Dr. Nava also heads up the UTEP Virtual Development Center (VDC) site (wwwold.ece.utep.edu/research/webvdc), sponsored by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (www.iwt.org). The overarching goal of the VDC, which consists of nine sites at different universities, is to involve women in the specification, design and implementation of technology. The nine sites approach it differently, but all look to involve women in technology. The site at the UTEP focuses on keeping our female students in the pipeline. A "pre-capstone" design experience is open to sophomores, juniors and seniors. It provides a design project where skills and techniques necessary for a successful experience are studied and exercised. The environment builds camaraderie and skills (without the stress and make-or-break nature of the UTEP EE capstone project). The idea is to not only develop skills, but also to provide a "home team" feeling of belonging that will keep the students motivated to stay the course. Furthermore, our design projects are community-based, further appealing to their sense of purpose and keeping them motivated and on-track.

Prior to joining UTEP in 1996, Dr. Nava held different positions in academia, industry and government. After her BSEE, she worked as a design engineer in IBM's Office Products Division (Boulder, CO) for a short time where she designed microprocessor based self-diagnosis units for photocopiers. After she received an MSEE, Dr. Nava worked at White Sands Missile Range, Office of Advanced Technology. At WSMR, she was part of a team that designed a bit-slice digital signal processing card for a cascadable, microprogrammable computer.

Dr. Nava held a faculty position at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ), where she taught courses in digital design, microprocessors, programming and electrical circuits. While at NAU, she became faculty advisor for the Society of Women Engineers as well as founding a chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. She also received the Arizona Educator of the Year Award: Collegiate Division. Dr. Nava later held a faculty position at California State University, Los Angeles, where she taught digital design, microprocessors and electrical networks (circuits) courses. At CSULA, she served as advisor to the Society of Hispanic Engineers and Scientists. Dr. Nava received her Ph.D. from New Mexico State University, where she was awarded a New Mexico Commission on Higher Education fellowship. She also taught digital design courses at NMSU during her doctoral studies.

Dr. Nava joined the faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso in the Fall of 1996. She has participated in Preparing Engineering Faculty for the Future (sponsored by the National Science Foundation) and was the Forrest and Henrietta Lewis Endowed Professor from 1998 to 2000. Dr. Nava enjoys working with students and has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching: the Dean Eugene Thomas Award for Outstanding Faculty Member for the 1999-2000 academic year; the UTEP College of Engineering's "Top Performer in the Teaching Category Award" in 2002-2003, 2001-2002, and 1999-2000; the Senior Projects student's Outstanding Faculty Award in Fall 2002 and Fall 2003; and most recently, Lockheed Martin Award for Teaching Excellence in Fall 2003.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), and IEEE Computer Society, current member and faculty advisor to UTEP branch of IEEE (1997-2001).
• IEEE, El Paso Professional Section, Treasurer, Jan. 1999 - present.
• Eta Kappa Nu, member, inducted 1978, and faculty advisor to CSULA chapter, 1991.
• Tau Beta Pi, member, inducted 1979, faculty co-advisor to UTEP chapter.
• Phi Kappa Phi, member, inducted 1980.
• Society of Women Engineers, faculty advisor to NAU chapter, 1986-1988.
• Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, faculty advisor to NAU chapter(1988), and CSULA chapter (SHESS) 1988-1991.

• Lockheed Martin Award for Teaching Excellence, August 2003.
• Top Performer in the Teaching Category, College of Engineering, 2002-2003, 2001-2002, and 1999-2000
• Outstanding Faculty Member Award, (Senior Projects Students), Fall 2002 and Fall 2003.
• EEE Millennium Medal Award, 2001.
• Dean Eugene Thomas Award for Outstanding Faculty Member, 1999-2000, UTEP Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
• NASA Faculty Award for Research, awarded Fall 1999.
• Forrest and Henrietta Lewis Endowed Professor, UTEP, Fall 1998 - Summer 2000.
• University Research Institute Grant, University of Texas at El Paso, Nov 1996 - Aug 1997.
• National Science Foundation, Preparing Engineering Faculty for the Future, Summer 1996.
• New Mexico Commission on Higher Education fellowship, 1992-1995.
• Arizona Educator of the Year Award (Collegiate Division), 1987.
• Graduate Professional Opportunity Program Award, 1980-1982.
• Crimson Scholar, 1980.
• Kennecott Copper Outstanding Student Award, 1978.
• Rotary Merit Scholarship, 1976.

