J. David Irwin (born August 9, 1939 in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, Minnesota) is an American

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

educator and author of popular textbooks in electrical engineering and related areas. He is the Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar and former Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Head at Auburn University. Irwin is one of the longest serving Department Heads of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in the world, having been appointed to lead the (then Electrical Engineering) Department at Auburn in 1973. He had also served as President of the ECE honor society

Eta Kappa Nu Eta Kappa Nu () or IEEE-HKN is the international honor society of the Computer Science and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). "The organization promotes excellence in the profession and in education through an emphasi ...

; President of the US National Electrical Engineering Department Head Association; and President of two

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

technical societies, on Industrial Electronics and on Education.

Biography

Irwin received a B.E.E. degree from Auburn University (1961), and earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the

University of Tennessee, Knoxville The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

, in 1962 and 1967, respectively. He joined Auburn University in 1969 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. Currently he is the Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar and ECE Department Head at Auburn. He is Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) “for contributing to industrial electronics, control instrumentation, and engineering education,” and Fellow of the

American Society for Engineering Education The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. The purpose of ASEE is the advancement of education ...

(ASEE). Among his notable awards is the IEEE’s Richard M. Emberson Award (2000) “for a long and distinguished record of service to the IEEE in the educational, technical and publication areas.” Irwin has been affectionately known by his students as "Coach" for his down to earth style of teaching circuits. His teaching style has made him a favorite among students who truly want to learn.

Authorship

Irwin is widely known in the ECE and engineering education communities for his undergraduate university-level

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

s in electrical engineering and related areas. Of special significance are his books ''Electric Circuit Analysis'' and ''Introduction to Electrical Engineering'', which are being used in hundreds of colleges of engineering worldwide. He has also written on

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

computer communications, digital logic circuits,

microcontrollers A microcontroller (MCU for ''microcontroller unit'', often also MC, UC, or μC) is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs ( processor cores) along with memory and programmabl ...

industrial electronics Power electronics is the application of electronics to the control and conversion of electric power. The first high-power electronic devices were made using mercury-arc valves. In modern systems, the conversion is performed with semiconducto ...

, industrial vibration and control, and learning and career planning for undergraduate engineering students.

Leadership

During his long career, Irwin served in leadership positions in several major engineering and engineering education professional associations. Table 2 provides a list of key positions.

Entrepreneurship

Irwin was associated with several start-up companies, including Aunigma Network Solutions. Aunigma is an IT company based in Atlanta, Georgia US, addressing new generation Internet Protocol (IP) connections. Aunigma’s products are based on intellectual property (IP) created by the ECE Department at Auburn University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Irwin, J. David Living people 1939 births Writers from Minneapolis People from Auburn, Alabama Auburn University alumni University of Tennessee alumni Auburn University faculty IEEE Centennial Medal laureates Fellows of the American Society for Engineering Education