IEEE Pittsburgh Section
IEEE Pittsburgh Section - Executive Committee May Meeting Minutes
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM Meeting
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Wilkins Township Panera Bread
400 Penn Center Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15235
(412) 816-5820
Participants: Louis Hart, Joe Kalasky, Frank Pietryga, Gerry Kumnik, Ralph Sprang, Bob Brooks
General ExComm meeting
1. Review /Amend/Approve May Agenda
• Moved: Lou H.
• Second: Jerry K.
• Approved: Unanimous
2. Approve Minutes from Previous Meeting (April)
• Moved: Lou H.
• Second: Frank P.
• Approved: Unanimous
3. Officer Reports:
a. Chair – Louis Hart
1) WIE chair - Gabriela Hug at CMU willing, start in August.
• More info on this at a later date
2) Section History? No info from Bob Brooks. Tom Dionise??
• Bob can’t find anything; Tom will look this weekend for newsletters, etc.
3) Jim Beck got info on Signal Processing symposium, postponed to 2012??
• Postponed now till 2013
4) Treasurer report expenditures to date, rebate
5) Best section application?? Due 15 May, try for 2012? Competing against how many sections? 8 large ones in region 2, winner is ineligible for 3 years
• We can win of we apply. Do we have enough to submit for last year? Let’s plan for next year. Will start in October to set-up for this.
6A) Mike Hollis, Joe Cioletti – replace picnic w PACE, GOLD event
• Be prepared to report next time on employment network
6B) Want to have PACE ‘committee’ as resource, rep in Morgantown?
• Lou to bring this topic up with Joe C.
7) Report on IEEE-USA 2012 meeting
Summary of IEEE-USA Annual meeting 3-6 May 2012
Copies of all the presentations are supposed to be on the IEEE USA site. If you see something in my notes that doesn’t make sense but looks interesting, try the website.
The meeting program is at At times, there were 3 tracks, so Joe and I coordinated which ones we thought were most important to attend.
I heard two numbers for attendees: 183 and ‘around 250’.
3 May evening. After dinner, President-elect candidates Gary Blank and Lee Stogner spoke briefly and answered questions from the audience.
Open Aerospace forum led by Barry Tillman was a bit erratic, at least after I got there. One speaker observed that the biggest US rocket now is powered by a Russian engine.
4 May morning. Dr. Hua Huang of GE spoke on electrical power requirements of future aircraft. 737 consumes ¼ megawatt. 787 will be between 1 and 1.5 megawatt. Hydraulics going away. 30-40% of power distribution system will be in EMI filters.
Dr. Chris Baker of Ohio State spoke on innovation, as a practicioner. Malaysia has stopped sending PhD students to the UK; Malaysia education considered good enough now. Singapore has a Fusionopolis and Biopolis. Singapore pays PhD students 125K$/year for 5 years.
Chris also described research on 50 million years of radar, i.e., bats. Said to Google Daniel Fish, example of how humans can use echo location.
Dr. Charles Camarda, former astronaut. Topic was creativity. Creative people can be somewhat socially obnoxious, don’t take no for an answer. Research shows teachers don’t like creative students. Suggests failing as early and often as possible. Uses Kahn academy as novel and effective approach to teaching, allow students time to learn and reward when learning happens.
Charlie mentioned that the Columbia astronauts were advised on what to tell press about the foam hitting edge of wing.
Lunch: Guest speaker was Deborah Anderson, daughter of Joe Desch, Dayton engineer who headed NCR research and built machines to decode Enigma transmissions. She has been working with NSA historians to get story of NCR work documented. NSA was previously unaware of connection. There is a documentary movie on the topic. is website.
4 May early PM 130-330: Two physics students from U of Dayton presented papers in the track I attended. One dealt with terahertz (100 GHz – 10 THz) energy levels in relatively small molecules, eg, methane. Could be used to assist in medical diagnosis via breath analysis. High frequencies achieved by frequency multipliers from Virginia diodes.
Second involved characterization of novel composite materials, eg, SiC/SiCN, but more from a phenomenological perspective than scientific. U of Dayton people did not even know exact composition of materials. Wavelengths were of the order of millimeters, reflected and transmitted radiation was studied.
4 May later PM 400-600: Electrification of aircraft, to use regenerative power systems and SiC mosfets. Could replace ramair turbines on existing aircraft, which are useless weight in absence of emergency. GE building 125 K ft2 facility on campus of U of Dayton for aircraft power system testing. Steve Iden described how ‘hardware in the loop’ was being used to accelerate testing of new modules.
Two other sessions I did not attend had some graduate student presentations and posters from Midwestern institutions and held an aerospace forum.
5 May morning: Jim Anderson of Verizon was keynote speaker. He mentioned PACE modules on the IEEE site. Wanted all sections to deliver 4. Mike Andrews of Eweek 2014 asked for ideas to be emailed to IEEE USA leadership. Also wants to know who might serve as a contact in individual companies. Mike’s pitch seemed like an impromptu performance.
