Electrical engineering professor accorded the designation professor emeritus
Dr. Eric Gill, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been accorded an honour reserved for highly distinguished faculty members, professor emeritus.
While status is not something Dr. Gill aspires to achieve, he is grateful for the support of his colleagues and appreciative of the designation.
"I am greatly humbled by this honour, and I believe it will allow me to seamlessly continue my efforts in academic research and student mentoring, which is a desire that is not diminished by official retirement,” said Dr. Gill. “Arriving at such a distinction must be attributed to not simply a career of personal concentrated endeavours, but to an extensive system of much-appreciated support consisting of family, supervisors, colleagues and students, and, throughout all, the guiding hand of God."
Dr. Gill is a highly accomplished educator, researcher and graduate student supervisor. He holds post-secondary teaching certifications from the province. Prior to joining Memorial, he taught for 23 years at the College of the North Atlantic. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and served for many years on the IEEE Newfoundland Section executive.
Dr. Gill is an internationally renowned researcher in the area of high frequency surface wave radar remote sensing in marine environments. He has made outstanding contributions to ocean remote sensing, including more than 200 publications in journals, books and conference proceedings. Several radar remote sensing models developed by Dr. Gill and his team have been used in industrial and scientific application of the technology. As a result of these accomplishments, for the past few years he has served as an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, overseeing the peer review of submissions related to radar remote sensing of the ocean.
He has received numerous awards, including the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; the inaugural Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists Newfoundland and Labrador Teaching Award.
Dr. Gill received a B.Sc. in physics, B.Ed., and M.Eng and PhD degrees in electrical engineering, all from Memorial. Upon completion of his M.Eng. and PhD degrees he received the David Dunsiger Award which is the faculty’s highest honour for graduate student research. When he received his PhD he received the Governor General’s Gold Medal, awarded for receiving the highest academic standing in his graduate degree program.
A professor emeritus or emerita is a retired member of the faculty who has served at least 10 years as a regular full-time faculty member and held the rank of professor upon retirement. The prime criterion for nomination is a sustained and superlative record as a scholar, as a teacher or as an academic administrator or any combination of these.
Candidates for the rank of professor emeritus/emerita are nominated by their academic units and, as with candidates for honorary degrees, the nominations are then reviewed by the Senate’s Committee on Honorary Degrees and Ceremonial. The candidates must then be approved by the university’s Senate and Board of Regents.
Dr. Gill will receive his award at Memorial’s Fall 2018 Convocation.