Serving as President of the IEEE EMC Society
has been a great experience. The past two years have been exciting
and challenging. Despite the economy, world politics and changes
within IEEE, our Society has managed to remain strong and focused
on our primary objectives.
In January, Kimball Williams will take
over as our fearless leader and receiver of 10,000 emails.
I, on the other hand, will assume the enviable title of Immediate
Past President or forwarder of IEEE email to the President.
Since this is my last Presidents
Message for the EMC Newsletter, I would like to take this opportunity
to reflect on some of the important accomplishments of our Society
over the past two years. Among the most significant accomplishments
have been the improvements to the IEEE Transactions on EMC instituted
by Professor Marcello DAmore as Editor-in-Chief. During
his term as editor, Professor DAmore significantly restructured
the Transactions editorial staff, set clear goals for the publication,
improved the efficiency of the review process, solicited high
quality papers and made the IEEE Transactions on EMC one of the
most highly regarded publications on electromagnetics in the world.
Professor DAmores term is nearly over, but his contributions
have significantly enhanced the technical reputation of our Society.
Starting in January, Professor Flavio
Canavero will be the new Editor-in-Chief of the Transactions.
Professor Canavero has been the Managing Editor for the past three
years and I expect that the excellence that we have come to expect
from our Transactions will continue under his leadership.
Another leap forward for the technical
focus of our Society is the much improved and greatly expanded
technical content of our Newsletter. Professor Robert Olsen, the
Newsletters Technical Editor, has invested a significant
amount of time and effort over the past couple of years to solicit
good papers, obtain thoughtful reviews and provide technical assistance
to authors. As a result, our Newsletter has become a respected
source of technical information related to EMC. The Newsletter
also contains expanded coverage of EMC technical meetings and
events thanks to the tireless work and skillful leadership of
Janet ONeil, the Newsletter Editor.
Of course, the Transactions and the Newsletter
are not the only technical publications of the Society. IEEE Press
also publishes books and courses linked to our Society. The Board
recently implemented a procedure for reviewing and approving any
new IEEE Press publications that bear our logo. Mark Montrose
and Ghery Pettit played key roles in setting up this procedure,
which should ensure that future EMC publications coming out of
IEEE Press are subject to the same peer review as our quarterly
publications.
You may have noticed that the technical
content and quality of our symposia continues to rise. This is
due, in part, to renewed efforts to emphasize the technical aspects
of our symposia. More guidance is being provided to symposia organizing
committees to ensure that technical quality is not sacrificed
in order to achieve other goals. Better communication between
the Board, the symposium committee, authors, reviewers and exhibitors
is helping to ensure that our symposium retains its technical
focus. Our Society has also been working with symposia outside
the U.S. to provide technical support and has assumed more responsibility
for the technical content of co-sponsored symposia that display
our Society logo.
Of course, the Society has also accomplished
many things over the past two years that are not directly related
to our technical focus. For example, we held our first Board meeting
ever in South America (São Paulo, Brazil). We enlisted
several Board members to participate as speakers in a one-day
technical colloquium and exhibition we organized with the South
Brazil Chapter during the time we were there. The Society co-sponsored
a symposium in Istanbul, Turkey. The Board decided to make the
paper version of the EMC Transactions optional for members. And
last, but not least, we scheduled our 50th Anniversary symposium
to take place in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2007.
All in all, its been a productive
two years and I believe the Society is well positioned to accomplish
even greater things in the coming years. If you have any suggestions
for improving the products or services of the Society, send me
an email. If you have ten suggestions, send me 10 emails. Ill
be happy to forward them to Kimball. EMC