IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference
2012 Keynote Speakers
Suzanne Deffree Managing editor, online, EDN at UBM Electronics
Suzanne Deffree, EDN’s online managing editor, has 15 years experience covering the electronics industry for such publications as EDN, Electronic News, CRM, and Smart Partner. An award-winning journalist, Suzanne manages EDN.com and its e-newsletters. Suzanne also heads EDN’s social media and community efforts, including outreach efforts to young engineers and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) mentors.
Before focusing on the electronics industry, Suzanne covered local and state politics. She also spent time working under a career strategy specialist where she gained a great appreciation for personal branding and mentoring.
Suzanne is currently based in New York, where she spends the majority of her free time wrangling an active toddler and encouraging him to explore STEM fields -- yes, even before he enters kindergarten.
Although Suzanne is nudging her son in that direction, she is not an engineer, herself. Instead, she holds a BFA with a concentration in communication arts.
You can find Suzanne on Twitter (@deffree), on Facebook (@deffree), and on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannedeffree). She welcomes new connections.
**********************************
Naomi Eigner Price
The Importance of Mentoring in STEM
Naomi Eigner Price works for UBM Electronics' EE Times, the trusted information source for the
electronics industry, where she is the Online Brand Manager for the EE Life and Innovation Generation
sites. EE Life is the socially-oriented section of the EE Times website, where engineers share their
thoughts and opinions on the world in general and on engineering in particular. Innovation Generation,
or iGEN, is the EE Times STEM education site. Through science-related articles, competitions, student
blogs, and teacher information, the site strives to provide an active and exciting environment to
encourage students from middle school through college to delve into science and electronics. Naomi
is also the Managing Editor for Content on the Drive for Innovation (DFI) project, a 12-month initiative
celebrating innovative people, products and places in electronics and technology. DFI is designed to showcase
electronics innovation and automotive system design and is anchored by a cross-country journey in a Chevrolet Volt.
Naomi is a passionate mentoring evangelist. In running the electronics competitions on iGEN, she has
seen first-hand the difference a mentor can make in student learning. She has had many co-op students and interns work for her over the years from Northeastern University, UMass Boston, Bentley, and other schools in the Boston area, and has discussed interning and mentoring with college co-op coordinators and people who were interns as part of their college experience. Naomi had a summer internship herself
while in college and has seen how the co-op programs at Northeastern and Drexel Universities changed
the paths of her two children’s’ career goals. She is currently interviewing teachers and mentors who
participated in the latest iGEN Student LED Challenge and conveying their experiences as part of the EE
Times Rebuilding America series.
Naomi has spent more than 30 years in the information industry after receiving her BA from
Framingham State University, majoring in fine art. She learned the ropes in a small print shop and ran
her own graphics design business prior to taking a permanent position in print publishing and then
moving on to online media.
**********************************
H. Vincent Poor (Ph.D., Princeton 1977) is Dean of the School of Engineering and
Applied Science (SEAS) at Princeton University, where he is also the Michael Henry
Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering. He joined Princeton’s faculty
in 1990, and has served as dean of SEAS since 2006. Prior to joining the Princeton
faculty, he was a faculty member at the University of Illinois, and he has held visiting appointments at a number of other institutions, including Harvard, Stanford and Imperial College (London).
As dean, Dr. Poor is responsible for the leadership of SEAS, which comprises six
academic departments and multiple research centers, and involves approximately 1/6 of Princeton’s faculty, 1/5 of its undergraduates, 1/4 of its graduate students, and 1/3 of its research expenditures. In particular, he is responsible for realizing the SEAS vision of
educating leaders for a technological world, with a focus on four major areas of societal
need: energy, environment, health and security.
As a faculty member, Dr. Poor’s teaching and research interests lie primarily in the area of wireless networking and related fields. He has authored or co-authored more than1,200 publications in these fields, including a dozen books. Dr. Poor is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Engineering of the United Kingdom. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and the IEEE Education Medal in 2005. Recent recognition of his work includes the 2010 Ambrose Fleming Medal of the Institution of Engineering & Technology, the 2011 IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award, and the degree of D.Sc. honoris causa from the University of Edinburgh, conferred in June 2011.
Webmaster: Srijoy Dutta(srijoy.dutta@gmail.com)