We have a meeting planned for May 23 that will feature a talk by Dr. Donald Chiarella, the MIS Section Chief of the Maryland Traffic Safety Analysis Division. More information will be given in the May newsletter.

2. Electron Devices - Solid State Circuits Chapter Meeting

Topic:

Treading a Fine Line: One-Dimensional Semiconductor Physics in Carbon Nanotubes

Speaker:

Michael S. Fuhrer

Department of Physics and Center for Superconductivity Research

University of Maryland, College Park, MD

Date:

April 19, 2006

Location:

Historical Electronics Museum

Time:

5:30 PM Refreshments and Social Hour

6:15 PM Opening Remarks

6:20 PM Speaker Michael S. Fuhrer

Abstract:

The growth of individual, long (> 1 mm), high-quality single- or few-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on substrates by chemical vapor deposition has allowed the careful study of the intrinsic electronic properties of this material. Recently we have made electrical measurements on semiconducting CNTs up to 800 microns in length in a field-effect transistor (FET) geometry, and determined that the charge carrier mobility is greater than 100,000 cm2/Vs at room temperature, exceeding that of the best known semiconductors. Analysis of the FET behavior at higher drain bias indicates that semiconducting CNTs do not experience current saturation due to optical phonon emission (as observed in metallic CNTs) but rather show saturation of the carrier velocity at ~2 x 107 cm/s, approximately three times higher than the value for Si FETs. Studies of the anomalous (1/f) noise in semiconducting carbon nanotubes show that the noise power is inversely proportional to the number of carriers, following Hooge’s law with a Hooge parameter comparable to conventional FETs, indicating that CNTs are not (as previously expected) unusually noisy due to their high surface-to-volume ratio. Interestingly, the temperature, pressure, and gate-voltage dependence of the noise indicates that (1) adsorbates probably do not play a large role in the noise, and (2) Hooge’s law (traditionally assumed to imply non-interacting charge carriers) is obeyed even in a one-dimensional conductor in the degenerate regime.

Biography:

Michael Fuhrer received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. He received his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998 after doing research on electronic and thermal transport in High-Tc and fullerene superconductors with Prof. Alex Zettl. Prof. Fuhrer remained at Berkeley as a postdoctoral researcher with Profs. Alex Zettl and Paul McEuen, working on electronic transport in carbon nanotube devices. Prof. Fuhrer joined the faculty at Maryland as an assistant professor in 2000, promoted to associate professor in 2005. He is pursuing research on carbon nanotube electronic devices, novel two-dimensional electronic nanostructures, and molecular electronics. Prof. Fuhrer studied the first carbon nanotube heterojunctions, demonstrated the first carbon-nanotube-based single-electron memory device, and showed that the room-temperature mobility in semiconducting carbon nanotubes is the highest of any semiconductor. He has published over 35 papers in technical journals, and presented his research in more than 40 invited talks.

3. Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Graduate Student Poster Competition

The IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society chapters in Baltimore and Washington-Northern Virginia will be hosting a graduate student poster competition to foster industry-academia collaboration and knowledge transfer covering all areas of optical science and technology. Original or recently published poster presentations from graduate students in the Baltimore-DC-Northern Virginia area are welcome. An independent panel of judges will evaluate the posters, and a cash award and merit certificate will be awarded to the best poster.

The event will be held at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD on April 26, 2006 from 6-8:30PM in Howard County Room 3. Refreshments will be served.

All students and professionals from the region are welcome to come for education, networking, talent scouting, etc. Please RSVP to Baltimore.LEOS@ieee.org for poster submission and general attendance by April 19, 2006. Visit the chapter web-sites http://www.ieee.org/BaltimoreLEOS/ or http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/leos/ for more details regarding rules and submission guidelines.

4. Robot Challenge

With less than a month to the Robot Challenge, we are looking to our judging crew, past and present, to support the students as they come face to face with the “Robot Challenge” at the Museum of Industry on April 22 and 23 at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

Based on the number of teams registered, we are anticipating a 50% increase in the number of teams that will be attending this year (over last year), and this translates into an increase in the number of judges we will be needing.

