Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Washington Section Administrative Committee Meeting
Time: Dinner at 6:00 pm; meeting at 6:30 pm
Place: Allie's American Grill, Bethesda Marriott, 5151 Pooks Hill Rd., Bethesda, Md.
Directions: From the north, take 270 South to Route 355 and exit at Wisconsin Ave. From the south, take 495 exit 34 (which is Wisconsin Ave.) to Pooks Hill Rd.
More info: All interested IEEE members are welcome to attend.
Contact: Jackie Hunter 703-803-8701 or nca-admin@ieee.org. Please include the term IEEE in the subject line of your e-mail.
Speaker: Sai Chiang
Sponsor: Consultants Network, Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter
Time: Dinner at 6:00 pm; speaker at 7:00 pm
Place: Corner 7 Café, Tysons Corner Marriott, 8028 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA
Directions: From the east or I-495, take Route 7 West, turn right on Towers Crescent Drive, then immediately right into the Marriott parking lot. From the west on Route 7, turn right onto Old Gallows Road just opposite the Marriott, proceed around to the left until you have completed almost a full circle, and turn left into the Marriott parking lot. Free parking.
More Info: Difficulty getting paid by clients for work performed is a problem that most consultants face at one time or another. Mr. Chiang will discuss some warning signs to watch out for, as well as ways to collect your fair share.
Contact: Sai Chiang at 703-203-0771 or creativesystems@ieee.org.
Time: 8:30 am to 1:30 pm
Place: Mitre Corporation, Building 2 Conference room 1N100A/B, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA. Please check in at the main guard desk in Building 2, on the same level as the meeting room.
Directions: Off Route 123 in Tysons Corner. Free parking. See http://www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: IEEE provides a wealth of materials, tools and other resources to help organizations be successful. We are planning a half day of presentations, discussion and networking to help get you off to a good start. The training is open to all members, but we particularly encourage every chapter to send at least one officer to the session.
Cost: Free, including lunch.
Contact: To register, please send Jackie Hunter an e-mail at nca-admin@ieee.org with “IEEE Officer Training Registration” in the subject line.
Wednesday, February 9, 2005
Northern Virginia Section Administrative Committee Meeting
Time: 6:30 pm
Place: Corner 7 Café, Tysons Corner Marriott, 8028 Leesburg Pike, Vienna, VA
Directions: From the east or I-495, take Route 7 West, turn right on Towers Crescent Drive, then immediately right into the Marriott parking lot. From the west on Route 7, turn right onto Old Gallows Road just opposite the Marriott, proceed around to the left until you have completed almost a full circle, and turn left into the Marriott parking lot. Free parking.
More info: All interested IEEE members are invited to attend.
Contact: Jackie Hunter at 703-803-8701 or nca-admin@ieee.org. Please include the term IEEE in the subject line of your e-mail.
Sponsors: Power Engineering Society, Northern Virginia and Washington Chapter; Industry Applications Society, Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter
Speaker: Frank Ignazzitto, ReliOn, Inc.
Place: KEMA Consulting, 4400 Fair Lakes Court, Fairfax
Time: Social hour at 5:45 pm; snacks at 6:00 pm, speaker at 6:30 pm
More info: Refreshments will include assorted sandwiches, potato chips, dessert, coffee, tea and soda.
Cost: Free for members (including student members), $10 for guests
Contact: Please RSVP by Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 5:00 pm. to Sirak Belayneh at sbelayne@ieee.org.
Sponsor: Consultants Network, Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter
Time: Dinner at 6:00 pm; meeting at 7:00 pm
Place: Dinner at Seven Seas Restaurant, 8503 Baltimore Blvd. (Route 1), College Park, MD. Meeting at University of Maryland, A.V. Williams Building, Room 2460, College Park, MD.
Directions: From the north or I-495, take Route 1 South. The restaurant is approx. 1.5 miles on left. Approx. 0.5 mile beyond that (2 miles total), turn right onto Campus Drive, then immediately take Paint Branch Drive and the A.V. Williams Building will be on the right. Park in Lot G or just beyond the building on the right. See http://www.parking.umd.edu/themap.
