The fund honors Donald D. “Don” and Ruth S. Eckis. Don Eckis attended Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind., for two years, and was the chairman and chief executive officer for Don’s Prize Foods-Frozen Meat Packers Inc. in Miami.

Jose C. Principe is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida since 2002.

He joined the University of Florida in 1987, after an eight year appointment as Professor at the University of Aveiro, in Portugal.

Dr. Principe holds degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Porto (Bachelor), Portugal, University of Florida (Master and Ph.D.), USA.

He created in 1991 the Computational NeuroEngineering Laboratory to synergistically focus the research in biological information processing models.

For more information about Dr. Principe and his work, visit http://cnel.ufl.edu/people/people.php?name=principe .