IEEE EMC Society Education and Student Activities Committee

By Maqsood Mohd, Associate Editor

EMC Society President Joe Butler congratulates student Bryan Stern and Maqsood Mohd, EMCS Education and Student Activities Committee Chairman (L-R), upon presentation of the new award for "Best Student Design."
Photo by Dick Ford.

The environment is becoming richer with man-made electromagnetic energy and the susceptibility of electronic technology decreasing. In this era of high technology, EMC is alive and well. Growing attendance at the annual symposium each year is a testimony to this fact. The fever of high technology is touching every aspect of our lives and industrial sector of the world's economy. Even religious institutions are going high tech. The increasing participation of novices in this field at seminars and symposia and even the enhanced desire of seasoned professionals to brush-up and soak up every tidbit of EMC knowledge are noteworthy. After all, knowledge is power. This makes our Committee's responsibility very important, and we don't take that lightly. As in the past, we will continue to strive to bring the best in EMC Education to EMCS members. We need new ideas and volunteers to meet this goal. If you are interested in making this task easier, more efficient, and innovative, please contact any of us on the Education Committee and get the ball rolling.

Again, knowledge is power. And indeed education is the means to get the knowledge. To seek knowledge is a birth right of every human being – young and old alike. EMC professionals are included in this. It is never too late to learn and seek education. Education is a verb. Our goal is to become the premier education committee of the IEEE. This is your Committee. We are here to help you and support your educational needs. We are striving to undertake unconventional and innovative means to achieve our goals. Help us help you better. Let me update you on the activities of the various subcommittees of the Education Committee. We welcome your help and support that you may be able to provide to any of our subcommittees. Please feel free to contact any of the subcommittee Chairs.

Washington DC Symposium 2000

The Washington DC Symposium is now behind us; and it was the best yet for educating and enriching the EMC professionals. The Washington DC Symposium Committee deserves thanks and appreciation for the job well done. At this Symposium, the Education and Student Activities Committee achieved great success in several areas. In the following paragraphs I have highlighted some of the events that took place that you may find of interest.

Student Award Winners at the 2000 EMC Symposium

Each year the Education and Student Activities Committee conducts two student competitions. The awards to the winners are presented during the Annual Awards Luncheon. The competitions are "Best Student Paper Contest" and the "Best Student Design Contest." The details of the evaluation process and how the winners are selected will be provided in the next Newsletter. But for now, the winning entries for this year are shown below:

Best Student Paper Contest: "Measuring the Shielding Effectiveness of Coaxial Cables Using a Reverberation Chamber" by Emily Godfrey of Lehigh University and Justin Kousky of the University of Maryland. A cash award of $900 is shared by both and the primary author (Emily) got an expense paid trip to the Symposium in addition to her share of the cash award.

Best Student Design Contest: The winning entry was from North Dakota State University. The winning entry was a team of students, Bryan Stern and Ben Herberg. A cash award of $900 is shared by both and the primary author (Bryan) also got an expense paid trip to the Symposium in addition to the cash award.

Congratulations to these students, their professors, sponsors, and universities.

Tutorials

It was another landmark year for the Fundamentals Tutorials. Although the tutorials are primarily targeted for the entry-level engineers in the EMC field, quite a few seasoned engineers also enjoy brushing-up on concepts that they might not have used in a while. This year, several noted experts from several organizations provided the tutorial material to help explain EMC concepts and show how to better design systems from an EMC point of view. A highlight of the Tutorials was that not only theoretical concepts from PC board design to system engineering were discussed, but also practical examples of analyzing communication systems and diagnostic issues in real systems were presented.

If attendance is any measure of success and popularity, the Fundamental Tutorials were very successful. Throughout the day on an average there was an impressive attendance of about 400 participants. We had standing room only most of the day. We had to bring in extra chairs a few times in the day. This year, the first-time symposium attendees were relatively larger in percentage than previous years. Maybe the seasoned engineers didn't want to sit in standing room only sessions. But the newcomers didn't know any better. With every body's understanding and patience, we managed to cater to the audience. Thanks to all the speakers and the attendees who made the Fundamentals Tutorials a great success. The tutorial subcommittee is busy planning for another exciting and informative session during the Montreal Symposium. They have assured us that the room size is not a problem at all in Montreal. If you would like to propose a topic or a speaker for the Montreal Symposium, email your comments and ideas to maqsood@ieee.org.

Demonstrations

This is another popular and "educational" activity we do as a committee. A variety of EMC concepts are demonstrated experimentally during the symposium to educate the symposium attendees. For three main days of the symposium, more than 20 experts demonstrated 24 EMC concepts that sometimes might be classified as abstract or black magic. Many happy souls were pleased to learn these concepts during these demonstrations. Their doubts changed into convincing beliefs.

There were at least three noteworthy highlights during this year. We had presenters from around the world and a new demonstration of EM modeling with simulation examples. Our thanks are to Andy Drozd and Larry Cohen for putting together a fine demonstration program. Our thanks are also due to very supportive vendors like HP, Tektronix, Fluke, Phillips, EMCO, Amplifier Research, etc. who donate their equipment during the symposium for this "educational" cause. If you would like to demonstrate an experiment or demonstrate an EMC concept at the next symposium in Montreal, please contact Andy at andro1@aol.com.

