Ralph Ford obtained his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering
from the University of Arizona in 1994 and 1989 respectively.
He obtained his B.S. in electrical engineering from
Clarkson University in 1987. He worked for the IBM Microelectronics
Division in East Fishkill, N.Y., from 1989–1991, where he
developed machine vision systems to inspect electronic packaging
modules for mainframe computers. Ralph also has experience
working for IBM Data Systems and the Brookhaven
National Laboratory. He joined the faculty at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, in
1994. Ralph has experience teaching electronics and software design, as well as the capstone
design course sequence in the electrical, computer, and software engineering programs.
His research interests are in engineering design, image processing, machine
vision, and signal processing. Ralph is currently Director of the School of Engineering at
Penn State Behrend. He also serves as a program evaluator for ABET. He was a Fulbright
Scholar at the Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic in 2005.
Chris Coulston obtained his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering
from Pennsylvania State University in 1999. He obtained
his M.S. and B.S in computer engineering from Pennsylvania State
University in 1994 and 1992 respectively. Chris has industry experience
working for IBM in Manassas, Va., and Accu-Weather in
State College, Pa. He joined the faculty at Penn State Erie, The
Behrend College, in 1999. He has experience teaching designoriented
courses in digital systems, embedded systems, computer
architecture, and database management systems. Chris’ research
interests are in Steiner tree routing algorithms and artificial life.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer
Engineering at Penn State Behrend and also serves as chair of the program.
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