Wayne Shiroma is an associate professor in the UH Manoa Department of Electrical Engineering. He has a simple mission: to stop our state’s brain drain by convincing our high school students that they should not feel compelled to leave Hawai‘i to get a high-quality engineering education.

The UH engineering faculty is top notch with state-of-the-art multimedia classroom, distance-learning facility, and laboratories. Recruiting the best and brightest high school students takes a personal, proactive approach on the part of the recruiter. Over the past six years, Shiroma has spoken to more than 600 students in classrooms, college and career fairs, Rainbow Nights, Rainbow Connections and engineering open houses and expos.

In his teaching, Shiroma has long been a pioneer in project-based learning. Since first joining UH, he actively involved undergraduates in his research activities. By their senior year, his undergraduates should be experienced enough to carry out a capstone design project. Shiroma played a prominent role in the college of Engineering’s CubeSat project, the largest multidisciplinary project ever undertaken by UH engineering students.