Professor Hudgins is a native of West Texas. He attended Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, Texas, where he received a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1985. Dr. Hudgins served as Associate and Interim Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of South Carolina prior to joining the University of Nebraska as Chair. He continues to serve as an electrical engineering program evaluator for ABET since 2000. Dr. Hudgins' research involves power electronic device characterization and modeling. This includes devices made from silicon and wide bandgap materials such as silicon carbide and gallium nitride. Dr. Hudgins served as the President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society (PELS) for the years of 1997 and 1998, and as President of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) in 2003. He has also served in many international technical conference committee roles through the IAS and PELS, including General Conference Chair of the 1999 IEEE Power Electronics Specialists Conference, Technical Program Chair for the 2001 IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, and General Conference Chair of the 2002 IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting. Dr. Hudgins has published over 60 technical papers and book chapters concerning power semiconductors and engineering education, and has worked with numerous industries including Ford Motor Co., Northrup-Grumann, International Rectifier, Powerex, and Harris Electronics.

• Ph.D., 1985, Texas Tech University

Dr. Hudgins is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He co-authored 3 award winning papers published by the IEEE IAS, and received the 1997 Best Transactions Paper Award for technical articles published in the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. In 1991, he received one of the IEEE Outstanding Student Branch Counselor awards given to the top ten counselors world-wide, and in 2000 was named as an IEEE Third Millenium Medal recipient for "Outstanding Contributions in the area of Power Electronics." Dr. Hudgins was also named as an Outstanding Alum of Texas Tech University and inducted into the Texas Tech Electrical Engineering Academy in 2002.

• "Circuit simulator models for the diode and IGBT with full temperature dependent features," P.R. Palmer, E. Santi, J.L. Hudgins, X. Kang, J.C. Joyce, and P.Y. Eng, IEEE Trans. Power Electronics, vol. 18, no.5, pp. 1220-1229, Sept. 2003.
• "Wide and narrow bandgap semiconductors for power electronics," J.L. Hudgins, IEEE/TMMS Jnl. Electronic Materials, vol. 32, no. 6, pp. 471-477, June 2003.
• "A new assessment of wide bandgap semiconductors for power devices," J.L Hudgins, G.S. Simin, E. Santi, and M.A. Khan, IEEE Trans. Power Electronics, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 907-914, May 2003.
• "Thyristors," J.L. Hudgins, E. Santi, A. Caiafa, K. Lengel, and P.R. Palmer, Ch. 3, Power Electronics Handbook, Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 27-54, 2001.
• "The New Paradigm in Power Electronics Design," J.L. Hudgins, J. Mookken, B. Beker, and R.A. Dougal, IEEE PEDS Rec., pp. 1-6, July, 1999. (Keynote Paper)
• "The effects due to package parasitics of a PEBB-1 module in an ARCP circuit," R.A. Lewis and J.L. Hudgins, IEEE PESC Rec., pp. 1951-1956, Fukuoka, Japan, May 1998