Saturday, April 22, is likely to be the busier day, and judges should plan to be there at 8:45 AM for orientation and training. We anticipate that most of the work will be concluded by 1:30 PM.

On Sunday, April 23, judges will need to arrive at 12:30 PM, the events will start at 1 PM and should finish by 3 PM.

Listed below are the people who have indicated a willingness to judge or help out in other ways, and we would appreciate it if they would send an e-mail to Nevilleed@aol.com with the Subject: “Robot Challenge” and the following information:

- If you are still available, which day or both, and if you have a judging or task preference. We may still also need registration people, photographers, videographers, and help at the repair station. Please include your phone numbers in the e-mail.

- We need judges for Written Reports on April 17 at 6 PM, but volunteers need to have been a Track or an Oral Reports judge for at least one year previously.

- If you are not on the list, but would like to volunteer, possibly for the first time, yet know very little about the Robot Challenge, please let us know which day you might be available, and whether you think you would be more interested in judging the track events where the robots travel over hurdles and down the tables, or would prefer talking to the students at the Oral Presentations after the event.

- We are considering improvements in how we display results to visitors so would appreciate hearing from anyone with audiovisual and computer linkage expertise.

The following people helped out last year, and we are deeply grateful. We would appreciate their help this year:

Charlie Alfred, Christine Allison, Ron Aloysius, Dave Boyd, Eric Broman, Robert Cuellar, Paul Demos, John Dentler, Bill Dixon, Keith Donahue, Jeff Friedhoffer, Jay Gamerman, Dominic Georgantas, Jerry Gibbon, Mars Gralia, Boris Gramatikov, Charles Granderson, Albert Hsu, Neville Jacobs, Art Jeyes, Mrs. Jeyes, Joe Jolson, Terri Kamm, John King, Rich Merritts, Boniface Nwugwo, Mike Pang, Vadim Polyakov, Marcia Richard, Bruce Schmickley, Bill Semancik, Brian Sequeira, Dave Sherman, Gary Tartanian, Dave & Meg Weaver, Jeff Weiss, Rachel Jacobs Weiss,Walt Willing.

The following newcomers have contacted us this year to serve as Judges or in other capacities, and we are very grateful:

Ivelin Bakalski, Rich Merritts, Tzer Leei Ng (Charlie), Alex Patriciu, Mike Pleva, Michel.Reece, Marian Titerence, John Zhangy (Rich and Michel may not be newcomers!)

As mentioned earlier, we will be needing about 15 more judges than last year, so we would appreciate hearing from a few more members.

5. Women in Engineering Tour of Classical Radio Station

WIE is planning a spring tour of Baltimore's Classical Radio Station WBJC 91.5 FM on Wednesday April 12th. We will be hosting three half-hour tours beginning at 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. Please RSVP by Thursday, April 6th with a time of which tour you would prefer to attend to Cassie Wolfe at cwolfe@muellerassoc.com . We will be meeting for dinner following the tour at TGI Friday's.

6. Power Engineering Society Outstanding Engineer Award

Ronald N. Carstens Jr. was named the 2006 Baltimore Chapter Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power Engineering Society (PES) Outstanding Engineer. Mr. Carstens has over 17 years of experience in various engineering positions in Distribution Engineering, System Operations, Substations & Distribution Design, and Project Management at the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company (BGE). He has been the Project Manager on several large projects at BGE including the new Outage Management System (OMS), Mobile Dispatch System (MDS), and the Downtown Transmission & Distribution Plan Project. He presently is the Director of Project Management in the Electric Transmission & Distribution Division.