I went to track 3 of the morning presentations. Peggy Hutcheson presented research on work life balance. There are several categories into which people fall in addressing the balance question. Peggy is making and IEEE ebook to describe.
Dave Green talked about VTOOLS, listed all the tools available and in the works. Some are commercial, some custom made. All go through IEEE quality assurance acceptance. This presentation was the ‘basic’ one. I did not attend the ‘advanced’ one later in the day. I recommend all chapter chairs and section officers get familiar with vTools. A couple of interesting features were web in a box, so a section does not need to have a webmaster to have a site, and some way of having a teleconference via webex. An RSS feed allows viewing all meetings in the world. We can get ideas for meetings that way.
Charles Rubenstein talked about networking. He advised things like Facebook and Linked in were not enough. Murty commented that the main value of IEEE was in building ‘social capital’.
Lunch speaker was Joyce Tucker of Boeing. She made the comment that real diversity meant accommodation of varied cultural communication and work styles, not just having a mix of black-white-men-women etc.
I stayed with track 3 at the start of the afternoon. John Meredith talked about lifelong employability. He advised learning included experiential learning. Get put on a team; a guru knows how to throw out projects. Michael Hassan from the audience advised people to get involved with the local inventors council.
In track 1, Lee Stogner had a session on improving engagement with industry. IEEE may be developing a member certification program. Look at Career Navigator, which seems to be something on the IEEE site. Check SAMIEEE database for contacts at companies, and approach HR via the contact.
Gary Blank and Ed Kirchner discussed career advancement tools. The Employment Career Services Committee website was improved on 3 May, was hard to navigate. Each regions has a rep on the committee. MGA is providing funds (10K) for starting employment networks.
Gary described the consulting network. At the end of this document, I’ve attached a sample of how an employer could find a consultant quickly via IEEE.
I asked Gary under what circumstances a section might have multiple employment networks. He said geographic convenience in a large section, eg Washington DC had 2 or 3 networks.
Stella Oduyela spoke about Netsuite. Some in the audience seemed to get a little heated in objecting to lack of responsiveness from IEEE. (Jim Anderson, the keynoter, cooled things off.) Looks like main motivation for netsuite was to make accounting and stuff easier for IEEE administration.
6 May – Region 2 Breakout meeting revealed we have a facebook group. 3 PACE events will earn a section a 200$ bonus; these may be employment network, consultant network, or WIE events. Something like 13 of 20 or so attendees were first-timers, which seemed to please the veterans.
The region reporting session did not produce much, in my view. Murty had a nice presentation on our region, but the others…I have note that looks like something points to a ‘connect IEEE USA module’. Maybe there is something on the IEEE USA site.
[pic]
8A) Request for funding from Rajiv, can IEEE or IEEE-USA help? “Carnegie Mellon is
organizing a conference in Orlando, FL during December 2012 and is current seeking sponsors for the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE). It is a world renowned conference and attracts papers and audience from most of the top technology oriented business schools (like CMU, MIT, NYU, Wharton, Stanford, etc.).”
8B) Rajiv advises: ‘created a LinkedIn group for IEEE Pittsburgh a few years ago and it has been growing consistently without any publicity. I was wondering if we should start adding the link () in our newsletter or website to enable IEE members in Pittsburgh to connect and benefit from each other – especially for career growth. Almost every company and organization (even IEEE and IEEE-USA) have a presence on LinkedIn.’
• Lou will put in the newsletter
9) Technology Management Council – request/info from IEEE This note is going to all the IEEE Section Chairs, to thank those who have a Technology Management Council (TMC) Chapter, and to make you aware of the Council. TMC is a Council, which is an IEEE organizational unit which has Societies as members rather than individuals. A Council can have local Chapters, and at the local level the Chapter does have members. The members of the local Chapter are all the local people who are members of any of the Member Societies of the Council. (Confused yet? I hope not. This structure is confusing to many though). You can get more information about TMC from our web site at .
Celia Desmond President, World Class-Telecommunications
MANY SECTIONS WORLDWIDE HAVE A TMC
• Lou to see if anybody wants to do this, put note in newsletter
• Lou to add Michel Howard, President Elect petition to newsletter
b. Vice-Chair – Jim Beck
No report
c. Treasurer – Mey Sen
Treasurer’s report May 2012
1) Section’s expenses incurred so far are:
- 12 January L50 reconciliation meeting ($202.00), 18 January PES/IAS meeting ($218.18), 19 January Excom meeting ($129.43), Treasurer’s mailing expenses ($111.52)
- 2 February Communications & EMBS meeting ($113.42), 8 February Communications meeting ($90.00), Dave Vaglia expense reimbursement ($1,837.77) for 2011 IAS CMD training, Orlando, FL, 16 February Excom meeting ($126.74 + $13.03 + $11.75), 18 February Robot Car Race, Gerry Kumnik ($405.00), Publicity - Carnegie Science Center, Engineer’s Week Sponsorship ($250.00), Publicity - Carnegie Science Center, Science Fair Sponsorship ($500.00), 18 February Robot Car Race, Tom Dionise ($311.23), 18 February Robot Car Race, Tom Dionise ($288.48), 18 February Robot Car Race, Rajiv Garg ($111.12)
- 18 February Robot Car Race café vouchers ($201.16), 14 March Communication meeting ($80.00), 15 March Excom meeting ($88.13), 24 March NetSuite training ($67.80).
