Outstanding Faculty

Dr. Shlomo Engelberg
Lecturer in Engineering
Department of Electronics Engineering

Yom Kippur, 1994. Shlomo Engelberg spent the day in the synagogue, immersed in heshbon nefesh, the spiritual accounting required of every Jew on the holiest day of the year. But immediately after the fast, he rushed off to to a different kind of heshbon altogether: defending his doctoral thesis before a panel of mathematics professors at NYU.

Fortunately for JCT, Engelberg succeeded, and within days he had packed his newly-minted credentials and boarded a plane for Israel. "I was just beginning a fellowship at Tel Aviv University, but in fact my post-doc advisor has already collaborated with my professors at NYU, and was actually the one who posed the mathematical problem I solved at my dissertation," recalls Engelberg, now a faculty member in JCT's Department of Electronics Engineering. "that's the nice thing about the world of mathematics. It's small academic world, and no one is too far removed from anyone else."

But mathematics is not the only world in which Engelberg, 38, feels at home. From an early age he was immersed in the world of computers, spending his spare time at Queensborough Community College, where his father taught physics. I was given free reign in the computer room," Engelberg recalls. Before long he became such a proficient programmer that the college offered him a job. "I was programming on a PDP-11, a cabinret sized computer that was considered pretty fancy at the time. I got my first paycheck at the age of 15 for creating software that let students take tests on the computer." 

That first job was not the only one part of his life where Engelberg advanced fast. In his high school, Yeshiva of Far Rockaway, Engelberg had little patience for the step-by-step curriculum, and skipped ninth grade math altogether. Also when the time came to select a college, Engelberg freely admits he chose the school that seemed the least likely to waste his time. "I've always hated filling out forms," he says with a smile. "Some universities made students write essay after essay, but the Cooper Union in New York boiled it all down to a one-page application. I like that."

Cooper Union liked Engelberg, too, granting him a B.S. in 1988 and a Masters in 1990, both in Electrical Engineering. At the same time, he found himself attracted to the world of pure theory. While still studying at Cooper Union, her traveled across town to pursue a Masters in Mathematics at NYU. "I liked the practical side of engineering, but by the time I finished my undergraduate work, I realized that I wanted to spend my time working on problems that were 'cleaner' and more rigorous. It was also clear to me that I wanted to follow in my parents' footsteps and go into teaching. An advanced degree in mathematics seemed the way to go."

Engelberg remained at NYU, received a Ph.D under the supervision of mathematicians Jonathan Goodman and Peter Lax, the latter a recipient of the National Medal of Science who chaired the National Science Board from 1980 to 1986. Engelberg's doctoral work focused on the mathematical characteristics of shock waves, a field of research that Lax spearheaded since he was stationed by the US Army in Los Alamos in 1945.

AT NYU, Engelberg taught calculus and discreet mathematics to undergraduates and continued to see teaching mathematics as his career goal.. However, as he reached the end of his second year as a post-doc, in 1996 he left Tel Avibv University for the Technion in Haifa. Engelberg felt the pendulum swinging back towards engineering. "Around the time of my post doctoral work, there were virtually no openings in the world of mathematics," says Engelberg. "I was also married (to Yvette Chimes, a graphics designer from South Africa in 1993) and had a child. I didn't want to leave mathematics but realized I had to keep myself marketable."

In 1997 Engelberg made contact with his father's cousin, Prof. Abba Engelberg, a professor of Industrial Engineering at JCT who is Machon Lev's Deputy Rector. Professor Engelberg thought the Electronic Engineering Department at JCT could use someone with Shlomo's background and introduced him to Prof. Aryeh Weiss, then chairman of the Electronics Department. The match was made.

"At Machon Lev I teach microprocessors, random signals and noise, and a communication, and a communications laboratory class while continuing my own research in shockwaves, signal processing and control theory. But the thing I like best is supervising individual students." Far from being sterile academic exercises, he says , "these projects provide a framework for useful research on problems of real, practical interest," adding that he co-authored three articles in professional journals with his project students. "The experience students receive from following through on projects like this is priceless. I hope the funds can be found to keep the program going in its current form."