Mr. Carstens graduated from the University of Maryland with a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering in 1988 and from the University of Baltimore with a MBA in 2001. He has been a member of IEEE since 1991 and a Senior Member since 1999. Mr. Carstens has served on the PES Membership Committee and on the PES Executive Committee as the Awards Chairman. Additionally, he has been the speaker at several PES technical presentations and presented a class on Distribution System Operations. He has also presented on OMS and MDS at several industry conferences including DistribuTECH and Marcus Evans OMS Seminar and he co-authored an article on OMS/MDS implementation that was featured as the cover article for the July 2005 edition of Transmission & Distribution World magazine. Mr. Carstens received his Professional Engineers License from the State of Maryland in 1995.

Mr. Carstens resides in Union Bridge, Maryland. He has volunteered in numerous local community activities and church committees.

The award was presented to Mr. Carstens at the Annual Engineers Week Dinner Meeting of Baltimore PES, which was held on February 23, 2006. “I am very honored to have been named the 2006 recipient of this special award,” Carstens said. “It is gratifying to have served as the Awards Chairman of the society for the past several years, and to now be the recipient of the award is great as well,” he added. The award was presented by Dewane Daley, Chairman of the IEEE Baltimore Power Engineering Society.

7. IEEE Computer Society Conference

The IEEE Computer Society will cosponsor the conference entitled " 2006 IEEE/NASA Systems and Software Week (SASW) (Meeting #11538). This conference will be held 24-28 April 2006 in Columbia, MD.

For further information, please contact, IEEE Computer Society, Conference Services, 1730 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036-1992, +1 202 371 1013, +1 202 728 0884 (Fax), or Conference Services Dept., at IEEE Operations Center at +1 732 562 3878.

8. EMC Expo Colloquium and Exhibit

Date:

Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Sponsor:

EMC Chapters of Annapolis, Baltimore, Washington DC, Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland

Track 1:

EMC Design for Working Engineers (The Ground Myth, PCB Decoupling Strategies in the Time and Frequency Domain, System EMC, Shielding, and I/O design Issues and Introduction to Fullwave EMC Modeling and Simulation.

Speaker:

Dr. Bruce Archambeault, Senior Technical Staff Member, IBM Research Technical Park

Track 2:

Policy Defined Radio, EMC and Dynamic Spectrum Access, Broadband Over Power Lines Spectrum Compatibility, New Paradigms for System-Level EMC Modeling and Analysis, Waveform Diversity and EMC

Speakers:

Mr. Andrew Drozd, President, ANDRO Computational Solutions, Rome, NY, Edward Hare, Amateur Radio Rely League, Laboratory Manager, Newington, CT, Dr. Eric Mokole, Head, Surveillance Technology Branch, Radar Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC, USA

Time:

8:00 AM to 5 PM, reception 5 PM to 8 PM

Place:

Waldorf Holiday Inn, 45 St Patrick's Drive, Waldorf, MD 20603, Exit the Washington beltway Interstate 95 at the exit 7A for MD Route 5 South. Drive south to Waldorf. Route 5 merges with MD Route 301 from Baltimore/Annapolis. Remain on MD Route 301 south to right on Patrick Drive (before the St. Charles Mall):

http://www.waldorfmd.holiday-inn.com/walmd/directions.html

More Info:

See Diamond story, below, or www.wll.com\IEEE_EMC.htm

Cost:

$125 IEEE Members, Postmark by May 1.

$175 IEEE Members, Postmark May 10 - May 15.

$225 IEEE Members, After May 15 or at Door.

$50 Non Member Additional Charge.

$75Full-time Students with copy of valid Student I.D., Postmark by May. 15.

50% discount off the IEEE Member fees for Unemployed/retired attendees.

Fees include refreshments, Lunch, reception and speaker notes.

Contact:

EMC Expo Chair Fred Heather, 301-342-6975 or e-mail:

heatherf@ieee.org

Tuesday, June 6, 2006 EMC Expo Colloquium and Exhibit, EMC Design for Working Engineers, and Advances in Spectrum Effects:

A practical seminar designed to improve your efficiency as an engineer, product designer or technical manager, where you’ll learn troubleshooting tips and strategies from the experts in order to improve your EMC engineering skills. There are two tracks to satisfy the broad interest range of members in our area.