NARTE Activities

As during the past several years, Dr. James Whalen conducted the workshop for engineers and technicians who are preparing to take the National Associa-tion of Radio and Telecommunications Engineers (NARTE) examination to certify as EMC engineers and technicians. This year David Case assisted Dr. Whalen. David Case is co-chair of the NARTE subcommittee.

At the NARTE examination on Friday, 26 engineers and technicians sat for the exams. The word from NARTE is that 66% of the participants passed the exams. Our congratulations to all the successful applicants, and welcome to the ranks of certified NARTE professionals. Our thanks to Dr. James Whalen for championing the cause of "preparing for the NARTE exams," and his able co-host, David Case.

University Grant

John Howard heads the University Grant Committee. This year we had responses from around the world requesting the grant money. The grant is provided to an institution that is on the verge of offering an EMC course. The grant money is used as seed money to start an EMC course as an established part of the curriculum in the Electrical Engineering department. The grant is open to all universities in the world. For more details contact John Howard at jhoward@emcguru.com . This year's winning school is outside the US and it is the University of L'Aquila in Italy.

University Survey

Professor Antonio Orlandi is the Chair of this subcommittee. The mission of the University Survey Committee is to survey the universities and collect data about the EMC course offering, student population, modeling and simulation usage, etc. The data collected will help the EMC Society and its members in various ways. Information will be useful for prospective students, industry, employers, etc. If you have not already done so, please, complete an online survey by going to the website https://dau.ing.univaq.it/art . If you know of a school, university or a college with an EMC course offering that has not participated in the survey, please encourage them to complete an online survey. For more information on this activity, please contact Professor Orlandi at orlandi@ing.univaq.it .

Student Design Contest

This is the most exciting area of growth this year for our Committee. This effort epitomizes the proverbial synergistic cooperative effort between industry and the Society. Ahmad Fallah of Phoenix International is the Chair of this effort. This year was a pilot year and we have learned a lot. We will still learn and fine-tune the process as we go. If you would like to get on this bandwagon and help advance and fine tune this contest, then contact Ahmad Fallah. In this competition parts of a circuit (designed by Fallah) in the form of a kit are sent to the students at the universities. The kit is yours for the asking. This year 14 kits were sent; one to an international address and 13 to US addresses. We received nine entries. The entries were evaluated against a set of criteria provided in the information packet sent with the kit. The evaluators are EMC engineers from the industry. This year's winner is a team from North Dakota State University. The award consists of a check for $900 and an invitation to the primary student to attend the annual symposium in order to present a poster board presentation of the emi-reduction techniques used in the winning entry. If you are a student and want to participate in the 2001 EMC Design Contest then contact Ahmad Fallah at afallah@phoeintl.com. Get started early and remember: the early bird gets the worm! The price is right: A free trip to the Montreal EMC symposium and $900 US dollars! Ain't bad, eh?

Experiments Manual On-line

Dr. Jim Drewniak is heading up this effort. The Experiment Manual published by the Education and Student Activities is on the web site at: https://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pdf/EMCman.pdf . If you have an Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download the entire manual from this site. If you don't have the Adobe Acrobat Reader, it can easily be downloaded from the site: https://www.adobe.com . Jim can still use some help from a volunteer who can do the follow-up work of soliciting and arranging the new experiments. If you are interested in broadening your career horizons, contact Jim or any other officer of the Education and Student Activities Committee.

Continuing Education Products (and Web Site)

Andy Drozd is the Chairperson of this subcommittee. This committee is an adjunct to the life-long learning comittee. This committee is examining the development of products such as Introduction to Antennae, and Introduction to EMC. Possibly this material can be put on our Committee's web site. Andy is also helping us get our web site in shape. Take a look at our web site at https://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/emcsedu.html. If you have any ideas how to improve our web site please contact Andy, Bob Nelson, or me.

Student Activities

Ahmad Fallah is the new Chair of this subcommittee. The mission of this committee is to reach out and touch some students (in fact, all students). Primarily, the focus is on working with student chapters in four areas: Awareness of EMC, Student Paper Contest, President's Memorial Award, and Student Design Contest.

Video/CD-ROM Based Educational Material Production

The task of this committee is to produce educational material in appropriate and useful medium to the EMCS membership. Dick Ford is the Chair of this committee. He will welcome any help you can provide him in this task. What we do in this committee will have a far-reaching impact in the 21st century.

Education and Student Activities Officers

Some changes have occurred during the symposium. Contact any one of the following to become a part of the ongoing innovation in EMC engineering through education.

I would like to express my personal thanks and appreciation to each of these officers who tirelessly work throughout the year to bring the very best in EMC education materials, workshops, demonstrations, tutorials, and student contests at every symposium and to all the members of the EMC profession throughout the year. When you email them, contact them, or see them during a symposium, please express your appreciation for their volunteering of valuable time for the EMCS and the Education and Student Activities Committee. EMC