IEEE Gainesville Section 2004 Section Report

Section Officers:
Dr. Yuguang "Michael" Fang, Chair
Dr. Jian Li, Vice Chair
Dr. Eric Schwartz, Treasurer
Dr. John Shea, Secretary
Dr. Dapeng Oliver Wu, Director of Communication, Webmaster

Elections were held in December 2003.  We have two new officers in
Jian Li and Dapeng Wu.  Michael Fang moved from Vice Chair to Chair,
and Eric Schwartz and John Shea retained their positions from the
previous year.

At present, the Section has over 500 active members in 14 counties in
Florida, centered on Gainesville and the University of Florida.  Of
these, almost half are student members, mainly at the University of
Florida.

During 2003 the Section held several meetings and sponsored several
technical presentations.  Already this year, we have sponsored (or
will sponsor in the coming months) 5 or 6 lectures.  Our chair,
Michael Fang, has arranged a continuing co-sponsorship with UF's
College of Engineering and the Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering for bringing in speakers, thus enabling us to do more with
our limited budget.  Our primary goal for this year is to offer many
technical meetings, presentations and perhaps a few social meetings to
encourage more participation.

In December of 2003, we also had a joint meeting with the UF Student
Branch to discuss interaction between the two entities and Section
support for the Student Branch.  Eric Schwartz, advisor for our
student branch, has been working closely with the students throughout
the past year.  The UF Student Branch has meetings at least once a
month, usually with a guest speaker.  Eric is generally in attendance
at these meetings as the section representatives and to see how the
section can aid the UF Student Branch.  We are partially funding the
students and their entry into this yearŐs SouthEastCon student
competitions.  In 2002 the student team won first prize in the
hardware competition.  We also helped to fund one other student
project in an international competition.

Respectfully submitted,
Eric Schwartz, Gainesville Section Treasurer
(and section representative at SouthEastCon)