Track 1 covers EMC Design for the Working Engineers. This one day session by Dr. Bruce Archambeault will cover a wide range of basic topics in EMC ranging from grounding, bonding, shielding, PCB design for EMI decoupling, System EMC, and I/O design issues and Introduction to Fullwave EMC Modeling and Simulation.

Track 2 covers contemporary technologies for the experienced Electromagnetic Environmental Effects Engineer. The focus of the four topics is on current advances in spectrum compatibility. Mr. Andrew Drozd will present information on current and future policy requirements for the next generation of software programmable radios. Dynamic Spectrum Access will examine the concept of expanding spectrum by allocating use in domains other than frequency. His afternoon topic will be New Paradigms for System-Level EMC Modeling and Analysis". Ed Hare’s brief on Broadband over Power Lines Spectrum Compatibility will provide insight to this new consumer technology and implications to HAM radio. The final speaker Dr. Eric Mokole will cover the area of Waveform Diversity and how future radar systems may change and achieve spectrum compatibility.

Concurrent with the technical session there will be an industry table top display of EMC components, products, Services and Equipment.

Dr. Bruce Archambeault is a Distinguished engineer at IBM in Research Triangle Park, NC. He received his B.S.E.E degree from the University of New Hampshire in 1977 and his M.S.E.E degree from Northeastern University in 1981. He received his PhD. from the University of New Hampshire in 1997. His doctoral research was in the area of computational electromagnetics applied to real-world EMC problems.

Dr. Archambeault has authored or co-authored a number of papers in computational electromagnetics, mostly applied to real-world EMC applications. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors for the IEEE EMC Society and a past Board of Directors member for the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES). He has served as a past IEEE/EMCS Distinguished Lecturer and Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility. He is the author of the book “PCB Design for Real-World EMI Control” and the lead author of the book titled “EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook”.

Ed Hare, (W1RFI) first licensed in 1963. After 16 years in the electronics industry, he came to ARRL HQ in 1986. He has been with ARRL HQ for over 13 years. He started as ARRL's "Product Review" test engineer, moved on to becoming ARRL's "RFI guru" (notice his call!) and he now holds the position of Laboratory Supervisor.

Over the years he has written quite a number of RFI articles, ranging from articles for QST and the "ARRL Handbook" to articles that have appeared in professional trade journals. He is also one of the editors and authors of the ARRL "RFI Book" and the author of the ARRL's book on RF exposure, "RF Exposure and You."

He is very active in several RFI programs at ARRL, holding membership on the Society of Automotive Engineers EMC Committee, the IEEE C.63 Committee and IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 28, representing ARRL and the interests of Amateur Radio in developing standards for the immunity of consumer equipment and motor vehicles and standards for RF exposure.

Andrew Drozd is President and Chief Scientist for ANDRO and is the current President of the IEEE EMC Society. Mr. Drozd's expertise is in area of systems engineering and assuring life cycle EMC. His work has involved the use of sophisticated computer modeling, simulation and analyses codes to study large, complex systems EMC problems. He has also consulted on hardware design for EMC specification compliance, and conducted EMC lab tests and verification experiments. He has recently been at the forefront of innovative research to apply expert system technologies for EMC modeling and EMC analyses. He continues to apply more than 27 years of technical and program experience in electromagnetics technologies primarily for E3 modeling and analysis of government and commercial systems. Mr. Drozd is a NARTE-certified EMC Engineer and an IEEE Fellow. He has authored and co-written over 130 technical papers, reports, and newsletter/journal articles on various EMC topics. He received a BS in Physics and Mathematics in 1977, and an MSEE specializing in Communications and Signal Processing in 1982, both from Syracuse University.

