ECE welcomes three new advisory board members, Jeff Dickhart, Sheldon Thomas and Scott Acton
March 31, 2025
Together, Jeff Dickhart '98, Vice President & General Manager, Power Die Products at Wolfspeed, Sheldon Thomas '99, M.S.'04, Program Manager at RealmOne, and Scott T. Acton '88, professor and chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia, bring a wealth of engineering experience to ECE's advisory board.
Jeff Dickhart
After graduating from Virginia Tech with a computer engineering degree, Dickhart got his start at Texas Instruments as a technical sales representative. He spent the next two decades working his way up to his final position in 2019, general manager for DLP Enterprise, Cinema Display, and Industrial, before transitioning to Wolfspeed.
Sheldon Thomas
Thomas is a double Hokie in computer and electrical engineering. Shortly after graduation, Thomas joined the Lockheed Martin team as a business development analyst, while also working on his MBA from the University of Maryland. Thomas worked for the Lockheed Martin team for 24 years, where he completed his time there in April 2024 as chief engineer. As a program manager at RealmOne, Thomas helps advance national security and defense.
Scott T. Acton
Acton, who earned his bachelor's in electrical engineering, is the Lawrence R. Quarles Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVA), where he leads the Virginia Image and Video Analysis research group. He has spent nearly 25 years at UVA using applied mathematics and neural network architecture design to develop algorithms for image and video analysis.