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Pankratz receives prestigious Hertz fellowship

Recently, Erik Pankratz was awarded the prestigious Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship from the Hertz Foundation.
The Hertz Foundation provides fellowships to the exceptionally talented in the study of applied sciences and engineering. Each year the Foundation conducts a national competition for new Hertz Fellows. Of those who apply, only about one quarter will be interviewed. Of those who are interviewed, approximately one in ten will be awarded a Hertz Fellowship.
Pankratz, a Ph.D. student of Dr. Edgar Sanchez-Sinencio in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M, previously attended the University of Texas at Austin (UT) starting in 2002 and graduated with a BSEE in spring 2006. While in college, he tutored classmates and worked as a lab proctor in UT’s digital logic design class (EE316). Classes in electronic circuits and solid-state devices attracted him to analog integrated-circuit design.

Since the summer of 2004, Pankratz has interned at Silicon Laboratories in Austin, Texas. At Silicon Labs, he worked in the microcontrollers group where he designed mixed-signal/analog circuits including oscillators and control blocks. He also gained laboratory measurement and test automation experience while characterizing voltage references and bus-interface circuitry.

This interest in analog circuits, as well as his experience and enjoyment of teaching. led Pankratz to pursue a Ph.D. in analog circuit design at Texas A&M. His current research focuses on highly programmable analog filters and his future research/design interests involve high-speed/RF circuits, especially high-speed amplifiers.