More Info: Consulting is a business. In order to succeed, you need to have something to sell: not just marketable skills, but preferably something about your capabilities that makes you unique. We’ll discuss your skills, as well as related factors such as facilities or equipment, in terms of something that sales people call a Unique Selling Position (USP).
Contact: Sai Chiang at 703-203-0771 or creativesystems@ieee.org.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Evolution of RF MEMS Switches for Microwave Frequency Applications
Sponsors: Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (Washington and Northern Virginia Chapter) and Electron Devices Society (Northern Virginia and Washington Chapter)
Speaker: Dr. Charles L. Goldsmith, MEMtronics Corp, Plano, TX
Time: Reception at 5:30 pm; dinner at 6:00 pm (optional, reservation required); lecture from 7:00-9:00 pm
Place: American Center for Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD
Directions: Adjacent to the College Park Metro station (Green line).
More Info: See Diamond story, below. Check the MTTS website at www.ieee.org/mtt-wnva for additional information and last minute changes before the meeting.
Cost: Free lecture; $15 for optional dinner (please bring exact change or a check).
Contact: If you would like to join the speaker, the administrative committee, and other microwave folks for a catered buffet dinner, please RSVP to Roger Kaul at 301-394-4775 or r.kaul@ieee.org by Feb. 11.
Sponsor: IEEE-USA
Time: 10:00 am to 4:30 pm
Place: National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW, Washington, DC
Directions: Use the Judiciary Square Metro station (Red line).
More Info: Bring your whole family for a day of fun activities about engineering. Meet the cast from the PBS Science Show ZOOM, and discover how engineers affect everyday life. Future engineers can participate in many hands-on activities including solving design challenges, building bridges, creating skyscrapers in a LEGO construction zone, meeting real engineers, and much more. The program and activities are most appropriate for children ages 6-13. View postcard announcement (PDF file, 515K).
Contact: Murty Polavarapu at
murtyp@ieee.org. Registration not required. Scout groups, however, should call 202-272-2448 or e-mail scout@nbm.org to register.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Voice Over IP and Its Impacts on Regulatory Standards and Regional & Long Distance Telephone Companies
Sponsor: Communications Society, Northern Virginia Chapter
Speaker: David Young, Verizon
Time: Dinner at 6:00 pm; speaker at 6:45 pm
Place: Mitre Corporation, Building 2, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA
Directions: Off Route 123 in Tysons Corner. Free parking. See http://www.mitre.org/about/locations/mitre2_map.html.
More Info: See Diamond story, below.
Cost: Free
Contact: Please RSVP to Fred Seelig at fseelig@mitre.org.
Sponsor: District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies
Speaker: Dr. James W. Wright, P.E., Chief Engineer, Naval Facilities Command, and Chair, The Infrastructure Security Partnership
Time: 11:30 am
Place: Pier 7 Restaurant, 650 Water Street, SW, Washington, DC
Directions: Complimentary 3 hours of parking, or walk from the Waterfront Metro station (Green line).
More Info: Celebrate the proclamation of National Engineers Week with other area
engineers, architects, and scientists. Buffet lunch, followed by Dr. Wright's discussion of issues related to the security of our nation's infrastructure and its impact on engineers and architects.
Cost: $25 (Tables for 10 are $250.)
Contact: Reservations required. Please contact Sue Parsons at sue.parsons@swe.org or 202-416-0126 by Sunday, Feb. 20.
Sponsors: Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (W/NV); Antennas and Propagation Society (W/NV)
Speaker: Dr. E.J. Kennedy, Naval Research Laboratory
Time: 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
Place: General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, 4121 Wilson Blvd., Suite 302, Arlington, VA
Directions: Less than a block from the Ballston Metro station (Orange line). Or, if driving from the East on I-66, exit onto Glebe Road South, turn left on Fairfax Drive (East towards Rosslyn), OR, from the west on I-66, exit at Fairfax Drive (East).
Then turn right on Randolph St., right on Wilson Blvd., and right into building 4121's underground parking garage. Alternate parking is across the street at the Ballston Common Mall Garage.
More Info: See Diamond story, below, and http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/aess.
Cost: Presentation is free.
Contact: If interested in dinner afterwards at a nearby restaurant, please RSVP to Carmen Bray at carmen.bray@gd-ais.com or 703-469-3886.
