Professor Richard Spencer UC Davis Solid-State Circuits Research Laboratory

Professor Spencer received his BSEE in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University in 1978, his MSEE in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1982 and his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1987. He has been a member of the faculty of the ECE department since 1986.

He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

He was Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies of the UC Davis ECE Department from July 1, 2000 through June 30, 2003.

He was the Child Family Professor of Engineering (a rotating endowed chair) from 1999 to 2005.

He has won the UC Davis ECE Professor of the Year award five times. This award is given by the UC Davis student chapter of the IEEE. He has also won the Associated Students of UC Davis Excellence in Education Award for the College of Engineering. He is the co-recipient of the 2nd-place Student Paper Award at the 2007 IEEE RFIC Symposium and the Beatrice Winner Award for Editorial Excellence at the 2008 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

Research Interests

Professor Spencer's major research emphasis is analog and mixed-signal circuit design for both RF and baseband communication and signal processing.

Note to Prospective Graduate Students

I have been receiving far too many unsolicited requests for support from potential graduate students, so I do not respond individually any more. All graduate students who apply to our department are first reviewed by a committee and their applications are then forwarded to the faculty in their areas of interest. I, along with my colleagues in the circuits area, review these applications and make whatever offers we are able to at that time based on the information available in the application.

Textbook

Professor Spencer is the primary author of the book Introduction to Electronic Circuit Design published by Prentice Hall in 2003.
Click here to see the website for the book.

NATCAR - Student Design Project

Professor Spencer, along with Mr. Graham Baskerville of National Semiconductor (now retired), created an undergraduate design contest in 1993. This contest has now grown to include many universities and is called "NATCAR" (a play on NASCAR and National Semiconductor). The Project website has more details.

Other Activities

Here are the slides I used for the EIT/FE exam review on 10/12/09.

Here are the slides I used for the EIT/FE exam review on 10/13/09.

Professor Spencer is a faculty advisor to Grace Alive, which is a Christian student club sponsored by Grace Valley Christian Center.

Professor Spencer gives short courses for practicing engineers and tutorial presentations for patent trials through Sophia Education.

Contact Information

Professor Richard Spencer
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of California
One Shields Ave.
Davis,  CA  95616
(530)752-6885
spencer@ece.ucdavis.edu

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, ..."  John 1:14

Webpage created on 1/27/07 by Richard Spencer

Last modified on: 5/20/08