Dr. Eric Mokole is Head of the Surveillance Technology Branch, Radar Division of the US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington DC, USA. He received the B.S. degree in applied mathematics from New York University (New York NY) in 1971, the M.S. degree in mathematics from Northern Illinois University (DeKalb IL) in 1974, the M.S. degrees in physics and applied mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta GA) in 1976 and 1978, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1983.

Since 1986 he has been employed by the Radar Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington DC. He has been conducting basic/applied research and system analyses on space-based radar, on shipboard Navy radars and the associated electronic countermeasures (ECM) and electronic counter-counter measures (ECCM), and on ultra-wideband radar. These efforts have involved information extraction, non-Gaussian detection theory, data analysis, system simulation/modeling, threat/electronic-attack modeling, antenna theory (element and arrays), electromagnetic propagation near the Earth’s surface and through the ionosphere (deterministic and random), pulsed propagation in a dispersive medium, and RF scattering from the sea and land. Additionally, Dr. Mokole has over 40 conference publications, journal articles, book chapters, and reports and is co-editor of the book Ultra-Wideband, Short-Pulse Electromagnetics 6 (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishing, 2003).

9. Conference on Distributed Diagnosis and Home Healthcare

This is a notice for the Conference on Distributed Diagnosis and Home Healthcare (D2H2). The goal of D2H2 is to improve quality of care and patient wellness and outcomes by transforming the delivery of healthcare from a central, hospital-based system to one that is more patient-centered, distributed and home-based for both the developed and developing nations.

This conference on D2H2 is sponsored by many professional societies, e.g., American Medical Association (AMA), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), with a total combined membership approaching one million members.

The Conference will be held in Marriott Crystal Gateway Hotel in Arlington, Virginia on April 3rd (Monday) and April 4th (Tuesday), 2006. Keynote speakers include U.S. Congressman Adam Smith, Mr. Juoko Karvinen, CEO of Philips Medical Systems Worldwide, Dr. Lee Huntsman, President Emeritus of the University of Washington and Executive Director of the Life Sciences Discovery Fund, Peter Neupert, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, Mr. Carl Hendricks, U.S. Military Health Systems Chief Information Officer, Dr. John Loonsk, Director of ONC's Office of Interoperability and Standards, and Dr. William A. Herman, Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories of FDA. More information on the conference program can be found athttps://icsl.ee.washington.edu/d2h2/program.html

The deadline for the hotel reservation at the rate of $175/night is March 13, 2006. You can reserve your hotel room via http://icsl.ee.washington.edu/d2h2/hotel.html

Due to numerous current problems and challenges in healthcare, it is inevitable that we move towards more patient-centered, distributed and home-based healthcare via D2H2. If you have any questions or need more information, please do not hesitate to contact:

Yongmin Kim, Ph.D.

D2H2 Conference Chair

President of IEEE EMBS

Hunter and Dorothy Simpson Endowed Chair

Professor and Chair

Department of Bioengineering

University of Washington

Seattle, WA 98195 USA

10. Free Design Seminar

There will be a free, all day design seminar presented in Columbia, MD on Thursday, April 13.

It is called DesignInsights 06 and will be held at the Hilton Hotel on Twin Knolls Road.

For more information or to register, please click on the link below:

http://tektronix.seminars.net/insight06_dc/

There is no charge for the seminar, lunch will be served, and there is even a chance to win a portable DVD player or a Tektronix TDS2002 oscilloscope.

11. IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Awards

Nominations are being sought for the 2006 IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Awards.

IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Awards recognize the most effective and influential contributions to education in the areas of accreditation, continuing education, educational innovation, pre-university education, meritorious service to the IEEE EAB, and employee professional development. The deadline for nominations is 30 April 2006 Meritorious Achievement Award in Accreditation Activities recognizes IEEE members for efforts that foster the maintenance and improvement of education through the process of accreditation of engineering, engineering technology, computer science and applied science programs.

Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education:

Recognizes IEEE members for contributions to the design, delivery and support of continuing education courses and programs in the fields of interest to IEEE Members.