• Switches for UTEP Distributed Computing Lab, Cisco Systems (Higher Education Equipment Grant), PIs: Williams (Lead), Nava, Pierluissi, Dec 2003, $20,305.
• Office of Sponsored Projects Incentive Award, 1 year, Fall 2003, $1000 awarded.
• UTEP Distributed Computing Lab: Creation of a Pipeline for Minority Particpation in Research, NSF Institutional Infrastructure for Minority Institutions (CISE/EIA II-MI), PIs: Nava (Lead), Williams, Pierluissi, September 2003-August 2006, $750,514.
• FPGA-Based Laboratory for Teaching and Research in Digital Design, Xilinx University Program, Principal Investigator, August 2003, $31,806 (Xilinx Equipment Grant).
• Model-based Characterization and Classification of Respiratory Diseases Prevalent Among US-Mexico Border Residents, Tobacco Settlement, PIs: Nava (Lead), Nazeran, Diong, Solis, Ortiz, and Menendez, March 2003-August 2003, $20,050.
• A Virtual Development Center Site at The University of Texas at El Paso, Institute of Women in Technology, Principal Investigator, Sept 2002, $120,309 (HP Equipment Grant).
• Investigation of Neuro-Fuzzy Hybrid Systems and Their Applications, NASA Faculty Award for Research, Principal Investigator, Sept 1999-May 2003, $289,000. Office of Sponsored Projects Incentive Award, 1 year, Fall 1999, $1000 awarded.
• Hybrid Nonlinear Computation Models: Fusing the Benefits of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems, Forrest and Henrietta Lewis Endowed Professorship, University of Texas at El Paso, 1998-1999, $12,000.
• Evaluation and Analysis of A Neuro-Fuzzy Classifier for Voice Recognition, University Research Institute, University of Texas at El Paso, Principal Investigator, 1996-1997, $3,543.
• Cascadable Microcomputer Module Research, U.S. Army Research Contract, New Mexico State University, team member, 1981-1982.

• Attigadda, Prasanna, MSEE thesis December 2003
  " Hardware Implementation of Rijndael Encryption Algororithm. "
• Ameet Chavan, MSEE thesis August 2003
  " Design and Test of Reconfigurable Data Path Processor using Xilinx Development Tools. "
• Jovan Saenz, MSEE thesis August 2003
  " FPGA Implementation of an Interval-Based Neural Network. "
• Rex Velasquez, M.S.E.E., thesis, December 2002
  " VHDL Implementation of MCAP Modules for Reconfigurable Hardware Processors. "
• Deepthi Ratnakar, M.S.E.E., thesis, November 2002
  " An Investigation of an Analog Neural Network as a Function Approximator. "
• Janette Cano, M.S.E.E. thesis, May 2002
  " A Fuzzy Method for Automatic Generation of Membership Functions. "
• Raul Cruz, M.S. thesis, May 2002
  " On Markov Monte Carlo Methods for Neural Networks. "
• K. Kawaguchi, M.S.E.E. thesis, July 2000
  " A Threaded Parallel Implementation of Backpropagation in an Artificial Neural Network Simulation. "
• Y. Kamat, M.S.E.E. thesis, December 2000
  " An Assembler for a Microcoded CPU. "
• Yvonne Lucero, M.S.E.E. thesis, December 1999
  " A Method for Automatic Membership Function Generation. "
• Shu-Fai Au, M.S.E.E. thesis, April 1998
  " Letter Recognition with a Fuzzy-Logic-Controlled Neural Network. "
• G. Velasquez, M.S.E.E. thesis, December 1997
  " A Distributed Approach to Neural Network Simulation. "
• Mita Moorthy, M.S.E.E. tech. report, May 1997
  " A Model for PLA Fault Analysis. "
• Yihong Zhou, M.S.E.E. tech. report, May 1997
  " A Fuzzy System for Recognition of 11 Vowel Sounds. "

Research Interests:

• Hybrid Nonlinear Computation Models: Fusing the Benefits of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems (currently working on this project)
  This is basically a continuation of a body of work begun during my graduate studies. Previous work has established that one particular fuzzy neural network (FNN) model outperforms a standard neural network (ANN) by 33% to 49% on the task of vowel recognition. The FNN is a neural network that processes fuzzy numbers. This line of investigation seeks to find other ways to incorporate fuzzy techniques into neural network operation. This work has already generated two conference papers.
• Automatic Generation of Membership Functions ( currently working on this project )
  In this effort, we are studying current membership function generation techniques and exploring new methods that will yield more accurate results. The resulting code will be used as a preprocessing function to existing fuzzy neural network simulations. I am supervising research and C coding process.
• Fuzzy Neural Network Simulation in a Parallel Distributed Environment (currently working on this project)
  This research involves simulation of neural networks considering each process as an object. In this manner, we can distribute computation over several machines and obtain some statistics on the overall performance of the simulation. A comparison to two different distributed computing simulations, written previously, will be performed.

