Sohum Sohoni, Ph.D.
Professor, Program Director
- Milwaukee WI UNITED STATES
- Diercks Hall DH432
- Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Dr. Sohum Sohoni is an expert in computer architecture and engineering education research.
Education, Licensure and Certification
Ph.D.
Computer Engineering
University of Cincinnati
2004
B.E.
Electrical Engineering
Government College of Engineering Pune
1998
Biography
Sohoni’s areas of expertise are in the area of computer architecture and performance analysis, and computing and engineering education. His research is supported by the National Science Foundation and other funding agencies. He has published his work at ASEE’s national conference and ASEE’s Midwest section conference, with manuscripts accepted in the International Journal of Engineering Education and Advances in Engineering Education.
Sohoni believes that classroom instruction needs to incorporate the presentation techniques of today, as well as interactive teaching methodologies such as case studies and team learning. He is a popular and well-respected instructor, and was awarded the CEAT Halliburton Excellent Young Teacher Award (2009), the Regents Distinguished Teaching Award (2010), and the IEEE ECE Professor of the Year (2012), awarded by OSU IEEE Student Branch.
Sohoni has reviewed papers for a number of conferences and journals, including Advances in Engineering Education, and has reviewed NSF proposals for programs in computer engineering and in engineering education. He is a member of the ACM and ASEE, and a senior member of IEEE. He is a Past Chair of ASEE's ECE Division, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Education, and Associate Director of the Indo-Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education.
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Approved as a Fulbright Specialist in Engineering Education
2021
ASEE Pacific Southwest Section, Best Paper Award
2016
Awarded for “Comparing Cooperative Learning in Online and In-Person Versions of a Microprocessors Course”
IETE-CDIL Award for Industry (Best Paper Award)
2012
Awarded for, “A Cross Section of the Issues and Research Activities Related to Both Information Security and Cloud Computing”
OSU IEEE Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor of the Year
2012
Selected for “Rigorous Research in Engineering Education Workshop”
2011
ASEE Midwest Section, 1st Place Outstanding Paper Award
2011
Affiliations
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) : Senior Member
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) : Member
- Indo-Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education : Associate Director
- Journal of Engineering Education Transformations: Co-Editor in Chief
- Governing Board, Research In Engineering Education Network: Member
- ASEE ECE Division: Member
Social
Event and Speaking Appearances
Shaping and Aligning Departmental Culture through Leadership
Indo-Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education Annual Leadership Summit India (online), July 2021
Keynote: Engineering Education Research for Transforming Engineering Education
International Conference on Engineering Education Transformations Hyderabad, India, January 2020
Effects of Error Messages on Students' Ability to Understand and Fix Programming Errors in Assembly Language Programming
IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) San Jose, CA, October 2018
Example Security Injections for Hardware Courses
New Orleans, LA, June 2018 Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education
An Initial Classification of Engineering Education Research Papers in India
International Conference on Transformations in Engineering Education (ICTIEE) Hyderabad, India, January 2019
It's Not What You Think: Lessons Learned Developing an Online Software Engineering Program
IEEE Conference on Software Engineering Education and Training Savannah Georgia, November 2017
Can Embedding Questions in Instructional Videos Improve Students’ Programming Abilities?
Indianapolis, IN, October 2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
Research Grants
Professorship Mini Grant
KEEN
October 2017
MRI: Acquisition of a High-Performance Compute Cluster for Multidisciplinary Research
National Science Foundation Major Research Infrastructure (MRI)
September 2011
Oklahoma State University
Progressive Learning Platform for Computer Engineering
National Science Foundation, Research Initiation Grants in Engineering Education
July 2011
Oklahoma State University
Reducing the Overhead of Memory Integrity Verification
Bureau of Justice Assistance through OSU CTANS
August 2009
Out of Context Prefetching for L2 Caches”
National Science Foundation, Computer Systems Research (CSR)
July 2007
Selected Publications
REES AAEE special issue on engineering education research capability development: introduction by guest editors
Australasian Journal of Engineering EducationSarah Dart, Jillian Seniuk Cicek, Sohum Sohoni
2023-07-11
Since the late 20th century, Engineering Education Research (EER) has been expanding globally as a field, although its identity varies across institutions and countries around the world. This diversity in how EER is experienced across contexts impacts how capability is developed, including identities, knowledge, practices, agendas, funding, and pathways. The theme of ‘Engineering Education Research Capability Development’ was explored in papers, presentations, and workshops throughout the jointly held 2021 Research in Engineering Education Symposium and Australasian Association for Engineering Education conference. This special issue presents a continuation of that theme. The papers collectively contribute to expanding global understanding of the field, with implications for future capacity building efforts in engineering education practice and research.
Scaling to Meet the Online Demand in Software Engineering
International Journal on Innovations in Online EducationK. A. Gary, R. Acuna, A. Mehlhase, R. Heinrichs, S. Sohoni
2020
Online engineering education presents unique challenges. Todayʼs engineer must design robust solutions to complex problems in team-oriented environments. While software engineering does not have as many hardware requirements as most other engineering majors, it does have unique challenges due to a heavy reliance on software tools, popularity of agile methods, lack of tangible (tactile) artifacts, and emphasis on time-to-market. Further, software engineering is a popular career track due to the prevalence of software in society and a positive job outlook. Innovations in the BSSE at Arizona State University have directly addressed the challenges of scaling online software engineering education in the face of a popular and rapidly expanding program through the innovative application of technology and a focus on quality process improvement.