Major Educational Innovation Award:

Recognizes IEEE members for outstanding educational innovation whereby the innovation has made a major impact and been emulated outside the individual's immediate environment.

Pre-University Educator Award:

Recognizes current pre-university classroom teachers who have inspired an appreciation and understanding of mathematics, science and technology and the engineering process in students and who have encouraged students to pursue technical careers.

Meritorious Service Citation:

Recognizes dedicated volunteers who have given outstanding and sustained service to the aims and objectives of the EAB.

Employer Professional Development Award:

Recognizes organizations employing IEEE members for contributions to employee continuing education and professional development.

Section Professional Development Award:

Recognizes IEEE Sections for major contributions to IEEE members in the area of life-long learning, continuing education and professional development.

For award descriptions, honorarium details, and nominations packets, visit:

http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs/education/EABAwards/index.htm

For more information IEEE EAB Awards send an email to:

eab-awards@ieee.org

12. IEEE Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance of VLSI Systems

The IEEE Symposium on Defect and Fault Tolerance of VLSI Systems (DFT), 2006 (October 4-6) will be held in Washington. The DFT's information can be found at:

http://netgroup.uniroma2.it/DFT06/index.html.

DFT is a high rank symposium dedicated to Defect and Fault tolerance issues in both VLSI and Emerging nanotechnologies.

13. IEEE Educational Activities and the History Center

IEEE VIRTUAL MUSEUM:

At the beginning of this year, a new exhibit on nanotechnology opened at IEEE’s award-winning pre-university educational site (http://www.ieee.org/museum). In addition, the IEEE History Center is pleased to note that excerpts from exhibits in the IEEE Virtual Museum will be used by the Migrant department of the San Antonio Independent School District as part of a program that serves the educational needs of 760 children of migrant workers. Teachers, bringing laptops, visit the homes of student enrolled in the program. These teachers will be provided with CDs containing excerpts from the IEEE Virtual Museum exhibits.

IEEE-HOSTED “SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ENGINEER?” EVENT A SUCCESS:

On 10 December 2005 IEEE hosted “So you want to be an engineer?” - an engineering event which was held on the campus of Drexel University for high school students in the Philadelphia area and their parents.

The event drew 160 attendees who listened to engineering students and university personnel explain the broad field of engineering, got answers to their questions about the engineering curriculum, and tried their hand at building simple engineering devices. They interacted with engineering students and personnel from Drexel as well as from Lehigh, Pennsylvania State, and Temple universities, and the University of Pennsylvania.

"The IEEE held the event because we are looking for new ways to introduce engineering to young people,” says Moshe Kam, IEEE Vice President, Educational Activities. “We feel that more hands-on activities and interaction with engineering students will help demystify engineering for high school students. We also feel that many parents need an informed understanding of how engineering education is organized so they can better advise their sons and daughters. We don't think every high school student should become an engineer, but we do think that every student should understand what engineers do."

A keynote address – from an electrical engineer who received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Drexel University – and talks from undergraduate engineering students discussed topics such as why they chose to study engineering, what they liked most about their engineering education, and why they believed engineering is an excellent field to enter. A panel of admissions personnel from Drexel, Lehigh, and Temple also fielded questions from parents, while the high school students experimented with three hands-on activities that demonstrated basic engineering concepts. In addition, undergraduate engineering students demonstrated mobile and flying robots, model rockets, and engineering design projects in an Exhibit Area.

The IEEE is working on plans to host similar events in the future, with the next event possibly being held later this year.

For more information on the event, contact Allison Ickowicz at +1 732 562 5496 or a.m.ickowicz@ieee.org.

IEEE EDUCATION PARTNERS PROGRAM:

The Indiana University Kelley School of Business partners with IEEE providing members access to a diverse set of degree and certificate programs.

