Christopher Schmitz

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Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois, 2002.

Biography

Dr. Schmitz graduated valedictorian of Pana High School in 1988 and was a Bronze Tablet recipient upon receiving his BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois in 1993.  He received his MS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois in 1996 in the area of fault-tolerant adaptive filtering.  Schmitz worked at TRW Space and Electronics Group in Hermosa Beach, California, in the area of satellite communication. He completed his Ph.D. in 2002 in interference cancellation in multi-user communications. Upon graduation, he joined Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois to develop and test signal processing and wireless communication algorithms for advanced hearing device designs.  Since 2005, Schmitz has also been active in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department performing course development work and teaching in the areas of digital signal processing and digital communications.  Since 2012, he serves the department as Chief Undergraduate Advisor and the course director for ECE110, Intro to Electronics. His website can be found at http://publish.illinois.edu/cdschmitz/.

Academic Positions

• Teaching Professor, U of I, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2021-present
• Chief Undergraduate Advisor, U of I, Electrical and Computer Engineering, 2012-present

Teaching Statement

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- restatement of Einstein

Teaching is vital to the success of the University of Illinois. Students must be engaged in the course. Demonstrations and experiential learning provide a means to present complex ideas to students in intuitive ways.

Student Organizations

• WaggleNet Undergraduate Research Team, 2017-present. First formed to specifically address the loss of pollinators, WaggleNet provides a student-operated startup environment for student-led engineering solutions.

Research Statement

My research interests are primarily two-fold: 1) Promoting substantial experiential learning for undergraduates at all levels of the curriculum and 2) improving engineering education through interactions with other educators throughout the College of Engineering.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

I will entertain undergraduate proposals in the areas of signal processing, communications, and circuits at any level of study. I also have an undergraduate research group, WaggleNet, the members of which work to collect and process data from operational honeybee colonies to reduce bee-related problems. WaggleNet.org

Research Interests

• Adaptive Signal Processing and Beamforming
• Wireless Communication
• Improving Education in STEM Disciplines

Articles in Conference Proceedings

• Identifying Barriers for Students with Disabilities in STEM Undergraduate Laboratory and Design Courses, Reck, R., Ansel, K., Terbush, J., Schmitz, C., et.al., 2025 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2025
• WIP: Teaching Students to Synthesize Knowledge by Recognition of Connections, Steffen Link, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan, Christopher Schmitz, Olga Mironenko, Jonathon K. Schuh, Yang Shao, and Rebecca Reck, FIE, 2025
• Reck, R., Ansel, K., Terbush, J., Schmitz, C., et.al., "Working effectively with your teaching team: Tips and Tricks from Laboratory and Design Course Instructors," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2025.
• Aggarwal, A., Schmitz, C., "Impact of Active Learning on Student Grades and Instructor Rating," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2025.
• Wandke, K., Schuh, J., Schmitz, C., Shao, Y. V., "WIP: Examination of Video Demonstrations as an Alternate Content Delivery Method,"  ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2024.
• Reck, R., Golecki, H., TerBush, J., Cvetkovic, C., Schmitz, C., Mussulman, D., Ansell, K., Radhakrishnan, C., "Getting Started Teaching an Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2024.
• Akshara Subramaniasivam; Rebecca Marie Reck, Katie Ansell, Holly M. Golecki, Chandrasekhar Radhakrishnan; Christopher D. Schmitz, Jessica R. TerBush, "Survey of the Entrepreneurial Mindset of Students in Undergraduate Laboratory Courses," ASEE Annual Conference, 2023.
• Radhakrishnan, C., Schmitz, C. D., Reck, R. M., Banerjee, A., Zhou, Y., Ansell, K., Golecki, H. M., TerBush, J. R., Bradley, J., "Changes to a Circuits Lab Sequence to Encourage Reflection and Integration of Experiences Across Related Courses to Explore New Solution Spaces to an Engineering Problem," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2023
• Saadeddine Shehab, Sneha Subramanian; Jake Fava, Christopher Schmitz, "WIP: The Impact of Human-Centered Design Modules on Students’ Learning in an Introduction to Electronics Course," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2022.
• Holly Golecki, Rebecca Reck, Christopher Schmitz, Katherine Ansell, Jessica TerBush, John Popovics, "Development of a Community of Practice for Rethinking Best Practices in Post-COVID Experiential Learning," ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2022.
• Schmitz, C., Fava, J., Subramanian, S., "Design-learning Preferences of First-year Electrical and Computer Engineering Students," ASEE Virtual Annual Conference, 2021.
• Schmitz C., Herman G., Bretl T. "The Effects of Second-Chance Testing on Grade Distributions in a First-Year Stem Course," Proceedings of ASEE Annual Virtual Conference 2020.
• Angrave L., Jensen K., Zhang Z., Mahipal C., Mussulman M., Schmitz C., Baird, R., Liu H., Sui R., Wu M., Kooper R. Improving student accessibility, equity, course performance, and lab skills: How introduction of ClassTranscribe is changing engineering education at the University of Illinois," Proceedings of ASEE Annual Virtual Conference 2020.
• "Adoption of an Online Queue App for Higher Education: A Case Study," Karin Jensen, Jennifer R. Amos, Lawrence Angrave, Karle Flanagan, David Mussulman, Christopher D. Schmitz, Wade Fagen-Ulmschneider, ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2019.
• Minority Merit: Improving Retention with Cooperative Learning in a First-Year Electronics Course, Serge Minin, David Varodayan, Christopher Schmitz, Brian Faulkner, Dong San Choi, Geoffrey L. Herman, In Proceedings of the 46th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, October 2016.
• Improving student engagement via content personalization, C. D. Schmitz, M. C. Loui, and R. A. Revelo Alonso, Proceedings of the 2013 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Atlanta, Ga., paper 7005, June 23–26, 2013.
• Work in Progress - Diversity Harnessing in a General Education Course on Digital Information Technology, 41st ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, October 12-15, 2011
• Entropy-maximization Based Adaptive Frequency Hopping for Wireless Medical Telemetry Systems. Tae Rim Park, Christopher D. Schmitz, and Lui Sha. WiMD’09, May 18, 2009, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, 2009.
• "Enhanced BTE Directivity using a Directional Array Microphone," C.D. Schmitz, N. Iyer, M.E. Lockwood, C.R. Lansing, A.S. Feng, and D.L. Jones, International Hearing Aid Research Conference, August, 2004.
• "On the Reduction of Masking Effects while Preserving Competing Binaural Audio Streams," C.D. Schmitz and N. Iyer, Thirty-Seventh Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, November, 2003.
• "Adaptive Noise Subspace Construction for Harmonic Retrieval," C.D. Schmitz and W.K. Jenkins, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, May, 1999.

Patents

• Electrode Placement for Wireless Intrabody Communication Between Components of a Hearing System. Patent No.: US 7,512,448 B2 Mar 31, 2009.

Teaching Honors

• 2025 ECE George Anner Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award (August 5, 2025)
• 2025 Nominee for the ECE Ronald W. Pratt Outstanding Teaching Award (2025)
• LIST OF TEACHERS RANKED AS EXCELLENT BY THEIR STUDENTS (nine times) (Spring 2024)
• 2024 Nominee for the ECE Ronald W. Pratt Outstanding Teaching Award (2024)
• 2023 Nominee for the ECE Ronald W. Pratt Outstanding Teaching Award (2023)

Public Service Honors

• 2022 Engineering Council Outstanding Advisors List (April 25, 2022)