Timothy Pratt receives W.E. Wine Achievement Award
Timothy Pratt, of Blacksburg, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, has received one of three university 2004 W.E. Wine Achievement Awards.
The William E. Wine Achievement Awards were established in 1957 by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association in memory of William E. Wine, Class of 1904, who served on the university’s board of visitors and as president of the Alumni Association. Three faculty are selected to receive the teaching award by a committee representing all eight colleges of the university. One person is nominated from each college following a college-level selection from candidates nominated by students, faculty members, or alumni.
Pratt’s particular strengths are outstanding classroom delivery and presenting complicated, mathematically dense engineering material in a way that leaves students with an understanding of both math and engineering. He constructs test and project assignments that both stretch the students’ capabilities and teach them at the same time.
In addition to his achievements in teaching on-campus courses, Pratt is known for his years of excellent work with distance learning. He has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program since its inception and directed it for two years. He "wrote the book" on TV teaching, and makes "how-to" presentations about it to Faculty Development Institute classes. Pratt was the key faculty person for establishing resident Ph.D. programs in electrical and computer engineering at several non-Blacksburg sites.
He received a bachelor's and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Britain as well as the Radio Club of America. He received the Certificate of Teaching Excellence at Virginia Tech and the Outstanding Instructor Award from Lockheed Martin.
The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college’s 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.
Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech’s eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.
