinois website.)