Tim J. Sobering

Senior Professor of Practice

M.S. - 1984, Kansas State University
Electrical Engineering
B.S. - 1982, Kansas State University
Electrical Engineering

Contact information

3076 Engineering Hall
tsobering@k-state.edu

Professional experience

Tim Sobering received his bachelor’s in electrical engineering from Kansas State University in 1982. He received his master’s in electrical engineering from K-State in 1984. His thesis was on the design of novel low-power analog-to-digital conversion techniques for unattended signal processing systems. After graduating from K-State in 1984, he worked at Sandia National Laboratories as a senior member of the technical staff where he developed a variety of electro-optic analog front-end systems for applications in ground-, aircraft-, and space-based remote sensing and standoff detection. Sobering also developed conceptual designs and was project manager for several large lidar-based standoff detection systems for the detection of prohibited chemical and biological weapons.

In 1996, he returned to K-State and joined the research administration as the first director of the Electronics Design Laboratory, or EDL, a core laboratory facility responsible for supporting research activities across the university through development of sensors, advanced instrumentation, data acquisition systems and other high-end electronics. In 2023, Sobering left EDL for a position as a senior professor of practice in the Mike Wiegers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He leverages his extensive hardware design and program management experience in teaching undergraduate electronics and engineering design courses.

Research

Sobering has extensive experience in precision analog circuit design, modeling, debugging, system engineering, system fabrication, program development and technical management. He has worked extensively with low-power systems and the development of power delivery networks. He also has developed a number of power-efficient systems for biasing optical and nuclear radiation detectors.

Research keywords

Analog front-end, low-power electronics, power delivery networks, remote sensing

Academic highlights

Sobering has taught courses in circuits and electronics, printed-circuit board design and electronic instrumentation. He is part of the team piloting the new interdisciplinary senior design capstone course, which will be expanded to include all K-State engineering seniors. He also is the founder of the K-State Electronics Design Club, a student-led organization for cooperative electronics hardware development.

Sobering’s work has appeared in more than 65 different publications.