With
the current Personality Profile, I would like to introduce a colleague
who has been an active part of a successful story for the EMC
Society in Europe. Her name is Vesna Roje and she is the Chair
of the Croatia EMC Chapter.
Three years ago, a good friend of mine, Heyno Garbe, drew my attention
to Vesna and introduced me to her many activities in the EMC area.
I think most of you will remember her involvement in the SoftCOM
conference as well as her key role in establishing the Croatia
EMC Chapter. Personally, I first met her during the Chapter Chair
retreat held in conjunction with EMC 2007 in Hawaii. I was impressed
by her personality and the exciting activities of her young Chapter.
When I returned from Hawaii, I decided to write a Personality
Profile on Vesna.
Vesna Roje studied electrical engineering at the University of
Split, Department of Electrical Engineering. After receiving her
first diploma (Eng. Degree) she continued her studies at the University
of Zagreb where she received a master and then PhD degree in 1974
and 1983, respectively. Since 1967 she has been with the Faculty
of Electrical Engineering (now Faculty of Electrical Engineering,
Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture) at the University
of Split. After some years as an assistant and lecturer, she was
promoted to assistant professor at the Department of Electronics
in 1985. She continued her academic career by accepting the position
of an associate professor in 1993 and a full professor in 1997.
Professor Roje dedicated her professional life to the area of
electromagnetic wave theory, boundary value problems and computational
electromagnetic modeling. As a PhD student she started her scientific
work by investigating and developing numerically efficient methods
for analyzing microwave planar structures (particularly microstrip)
with a special focus on the convergence problem and avoiding the
spurious modes in the solution. The main contribution of this
work was in succeeding to get the complete spectrum of the solutions
for the frequency dependent phase constants of the hybrid modes
by direct numerical integration of the integral equations. Since
finishing her PhD thesis, her research interests remain in the
area of electromagnetic wave theory, the implantation of numerical
methods and modeling propagation structures.
Vesna later came into contact with EMC aspects as her main research
work, including antennas and telecommunications, and investigation
of unwanted electromagnetic interference. Since then she has stayed
interested in EMC issues. Vesna focused her EMC related research
on enhancing the understanding and the impact of the emerging
technologies and developments in the area of communications technology
to EMC. Due to her roots in antennas and telecommunications, her
main idea was to find out how the theory and techniques known
in antenna and propagation may impact or help in EMC research.
As one consequence, Vesna started organizing the EMC meetings
in Split. Due to her dedication and leadership, the special session
in 2001 was the beginning of a symposium on EMC held in conjunction
with the International Conference on Software, Telecommunications
and Computer Networks (SoftCOM)
Beside her research, Vesna helps young researchers to improve
their skills, develop their knowledge, learn from and exchange
their knowledge with the experts in the field. Driven by this
idea, she formed the Applied EM Research Group at the Department
of Electronics, with only one PhD student. Over the last 15 years,
the group has grown into a team of six young people (with one
full professor and one assistant professor). The young members
of the research group are becoming the experienced colleagues,
partners and even better scientists and are well known in the
electromagnetics and EMC community. Vesna told me that she believes
this is her biggest achievement and contribution to the scientific
community.
Vesna has been a member of the IEEE for more than two decades.
A few years ago, Elya Joffe was able to inspire her to form the
Croatia EMC Chapter. After some discussion with colleagues and
the support of Elya, the Croatia EMC Chapter was recognized in
March 2005. Currently, Vesna is serving as Chair of the Croatia
EMC Chapter. Her Chapter might be small, with regards to the number
of members, but is very active. Due to her great leadership, Vesna
accepted the 2008 IEEE EMC Society Chapter-of-the-Year Award for
the Croatia Chapter.
 |
| Choir Mirta performs at a concert
in the Diklecian Palace (Vesna Roje is shown on the far left). |
Professor Roje has published over 100 scientific papers in international
journals and conference proceedings and is a leader of national
and international scientific projects. She is the Co-editor of
many books and is a member of the editorial boards of several
journals including the Journal of Communications Software and
Systems (JCOMSS) and the Serbian Journal of Electrical Engineering.
She is the Co-Chair, organizer and a member of the International
Program Committees of numerous EMC conferences and meetings, is
Chair and the founder of the IEEE EMC Society Croatia Chapter
and Chair of the TC - EMC of the Communications and Information
Society (CCIS) - Sister Society of IEEE COMSOC. Additionally,
she is a full member of the Croatian Technical Academy of Science,
a Fellow of the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT), a member
of the Management Committee of COST 261 and COST 286 Action, as
well as a network leader and national expert of the CEEPUS project.
Professor Roje is reviewer for many scientific books, numerous
journals and conference papers.
On the private side, Vesna is married and the mother of two adult
children: Nora, who is an architect and Ivan, who is a civil engineer.
In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband Boris
(an electrical engineer, now retired) in a cottage by the sea
on the island of Brac. There she enjoys fishing, working in the
garden, and resting in the peaceful surroundings with a good book
and music. Not only does she enjoy listening to music, she is
also an accomplished singer. She is a long time member of a choir
that performs classical music (particularly those from the 16th
century) and traditional Dalmatian songs. EMC
EMC
Personality Profile