- 19 April Excom meeting ($302.69), Sponsorship ($500.00) to IEEE Ohio State University Student Activities, Section’s 4th May History Dinner expenses - Kal Sen ($1348.41), 3-6 May IEEE-USA Joe Cioletti, PACE Society Chair expenses ($1,412.08)
2) Section’s deposits so far $200 Westinghouse sponsorship for Robot Car Race.
3) Section’s deposit for the 4th May History Dinner was $475.00 (10 couples at $40 = $400 and 3 single guests at $25 = $75).
We had 26 people attending the Section’s History Dinner on May 4th, of which 3 people Dr. Guy Nicoletti (speaker), Mrs. Nicoletti, and Joe DeSalvo (PES OEA winner) were guests.
• Only 8 people signed up by the due date
• Ask Phil if there is another place to have the history dinner
• Check date for next year – mid May is good
• Section gives approximately $1000 towards this event
d. Secretary – Frank Pietryga
1) Region 2 Leaders and Chairs,
Please see the email below. Please send any recommendations you have for volunteers to serve on the steering committee for this Smart Grid conference to me. This has the potential to become a conference that we could host and co-sponsor in Region 2.
I appreciate your help on this.
Ralph
--
Ralph M. Ford, Ph.D.
IEEE Region 2 Director, 2011-2012
Good Morning Ralph,
I assume you are attending the IEEE USA meeting. I am also in an IEEE meeting. I am attending the TAB Strategic Planning Committee, as Chair of the Future Directions Committee, in New Brunswick.
One of the activities being managed by the Future Directions Committee is a conference titles “Smart Grid for Practitioners – SG4P”. This event happened in Region 1 last year and will again be in Region 1 in 2012, with technical co-sponsorship by NYU-Poly. I would like to see this event rotating through different regions. For that I would like to appoint a Steering Committee that will manage this conference and its Chair will report to the Chair of the Future Directions Comm. (myself, currently)
Do you have a volunteer in Region 2 that you would recommend for this job (member of the Steering Committee)? Preferably should be someone that works in some aspect of Smart Grid and also is industry.
Thanks and best regards,
Roberto
• Greg Reed at Pitt is not interested in taking this on at the moment.
e. Immediate Past Chair – Bob Brooks
No report
f. Upper-Mon Subsection – David Graham
No report
Committees:
1. Student Activities – Rajiv Garg
No report
2. PACE– Joe Cioletti
• Good funding on 2 people for USA meeting
• Look in September for budget next year
• Picnic this year – 2nd Saturday in September? Where?
3. Bulletin – Phil Cox
• Bulletin deadline is May 20, 2012
4. Website – Gerry Kumnik
• Updated David Graham as Upper-Mon Subsection Chair on website
• Added ExComm meeting minutes to website (need the .doc file, however)
5. Membership Development – Karl Muller
No report
6. Publicity – Tom Dionise
No report
Chapter Reports:
1. Communications – Phil Cox, Ajay Ogirala
No report
2. Components, Packaging and Mfg Technology / Electron Devices – Russell Dudek
• Will set-up a tour of Matco towards the airport
3. Computer – Ralph Sprang
No report
4. Engineering in Medicine and Biology – Zhi-Hong Mao/Bob Brooks
• Bob is looking to get a new chair for the chapter
5. Electromagnetic Compatibility – Mike Oliver
No report
6. Industry Applications/Power and Energy Society – Dave Vaglia
• There was a 2.5 hour meeting regarding the Trail Project, would like to offer 2.5 PDHs
7. Magnetics – Jimmy Zhu
No report
8. Nanotechnology – Minhee Yun
No report
9. Robotics – Guy Nicoletti
No report
10. Signal Processing – Ramana Vinjamuri
I scheduled a talk by Dominique Durand for Aug. 10, 2012 at Pitt. He is an IEEE Fellow, IEEE EMBS representative for north east. With your permission I would like to run this talk advertisement in the bulletin for June, July and August.
• Announcement to be added to bulletin
11. Society of Social Implications of Technology – Joe Kalasky
• Setting up tour of Greenstar Recycling on June 13th, joint with PACE/SSIT
Affinity Reports:
1. Consultant’s Network – Dave / Norm
No report
2. GOLD –Mike Hollis
No report
3. Life Member – Bob Grimes
No report
4. Women in Engineering (WIE) group – OPEN
No report
New Business:
Public and Member Comments:
Action Items:
Next Meeting:
Thursday, June 21, 2012 from 6:30PM – 8:30PM
Panera Bread (Wilkins) 400 Penn Center Blvd. Pittsburgh, PA 15235 (412) 816-5820
Adjourn:
• Moved: Bob B.
• Second: Lou H.
• Approved: Unanimous
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