The Indiana University Kelley School of Business, a leader in American business education for 85 years and ranked as the #1 program in overall teaching quality by Princeton Review, has signed an agreement to serve as a partner in IEEE’s Education Partners Program (EPP). Global commerce, the emergence of vast new markets in China and India, and rapidly evolving communication technologies are only some of the recent developments that make navigating the world of 21st century business such a challenge. IEEE members who want to lead the way by improving upon their managerial and business expertise will want to take advantage of the 10% discount on all courses offered by The Kelley School of Business.

Through Kelley Direct (KD) Online Programs, IEEE members can participate in a variety of business courses related to finance, global supply chain management, strategic management and business administration. KD Online Programs is the only graduate management program offered by a top 20-business school that is delivered almost exclusively over the Web. The Kelley School of Business allows students to tailor program elements to meet their targeted professional and educational objectives. The MBA program draws top recruiters, including Cummins, Inc., Kraft Foods, Eli Lilly, Ford Motor Company, Proctor & Gamble, Intel Corp., Microsoft, and DuPont.

Through the IEEE Education Partners Program, IEEE members currently have access to more than 6,000 courses from about 17 providers to help them meet their continuing education, certificate, and graduate degree needs. IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) volunteers have established a review process to ensure that Partners meet certain quality standards. All Partners have established special web portals through which IEEE members can access course catalogs, register for courses, and receive the IEEE discount. EAB is continually adding new Partners. For access to all IEEE-EPP Partners go to www.ieee.org/partners. Your IEEE web account user name and password are necessary to access the Partners' web sites.

For more information on the IEEE Education Partners Program, please go to www.ieee.org/partners or contact Rozanna Fanelli, IEEE Project Consultant, at +1 973 984 0477 or rozfan39@comcast.net.

MILESTONES:

Sections are urged to get involved in local history, particularly through the Milestones Program which is designed to help Sections promote the importance of the engineer and engineering in their local communities (see:

http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/milestones_program.html).

This year looks to be still another record-breaking one for the program. Two dedications are already planned—by the Boston Section (Region 1) for Bell’s first telephone transmission (the famous call to his assistant Watson), and by the UKRI Section (Region 8) for the pioneering electrical science of Nicholas Callan in Ireland—and many more exciting proposals and nominations are at various stages in the pipeline.

CALL FOR 2006 EAB AWARD NOMINATIONS:

The IEEE Educational Activities Board is accepting nominations of IEEE members for its annual awards. The deadline for nominations is 30 April 2006. Awards include: IEEE EAB Section Professional Development Award, IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement Award in Accreditation Activities, IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education, IEEE EAB Major Educational Innovation Award, IEEE EAB Pre-University Educator Award, IEEE EAB Meritorious Service Citation, and the IEEE EAB Employer Professional Development Award.

For award descriptions, honorarium details, and nominations packets, visit:

http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs/education/EABAwards/index.htm.

For more information IEEE EAB Awards contact eab-awards@ieee.org.

OTHER HISTORY CENTER PRE-UNIVERSITY OUTREACH:

In the mission of the IEEE History Center to promote the legacy of engineering and technology, no audience is as important as our young people. The IEEE Virtual museum combines history and technology to target this audience. However, much of the pre-university outreach focus of IEEE and other like-minded organizations is on science and mathematics classrooms. This approach may help in preparing technologically-minded students for careers in engineering, but what about the problem of broader technologically illiteracy—in fact, of a basic understanding of, and appreciation for, the engineering profession by all students?

In turns out that most nations who have a national history curriculum or set of standards (and most do!), lip service is paid to having the students understand the importance of science and technology in history. The United States has state-by-state standards, but as the “No Child Left Behind Act” seeks to promulgate national history standards, technology figures prominently in them. Yet, in practice, history teachers are not necessarily well prepared to talk about technology and engineering. Therefore, as a pilot program, the IEEE History Center staff are presenting a series of three lectures on technology in history to the 9th year students at Hillsborough High School in Hillsborough, New Jersey, nearby the Center. The idea is to present audio-visually rich materials in a PowerPoint™ format, materials which emphasize the role of technology and engineering at different places in “Global History” that the students cover over the course of the year. The first lectures were presented in December 2005 and February 2006, and the third is scheduled for May. In additional to the making the presentations, the Center is leaving behind instructional materials such as glossaries and further references—including tie-ins with the IEEE Virtual Museum. If the pilot program is successful, it may become possible to create additional lectures, and to distribute them to a broader audience.

