About the PPGEE

 

The Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering (PPGEE) of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) is hosted by the Polytechnic School, which was established in 1897. In this school, there are undergraduate courses in several engineering options, among them Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. The first students of electrical engineering started their undergraduate course in 1944. Currently, it has the following areas of concentration: Energy Systems, Communication Systems, Control Systems, and Electronic Systems. In 2009, the course on Computer Engineering received its first students. The main department responsible for these two courses (host department) is the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (DEEC).

The Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering originated in 1994 with the creation of the M.Sc. course, which had, as main objective, the supply of highly qualified professionals for academic institutions and industry. The M. Sc. course had its origins in specialization courses offered to employees of electrical companies, such as Eletrobras and Coelba. The students were allowed to enroll in subjects of the specialization course and subsequently, if desired, they could elaborate a Master's dissertations. From that moment onwards, cooperation agreements were established with the Graduate Programs in Electrical Engineering of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) and of the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG) and also, a cooperation program with an institution in France was approved. Through this cooperation program, some faculty members of the department obtained their Ph.D. degree or had the opportunity to be visiting professors in France.

In this first phase of operation, according to the national regulations for graduate studies, public institutions were allowed to create graduate programs and to start accepting students even before receiving the endorsement of the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), a federal agency of the Ministry of Education, responsible for evaluating graduate programs in Brazil. The endorsement of the M. Sc. course could be required with the program already in operation and receiving students. Soon after the PPGEE was created, the regulations concerning the operation of graduate programs in Brazil were modified and the approval of the M. Sc. course was denied by CAPES. As a consequence, the course was forbidden from receiving new students, effectively ending its operation after just a few years of existence. One of the main reasons for denying the operation of the course was the inexistence of faculty members well qualified to run it, eventhough the PPGEE offered an M. Sc. course only. At that time, only three faculty members had a Doctoral degree and they had little experience in advanced research and few relevant publications. The students that were already enrolled were allowed to finish their courses and there have been around ten dissertation defenses during this first phase of operations.

In 1999, after a reformulation of the curricular structure of the course and with the increase in the number of faculty members with a doctoral degree and more experience in advanced research and relevant publications, the program was eventually authorized and recommended by CAPES for the concentration area of Information and Energy Processing with two main research fields: (i) Signal Processing and (ii) Industrial Automation. The restarting date of the M. Sc. course, after the recognition from CAPES, was in 2001.

In 2006, the M. Sc. course in Electrical Engineering was recognized by UFBA as a Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering, the current PPGEE. In 2007, as a result of a long cooperation with the Graduate Program in Electrical Engineering of UFCG, a proposal for the creation of the Ph.D. course in the form of a 6-year temporary association with UFCG was submitted and approved by CAPES in 2008. The activities of the Ph.D. course began in 2009. In this format of temporary association, in the first years of the Ph.D. course, the students' thesis were developed, in general, under the co-supervision of faculty members from UFBA and UFCG. In order to make this association fruitful, cooperation projects between UFBA and UFCG were submitted and approved, such as the project entitled PROCAD which facilitated the mobility of faculty members and students between the two universities. With the end of the 6-year association period, the Ph.D. students were assigned mainly to work under supervision of faculty members from UFBA only, or in some cases, also in cooperation with other institutions besides UFCG.

In August 2024, after internal and external procedures, a name change was approved and ratified, with the program now being called the Graduate Program in Electrical and Computer Engineering (PPGEEC), and the linked courses being called the Master's Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Doctorate Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

At the beginning of 2025, regarding the number of students, the PPGEE has 120 master's and 87 doctoral students regularly enrolled. Until July 2024, 287 master's dissertations and 56 doctoral theses had been defended since the beginning of the postgraduate program. The area of concentration is Information Processing and Energy. There are currently five lines of research: (i) Information Processing and Transmission; (ii) Microelectronics and Electronic Instrumentation; (iii) Control and Automation; (iv) Power Systems; and (v) Computing and Robotics.

Currently, the coordinator is Professor Tito Luís Maia Santos and the vice-coordinator is Professor Jés de Jesus Fias Cerqueira.