Sudhakar Yalamanchili and Matthieu R. Bloch were announced as the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Awards honorees on April 13 at the annual Eta Kappa Nu Spring Picnic. The recipients of these awards are determined by a majority vote of the senior class of the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). 

Yalamanchili is the recipient of the W. Marshall Leach, Jr./Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award. A member of the ECE faculty since 1989, he is currently a Regents’ Professor and holds the Joseph M. Pettit Chair Professorship. “I can think of no greater reward in the faculty's roles as educators than the recognition of our students,” he said. “I am honored to receive this award with all that it represents.” 

Yalamanchili teaches the undergraduate courses, ECE 2020 Fundamentals of Digital Design and ECE 3056 Architecture, Concurrency, and Energy, as well as graduate courses in Advanced Computer Architecture. His classroom goal has been to prepare students for technology advances that will take place in their lifetimes that will produce transformational shifts in computer architecture and will be accompanied by emerging application demands producing dramatic increase in capabilities. 

Yalamanchili has sought to emphasize the timeless principles of computation and information, while separating engineering processes that transform this knowledge into efficient software and hardware computing artifacts. Students will be better equipped to apply these principles across these technology shifts and serve as shepherds and leaders of this technology revolution.

A member of the ECE faculty since 2009 and currently an associate professor, Bloch received the Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award. “This award was unexpected,” he said. “I am truly honored to receive this recognition from our students.”

Bloch was first based at the Georgia Tech-Lorraine campus in Metz, France, and then moved to the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta in 2013. He teaches the undergraduate courses, ECE 3084 Signals and Systems and ECE 4607 Mobile and Wireless Networks, as well as graduate courses in Random Processes, Information Theory, and Coding Theory and Applications. 

While maintaining a healthy dose of skepticism when approaching the latest trends in education, Bloch has been actively experimenting with blended learning approaches for the past two years. A 2012 Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow and 2017 Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellow, he believes in engaging students through problem solving and in emphasizing the mastery of fundamentals. Over the past years, Bloch has borrowed teaching ideas and techniques from diverse sources, ranging from his colleagues within and outside of ECE to his experiences as a martial arts instructor.