ABOUT IEEE EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES:

The IEEE Educational Activities Board is responsible for coordinating the educational activities of the IEEE. The volunteer and staff members of IEEE Educational Activities carry out this responsibility by developing educational programs to ensure (1) The technological literacy of pre-college students, (2) the continuous maintenance and improvement of engineering education programs through active participation in accreditation activities, and (3) the development of continuing education products and services that serve the professional development and lifelong learning needs of electro-technology professionals worldwide. For more information, visit:

http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/ or email education-services@ieee.org.

ABOUT THE IEEE HISTORY CENTER:

The IEEE History Center is a staff unit of IEEE that is located not at the IEEE Operations Center, but on the nearby New Brunswick campus of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, which cosponsors the Center’s activities. The Center’s mission to preserve, research, and promote the legacy of IEEE technologies is overseen by the IEEE History Committee, a standing committee of the IEEE Executive Committee. Since most of the activities in carrying out this mission are educational in nature, the Staff Director of the History Center reports to the IEEE Managing Director for Educational Activities, and Center staff work closely with EAD staff on many programs. Those interested in more information are invited to view the Center’s website (http://www.ieee.org/history_center) or to email the Center at ieee-history@ieee.org.

14. Continuing EE Education

We are re-running this request for interest in a continuing education program. This program will be in the format of seminars focused on a particular topic of interest. The seminars may run either during the week after work hours or possibly on Saturday. The idea for the program is described below.

Name of project: Continuing EE Education (“CEEE”)

Goal: A section-level program aimed at:

Updating the IEEE members on new developments in the EE field.

Familiarizing engineers with basic new tools, products and techniques as well as giving them the initial knowledge and skills to use them.

Inviting representatives from different vendors to present leading novel products.

Giving tutorials in new areas.

Helping IEEE fellow members become more competitive, especially in times of uncertain jobs, off-shoring and salary stagnation.

Facilitating networking.

Broadening the horizon of each IEEE member.

Fostering collaboration between members of different societies as well as generation of new ideas (“cross-pollination” element).

The program should be open to all IEEE members, including students. It is meant to be a cross-societies initiative, i.e. should not be limited to narrow topics serving the interests of a single chapter only. Emphasis should be placed on meeting with experienced experts from different fields. Critical comparisons between different solutions of EE problems are expected to be made, and trends should be discussed.

Potential topics of interest could include, but are not limited to:

Software tools:

Programming languages

Compilers

Real-Time Operating systems

Debuggers

Emulators

Hardware tools:

Novel electronic components

Single-Board Computers (SBC)

Embedded solutions

FPGAs

Printed circuit board design (schematics capture, layout)

Circuit simulation (PSPICE)

Portable devices

Signal and image processing (examples, tools, help)

Wireless devices:

Theory

Standards

Available OEM products

Trends

Internet-based methods and devices:

Standards

Available tools

Contemporary design tools (like AutoCad and Solid Works)

Reliability and Compliance issues

We plan to invite qualified speakers from academia, industry and governmental institutions. The speakers will be professionals who can give first-hand information and share front-line experience on the technology, methods and tools being presented.

We plan to organize 2-4 meetings annually. Each meeting is planned to last for 2 hours or more. We could meet on weekdays, or on Saturdays.

Please send us your suggestions and preferences regarding topics, time and place of meetings, the name/acronym of the program etc.

Boris Gramatikov

Chair,

Baltimore Section

Bgramat@jhmi.edu