John M. Acken is a faculty member in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Portland State University, Portland, OR. He received his BS and MS in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University and his PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Acken’s primary research areas include: Hardware for Information Security, Digital System Testing, and VLSI design. Dr. Acken’s research projects include technology and devices for information security and identity authentication. Dr. Acken taught at Santa Clara University, Oklahoma State University and PSU. Dr. Acken has been on PhD Committees at UC Santa Cruz, Carnegie Mellon University, Syracuse University, Oklahoma State University, and of course PSU. He is a co-inventor on a patent titled: “Conditional Access and Content Security Method”, US Patent Number 6,069,647, granted 30 May 2000. He has worked as an electrical engineer and manager at several companies, including the US Army, Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Intel in Santa Clara, CA, Valid logic Systems in Santa Clara, CA, and Crosscheck Technology in San Jose, CA.. John’s time in the US Army was in the Army Security Agency, which was the Army Branch of NSA during the Vietnam War. Dr. Acken is a member of IEEE, Eta Kappa Nu, and Tau Beta Pi.
Research Interest and Expertise:
- Hardware Information Security
- Digital System Testing
- Memristors
Courses Taught:
- ECE 525 Digital Integrated Circuits I
- ECE 526 Digital Integrated Circuits II
- ECE 587 Advanced Computer Architecture I