History and Key Milestones

Electrical engineering (EE) was among the engineering disciplines taught when the Yantara Suksa School was founded in 1913 within the Civil Service School as the first engineering training institution in Thailand. In 1917, when King Rama VI honored his royal father, King Chulalongkorn, by upgrading the Civil Service School to Chulalongkorn University, the Yantara Suksa School became the Faculty of Engineering.

In 1929, the Faculty of Engineering created three separate engineering departments Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Civil Engineering. In 1933, Professor Dr. Charles M:Son Gewertz, a Swedish graduate of MIT, was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation to be the first Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering with a mandate to start a Bachelor’s degree program in electrical engineering.

Key Milestones

The Department of Electrical Engineering has moved from strength to strength since the auspicious beginning.

1913Yantara Suksa School was founded as the 1st engineering training institution in Thailand
1933Prof. Dr.Charles M:Son Gewertz, as the 1st Head of the Electrical Engineering Department
1935First batch of 12 B.Eng. graduates
1941Master program established (resumed in 1954 after WW II).
1964Graduate Diploma Program in EE established with technical assistance from UK’s Colombo Plan.
1967Swiss Government helps modernize High Voltage Lab and provides additional equipment & funds to expand the building in 1981.
1975Semiconductor Device Research Lab established with support from the French Government and scholarships for EE faculty members granted.
1983Doctoral Degree Program established.
1986Semiconductor Device Research Lab receives a grant from the Japanese Government to upgrade its research equipment.
1987First Doctoral Graduate
1992o    Japanese Government provides a grant for advanced equipment, including the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system.
o    “ASEAN Young Scientist & Technologist Award”
1994o    EDN ASIA Electronics Magazine Innovator Award (Hong Kong)
o    Sit Kon Kuti (Honors) Program established with grants from the National Science and Technology Development Agency and Chulalongkorn University to improve the quality of graduate study and research.
1995o    Center of Excellence in Electrical Power Technology established with a 169.9 million Baht grants from EGAT.- U.S. patent of thin-film LED
1996Six EE research labs (TCSRL, EMRL, DSPRL, CSRL, BERL, and OERL) established under the Thailand-Japan Technology Transfer Project (TJTTP) 1996-2001, a 2,019 million baht loan from the Japan Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF)
1997Science and Technology Award Granted by Thailand Toray Science
2000The Faculty of Engineering has allocated a new space of 1600 m2 on the 12th and 13th floors of the Engineering building No.4 for and expansion of the Department.
2002Dept. is selected as host institution in Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) under AUN/SEED-Net and Started to accept international Master’s and Ph.D. Students.
2007First PhD student graduated under AUN/SEED-Net program
2008o    First Place in the Soccer small Size League from the World Robocup 2008.
o    First Place in IDC Robocon 2008 Contesto    Patent of Dynamic Double Holographic Bar-Codes