• Nava, P., V. Granda, and B. Flores, Increasing Women's Impact on Technology: UTEP-VDC Site, Proceedings of Frontiers in Education 2003: Engineering as a Human Endeavor Conference, November 2003.
• Nazeran, H., V. Magdum, B. Vikram, P. Nava, and E. Haltiwanger, A User-Friendly Integrated Software Environment for Heart Rate Variability Analysis of Sleep Disordered Breathing, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Electrical Biomedical Engineering (EBMS 2003), September 2003.
• Lorandi, L., B. Diong, P. Nava, F. Solis, R. Menedez, G. Ortiz and H. Nazeran, Parametric Sensitivity Analysis of Human Respiratory Impedance, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Electrical Biomedical Engineering (EBMS 2003), September 2003.
• Gomez, R., A. Arciero, P. Nava, E. MartinDel Campo, and B. Flores, Giving Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Support and Leadership Experience through a Women in Science and Engineering Program at The University of Texas at El Paso, Proceedings of the ASEE 2003 Conference, June 2003.
• Contreras, G., P. Nava, and F. Shabani, Design, Implementation and Testing of an FPGA-based Neuro-Coprocessor, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Electrical Engineering, May 2003.
• Cano, J. and P. Nava, A Fuzzy Method for Automatic Generation Of Membership Function Using Fuzzy Relations from Training Examples, Proceedings of the 21st NAFIPS International Conference, pp. 158-162, June 2002.
• Jafari, S., F. Shabani and P. Nava, Neural Network Algorithms for Tuning of Fuzzy Certainty Factor Expert Systems, Proceedings of the 2002 WAC Conference, June 2002.
• Nava, P., Interval-based Neural Networks for Soft Decisions, 2001 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC2001), pp.3264-3268, Tucson, AZ, October 2001.
• Nava, P., Use of Intervals for Soft Classification in Fuzzy Neural Networks, Proceedings of the IEEE Neural Network Council & IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society's Joint 9th IFSA World Congress and 20th NAFIPS International Conference, pp.2003-2007, Vancouver, BC, July 2001.
• Nava, P. The Formal Research Group Model as an Undergraduate Retention Tool, Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference & Exhibition, Albuquerque, NM, June 2001.
• Dehghani, A., F. Shabani, and P. Nava, Off-line Recognition of Isolated Persian Handwritten Characters Using Multiple Hidden Markov Models Proceedings of IEEE Computer Society's International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing Conference, pp. 506 - 510, April 2001..
• Flores, B. C., and P. Nava, Undergraduate Student Retention Strategies for Urban Engineering Colleges, Proceedings of the ASEE Gulf-Southwest Conference, Las Cruces, NM, 2000.
• Lucero,Y. and P. Nava, A Method for Membership Function Generation from Training Samples, Proceedings of the 1999 International Congress on Electronics and Electrical Engineering (ELECTRO 99), Vol. XXI, pp. 7-10, Chihuahua, Mexico, October 1999.
• Nava, P., Implementation of Neuro-Fuzzy Systems Through Interval Mathematics, Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Joint Conference on the Science and Technology of Intelligent Systems: IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control, IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation, Intelligent Systems and Semiotics (ISIC/CIRA/ISAS 98), pp. 365 - 369.
• Nava, P. A Neuro-Fuzzy System for Speech Recognition, Proceedings of the 1998 International Congress on Electronics and Electrical Engineering (ELECTRO 98), Vol. XX, pp. 503-507, Chihuahua, Mexico, October 1998.
• Au, S.F., and P. Nava, Applications of A Fuzzy-Logic-Controlled Neural Network: Optimization of Training and Performance, Proceedings of the 1998 International Congress on Electronics and Electrical Engineering (ELECTRO 98), Vol. XX, pp. 508-512, Chihuahua, Mexico, October 1998.
• Nava, P. and J. Taylor, Voice Recognition with a Fuzzy Neural Network, Proceedings of The Fifth IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE'96), pp. 2049-2052.
• Nava, P. and J. Taylor, The Optimization of Neural Network Performance through Incorporation of Fuzzy Theory, Proceedings of The Eleventh International Conference on Systems Engineering (ICSE'96), pp. 897-901.
• Nava, P., New Paradigms for Fuzzy Neural Networks, Ph.D. Dissertation, New Mexico State University, December, 1995.
• Heiden, E. and P. Nava, Computer Engineering I Laboratory Manual, Text and Exercises to accompany the Computer Engineering I laboratory, New Mexico State University, 1993.
• Nava, P. and B. Osorno, Innovative Use of PC/Data Acquisition System in Electrical and Computer Engineering Laboratories, Northern Arizona University Sponsored Equipment Research Report, 1988.
• Nava, P., Bit-Slice Emulation of Eight- and Sixteen-Bit Microprocessors, Masters Thesis, New Mexico State University, October, 1982.
• Taylor, J., P. Nava, et. al. Demonstration Prototype Cascadable Microcomputer Module, Final Technical Report of U.S. Army Research Contract, August, 1982. Recent Presentations:
• Issues facing Minority Engineering Students and Proposed Solutions, invited panelist contribution, SACNAS 2002 National Conference, Anaheim, CA, September 2002.
• Opportunities and Challenges of an Electrical Engineering Career, invited presentation, Women in Science & Engineering Exposition (cosponsored by El Paso Insights Museum and the Rio Grande Girl Scout Council), El Paso, TX, May 2002.
• How to Become an Electrical Engineer, chair, IEEE-sponsored panel, Expanding Your Horizons Conference 2002, El Paso, TX, April 2002.
• The Neuro-Fuzzy Systems Research Group at The University of Texas at El Paso, invited presentation, SACNAS 2001 National Conference, Tucson, AZ, September 2001.