pswain@purdue.edu
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University
Personal
Phil was appointed Assistant Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs on January 1, 1999. In August, 2001, this position was retitled Dean, Office of Instructional Excellence and Lifelong Learning, and he served in this capacity until June 2002. Previously, he was Director of the Office of Distance Learning at Purdue from April 1997 through December 1998, and he was director of Continuing Engineering Education from 1986 to 1997. In 1994 he received the Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Phil retired from Purdue on December 31, 2006, and lives in New Bern, North Carolina. Tennis, model railroading, kayaking, biking and the novel sport of geocaching fill his sunny days in the South.
Teaching and Research Interests
Computer applications (especially in teaching and learning)
Remote sensing image processing
Technology-assisted distance learning
Adult education
For over 25 years, Phil was associated with the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing at Purdue. He extremely proud of this affiliation with one of the first truly multidisciplinary laboratories at this university, with which he built an international reputation. His research activities are now focused in the area of teaching with technology, especially the pedagogy of online learning.
BSEE, Lehigh University, 1963
MSEE, Purdue University, 1964
Ph.D., Purdue University, 1970
Phil has two daughters, both Purdue ECE alums. One is a psychiatrist and the other a software engineer. He has three granddaughters.