NOTE: On September 8, 2006, Patrick Frantz left full-time employment at Rice University to start a new career in Tokyo, Japan. These pages are maintained primarily for archival purposes.
Biography
Download Patrick's NSF bio or current resume.
Patrick Frantz received a B.A. in 1995 from
Rice University
, with majors in History, German and Political Science. He continued his
studies at Rice and earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering (M.E.E) in 1997.
His area of study was computer engineering, specifically uni- and
multiprocessor system design. While a graduate student at Rice, Patrick put much work into improving a great course, Elec 201: Introduction to Engineering Design.
Since leaving school, Patrick has worked at
Compaq Computer
(now HP)
, where he designed motherboards for high-end PC servers. While there, he
helped to design and test the Compaq Proliant
6000
,
7000
, and
8500
multiprocessor Pentium Pro and Pentium Xeon servers.
Patrick has also spent time as an electrical engineer and programmer for the
Human Genome Sequencing Center
at
Baylor College of Medicine
in Houston, TX. While there, he worked on numerous projects in the area of
laboratory automation, embedded systems and bio-informatics.
From 2000 to 2006, Patrick served as the Executive & Technical Director for the
Center for Multimedia Communication
at
Rice University
in Houston, TX. CMC is an institution devoted to theoretical and experimental research of next generation wireless communications systems. He was also the Director of the
ECE Affiliates program.
In addition, he held an appointment as a adjunct lecturer on the faculty of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department. He taught several courses on embedded systems design and programming, most recently teaching ELEC 226: Embedded Systems and Microcontroller Laboratory, an introductory (for majors and non-majors) microcontroller programming course based on the Texas Instruments MSP430 16-bit mixed-signal processor.
Patrick's research interests at Rice included - but were not limited to - novel DSP and FPGA-based hardware systems, mobile wireless devices, and communications algorithm implementations. He has published over 20 academic papers in these areas, as well as in the area of engineering education. Most recently, he was an active team member and co-PI of the TAPs and WARP projects.
While at Rice, Patrick developed a passion for international engineering education and helping students to prepare for the global marketplace. As Special Liaison for International Engineering Education, he worked closely with colleague Dr. Cheryl Matherly to develop unique international opportunities for engineering and science students. Among his more recent projects in this area were: organizing the INNOVATE conference, teaching ENGI 205: Topics in Global Leadership in Technology, and developing the NanoJapan program. In addition, Patrick was involved in the internationalization of the Connexions project, and also served as a visiting lecturer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tohoku University, where he helped engineering students improve their English communications skills.
In September 2006 Patrick was honored by the Rice Engineering Alumni, receiving the 2006 Outstanding Young Engineering Alumnus award. In the same month, Patrick accepted a position with Xilinx, Inc. as the Japan Business Development Manager for the Processing Solutions Group. He is currently based in Tokyo, Japan as the Representative Manager for the Medical Imaging Division and Avionics Division of Barco and as the Deputy General Manager of Barco Toyo Medical Systems Japan. Since moving to Tokyo, Patrick was briefly profiled in a Japanese magazine, Takarajima, in the "Executive Dressing vol. 21" feature in the June 2007 issue.
Though he has left Rice, Patrick still maintains frequent contact with his former colleagues and holds an appointment as an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.
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