Engineering Professor Tapped for Alumni Teaching Award

Doug Tougaw ’05 M.B.A., Richardson professor of engineering at Valparaiso University, has wanted to be an engineering professor since the end of his first year in college.

Doug Tougaw ’05 M.B.A., professor of engineering at Valpo

“My entire family is full of teachers, so I had a number of positive role models throughout my childhood,” he says. “I’ve always been blessed by a clear and consistent vision of my place in the world, and I strive to help my students develop a similar sense of vocation.”

This desire, plus his exceptional knowledge of electrical and computer engineering and first-rate teaching style helped Tougaw garner the 2006-’07 Distinguished Teaching Award, presented annually by the VU Alumni Association.

A member of the Valpo faculty since 1996, Tougaw is leading research into the design of nanocomputers that are extremely small and thousands of times faster than current computers. The research is funded by a $1.5 million grant from the state of Indiana’s 21st Century Fund to the Center of Excellence in Computational Nanoscience, of which VU is one of five partners.

“My job is the perfect balance between learning new things and helping others,” he says. “I love to learn, and being a professor is just about the best possible career to satisfy a desire for lifelong learning.  But I feel that my life would be meaningless if I did not have the opportunity to use this knowledge to help others.”

In the classroom, he promotes active learning exercises in which students work on problems in small teams.

“These exercises energize the students and help them discover that some things they thought were easy actually have hidden complexities, while other things that they thought were beyond them are actually within their grasp.”

Tougaw is a former National Science Foundation Fellow and was selected as runner-up in the 2004 Outstanding Young Electrical Engineer Award competition by Eta Kappa Nu, the national electrical engineering honor society. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.

“Being selected for the VUAA Distinguished Teaching Award has been a remarkably humbling experience for me,” he says. “It makes me think about how much of my success I owe to others. Every day I consider how many people have sacrificed to help me, and I resolve to repay them by helping others in the same way.”