Sponsors: Signal Processing Society (NV), and GMU IEEE Student Chapter
Speaker: Kathleen E. Wage, Assistant Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., George Mason University
Time: Refreshments at 5:45 pm, talk at 6:00 pm
Place: Student Union Building II, Room 4, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Directions: See www.gmu.edu/welcome/Directions-to-GMU.html.
More Info: See Diamond story, below.
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Status of Infrared Materials, Focal Plane Arrays and Future Trends
Sponsor: Lasers and Electro-Optics Society (W/NV)
Speaker: Dr. Meimei Tidrow, Program Manager, Missile Defense Agency
Time: Light refreshments at 6:00 pm; lecture at 6:30 pm; optional dinner following the lecture with the speaker at a nearby restaurant.
Place: University of Maryland, A.V. Williams Building, Room 2460, College Park, MD
Directions: From the north or I-495, take Route 1 South. Approx. 2 miles south of the Beltway, turn right onto Campus Drive, then immediately take Paint Branch Drive and the A.V. Williams Building will be on the right. From the south on Route 1, turn left onto Campus Drive, and follow above directions. Ample parking is available after 4:00 pm. See http://www.parking.umd.edu/themap.
More Info: See Diamond story, below. For more information about LEOS activities, go to http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/wash_nova/leoss.
Contact: Dominique Dagenais at 301-951-7095 or dominique_dagenais@avanex.com.
Sponsor: District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies
Speaker: Allyn Kilsheimer, Chief Structural Engineer for the Pentagon Renovation Program
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: Four Points Sheraton, 1201 K Street, NW, Washington, DC
More Info: The program includes DCCEAS awards to engineering and science students, the Engineer and Architect of the Year awards, and awards by individual societies and institutions. The DC Region Future City winning team will also be recognized at the Banquet. The keynote address will be delivered by Mr. Kilsheimer, a dynamic speaker who will discuss the challenges of the Pentagon renovation.
Cost: $40 (Tables for 10 are $400.)
Contact: Reservations required. Please contact Sue Parsons at sue.parsons@swe.org or 202-416-0126 by Sunday, Feb. 20.
Diamond Stories
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Evolution of RF MEMS Switches for Microwave Frequency Applications
Micromachining and MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) for RF applications (RF MEMS) is an up and coming device technology. A product of development for high-end military electronics, this revolutionary new technology is working its way through the evolutionary development cycle. MEMS technology enables the construction of micro-sized mechanical switching devices on the surface of an integrated circuit wafer. Dramatic performance improvements over conventional electronic control devices at frequencies above 1 GHz have been demonstrated. Salient features of RF MEMS switches include very high figures of merit, no quiescent power drain, and extreme linearity. Current challenges in this switch technology include effective packaging and a poor understanding of reliability physics. This presentation offers an overview of the current state of MEMS switching technology, discusses some of the current issues in RF MEMS switch development, and showcases some of the companies and approaches currently under development.
Dr. Charles L. Goldsmith has been involved in the design and development of microwave and millimeter-wave circuits and subsystems since 1982. He has been employed by M/A-COM, Texas Instruments, and most recently was an engineering fellow at Raytheon Company. Dr. Goldsmith recently formed his own company and is currently consulting and pursuing business opportunities in RF MEMS. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, is a senior member of the IEEE, and has authored or co-authored more than 40 publications on microwave circuits, photonics, and RF MEMS.
He has been developing RF MEMS devices and circuits since 1993, and is the inventor of the capacitive membrane RF MEMS switch. He has dedicated the last several years to the development and application of these devices. These activities include the innovation of switches, phase shifters, and tuneable antennas for radar and satcomm applications, as well as variable capacitors and tuneable filters for microwave receiver front-ends.
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Voice Over IP and Its Impacts on Regulatory Standards and Regional & Long Distance Telephone Companies
Consumers are using new communications technologies to supplement and replace traditional telephone service. From email and instant messaging to cellular technologies, consumers have more choices than ever before. The emergence of broadband voice over internet protocol (VoIP) promises to bring even more choices and innovation. The effect of these changes, the shift from wireline voice to wireless and broadband have profound implications for consumers, service providers and regulators. These trends and their implications will be identified and discussed.
