minority engineering education commenced with his work at the University of New Mexico (UNM, Tier-I Hispanic Serving Institution) in 1980 through a NASA JPL grant. Followed by several more major federal grants, he formalized a model for educating minorities, called VI-P Pyramid where K-12 students(bottom of pyramid) to doctoral (top of pyramid) students form a seamless group working on one project. Upper level students mentor lower ones on a sequential basis. Since 1980, he has graduated over 114 minority students consisting of 62 Hispanics, 34 African Americans., 15 Native Americans, and 3 Pacific Islanders. This book contains contributed chapters from colleagues, and former and current students of Professor Jamshidi. Areas of focus are: control systems, energy and system of systems, robotics and soft computing.