Example Security Injections for Hardware Courses
Journal of The Colloquium for Information System Security EducationC. Li, J. M. Acken, S. Sohoni
2019
This paper gives examples of security injections in computer engineering courses, including courses on hardware design. More broadly, the paper aims to show how knowledge of hardware and software implementations relate to security exploits is important for students who design computer hardware, and how knowledge of the hardware and architectural features is important for those who focus on computer security. The paper provides examples to illustrate the impact of the knowledge of underlying architectural optimizations and hardware limitations on security features and exploits. Examples of educational tools and methods for integrating security education in context in the computer engineering curriculum are also described.
GPU Acceleration of the Most Apparent Distortion Image Quality Assessment Algorithm
Journal of ImagingJ. Holloway, V. Kannan, Y. Zhang, D. M. Chandler, S. Sohoni
2018
The primary function of multimedia systems is to seamlessly transform and display content to users while maintaining the perception of acceptable quality. For images and videos, perceptual quality assessment algorithms play an important role in determining what is acceptable quality and what is unacceptable from a human visual perspective. As modern image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms gain widespread adoption, it is important to achieve a balance between their computational efficiency and their quality prediction accuracy. One way to improve computational performance to meet real-time constraints is to use simplistic models of visual perception, but such an approach has a serious drawback in terms of poor-quality predictions and limited robustness to changing distortions and viewing conditions. In this paper, we investigate the advantages and potential bottlenecks of implementing a best-in-class IQA algorithm, Most Apparent Distortion, on graphics processing units (GPUs). Our results suggest that an understanding of the GPU and CPU architectures, combined with detailed knowledge of the IQA algorithm, can lead to non-trivial speedups without compromising prediction accuracy. A single-GPU and a multi-GPU implementation showed a 24× and a 33× speedup, respectively, over the baseline CPU implementation. A bottleneck analysis revealed the kernels with the highest runtimes, and a microarchitectural analysis illustrated the underlying reasons for the high runtimes of these kernels. Programs written with optimizations such as blocking that map well to CPU memory hierarchies do not map well to the GPU’s memory hierarchy. While compute unified device architecture (CUDA) is convenient to use and is powerful in facilitating general purpose GPU (GPGPU) programming, knowledge of how a program interacts with the underlying hardware is essential for understanding performance bottlenecks and resolving them.
A Blueprint for an Ecosystem for Supporting High Quality Education for Engineering
Journal of Engineering Education TransformationsS. Sohoni, S. D. Craig, and K. Vedula
2017
This paper presents the idea and a proposed implementation of a network of Gurukuls or Centers of Excellence for engineering education in India. Facilitated by Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) in partnership with institutions in India, the IUCEE Gurukuls for Learning and Outcomes Based Education (iGLOBE) program addresses a vital need for institutions to develop self-reliance towards achieving excellence in engineering education. The primary role of the Gurukul in an institution is to provide an ecosystem for faculty development in a manner that will directly contribute to enhance students' learning experience. The mission of the Gurukul is to guide and mentor its faculty in improving their teaching and learning methods, in implementing outcomes based education and in conducting engineering education research.
Is the EDA Industry Ready for Cloud Computing?
IETE Technical ReviewSehgal, N., Acken, J.M., Sohoni, S.
2016
Many industries are increasingly adopting cloud computing. There are several electronic design automation (EDA) industry players, large and small companies, who have explored the idea of providing cloud-based very large-scale integration design tools and services. This paper briefly explores the history of EDA solutions and their growth path thus far, starting with standalone computer aided design (CAD) tools, through specialized EDA workstations, to integrated suites of tools and flows as currently provided by EDA vendors. A representative EDA flow and its steps are described to provide a basis for relating individual EDA tools to appropriate workload categories. Each step in the EDA design flow is then mapped to a cloud computing workload category. This mapping provides a basis for a decision on moving particular EDA design flow steps to a cloud computing environment.
Observing engineering student teams from the organization behavior perspective using linguistic analysis of student reflections and focus group interviews
Advances in Engineering EducationKearney, K.S., Damron, R., Sohoni, S.
2015
This paper investigates group/team development in computer engineering courses at a University in the Central USA from the perspective of organization behavior theory, specifically Tuckman’s model of the stages of group development. The investigation, conducted through linguistic analysis of student reflection essays, and through focus group interviews, also presents STEM education researchers with a method to obtain nuanced information about interpersonal skills issues such as how groups and teams function. A third contribution of the paper is a review of the organizational behavior literature on teams and groups with a concern for its application to modern engineering education.
Cloud Workload Characterization
IETE Technical ReviewMulia, W.D., Sehgal, N., Sohoni, S., Acken, J.M., Stanberry, C.L., Fritz, D.J.
2013
This paper describes various computer system workloads and relates them to their underlying resource utilization. Specifically, the paper concentrates on Cloud workload characterization based upon issues, capabilities, and technologies surrounding the categories from the multiple points of view of the various players involved in Cloud Computing. The relationship is established between the categories and key limiting underlying technologies, and the dynamic and measurable low-level metrics and measurements that are used to detect and reduce resource contention, and identify category changes during run-time. Research questions are posed on dynamic low-level measurements and a usage case example with high performance computing (HPC) clusters.