David E. Young is director of internet & technology policy in Verizon’s Public Policy and External Affairs department. Before joining PP&EA, he spent six years in research and development, working on many advanced technologies including Internet telephony, data network architectures, and audio, video and image compression, and he holds ten U.S. patents. Mr. Young began his career in telecommunications with New Jersey Bell where he worked in a variety of operations, IT and staff positions. He received a degree in electrical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology.
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Electromagnetic waves in certain frequency ranges are absorbed or refracted by the ionosphere, an electrically conductive region of the upper atmosphere beginning at an altitude of approximately 80 km. Radio waves of sufficient energy density are capable of temporarily modifying its electrical and physical properties within a small volume, enabling a new type of interactive research having application to a variety of Navy and DOD missions.
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), jointly sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Air Force Research Laboratory, and DARPA, is constructing a new interactive ionospheric research facility in Gakona, Alaska, to conduct both basic and applied research in this scientific discipline. Mr. Kennedy of the Naval Research Laboratory will present a description of the major components of the HAARP Gakona Facility including technical detail of its current and planned performance capabilities. He will also present some results from three research areas: extremely low and very low frequencies (ELF/VLF) generation, artificial optical emissions, and space research.
Edward J. Kennedy heads the Naval Research Laboratory's Transmission Technology Branch, which is engaged in the development of a broad range of communications and voice processing techniques. He is also a program officer for ONR's electronics division and serves as the Navy program manager and contracting officer's representative for HAARP. He is responsible for interacting with other federal and state agencies that may have an interest in HAARP, particularly in the areas of electromagnetic safety and interference prevention.
Mr. Kennedy holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from The Catholic University of America. He has authored or co-authored 38 reports or journal articles and is a member of the IEEE.
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Ocean acoustic tomography uses measurements of the properties of acoustic signals to infer information about the ocean environment. Tomographic applications rely on a variety of signal processing techniques to acquire and analyze the data. For example, beamforming of sensor array data is used to separate signals that have taken different propagation paths through the environment. This talk provides an overview of tomographic signal processing, using illustrations from several long-range experiments in the North Pacific. Examples of sonar signals acquired during last summer's SPICEX deployment cruise will be presented.
Kathleen E. Wage received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1990, and the S.M., E.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in 1994, 1996, and 2000, respectively. She joined the faculty of George Mason University (GMU) in 1999. Her research interests include signal processing, adaptive arrays, and underwater acoustics. Dr. Wage is a member of IEEE, the Acoustical Society of America, the American Society of Engineering Education, Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Sigma Xi. She was a Tau Beta Pi and Clare Boothe Luce Fellow as a graduate student and an AFCEA Postdoctoral Fellow in 1999-2001. She received an Ocean Acoustics Entry-Level Faculty Award from the Office of Naval Research in 2002. In 2004, she was honored with an Outstanding Teaching Award from GMU's School of Information Technology and Engineering.
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Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Status of Infrared Materials, Focal Plane Arrays and Future Trends
In this talk, Dr. Tidrow will give a short descirption of the Missile Defense Agency organization, system architecture, and the importance of the infrared sensors to ballistic missile defense. An overview of state-of-the-art infrared sensors and systems will be given, along with the overview of the MDA/AS Passive EO/IR Program. which includes current IR sensor development, such as very long wavelength and multicolor HgCdTe, Si:As and QWIP focal plane arrays. Dr. Tidrow will also discuss the new directions the program is taking and the potential of some alternative materials, such as type-II superlattice, PbSnTe and some nano technologies, for future infared sensor applications.
Dr. Meimei Tidrow received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oklahoma in 1991. Since then she has done research on quantum well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs) and uncooled IR detectors for thermal imaging at the Army Research Lab. She joined the Missile Defense Agency in 2000 and is the program manager for the Passive EO/IR Technology Program. The IR technologies she is responsible for developing include very longwave and multicolor HgCdTe FPAs, large format HgCdTe on Si, QWIPs, Type-II Superlattices, Pb-Salt FPAs, and other novel concepts. She also manages MDA SBIRs in the IR FPA area. Dr. Meimei Tidrow has authored and co-authored over 100 publications, including one book chapter on QWIP imaging focal plane arrays. She has given numerous invited talks and serves on many international advisory and program committees.
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