THE INSTITUTEThe impact that IEEE members have had on the world of technology is obvious—including work that helped humans land on the moon and the popular IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard—but not all the stories about their contributions have been told.
In an effort to increase awareness of the great work that IEEE members are doing, the IEEE Public Visibility committee recently launched an awareness campaign: IEEE Impact Creators. The initiativespotlights the contributions of members who participate in the IEEE Public Visibility program, which aims to increase recognition of IEEE along with a general awareness and understanding of cutting-edgeengineering. The Impact Creators campaign uses online profiles and social media engagement to give reporters and others a chance to find out what inspires, challenges, and excites top engineers, as well as what influences their work.
“Through IEEE Impact Creators, we are shifting the focus of the program from highlighting emerging technologies to instead leading with our experts and what they are doing to apply the technology to help humankind,” says Member Mario Milicevic, the chair of the committee. “IEEE technical experts have always been the heroes of the IEEE Public Visibility program, but now we want them to get greater visibility to further establish IEEE as a thought leader in groundbreaking technologies.”
Each Impact Creator has a profile on IEEE Transmitter. Some of the profiles include Q&A sessions and audio and video interviews.
Little-known facts about some top engineers include:
In high school, IEEE-USA President Tom Coughlin built small rockets in his basement lab, and this IEEE Fellow is a big Star Trek fan.
Senior Member Ayanna Howard, a roboticist, was inspired to become an engineer by the TV show The Bionic Woman. Howard is chair of the School of Interactive Computing and director of the Human-Automation Systems Lab at Georgia Tech.
When Senior Member Alexander Wyglinski was 5 years old, he became infatuated with his Fisher-Price walkie-talkies. He’s now a leading expert in wireless communications and uses his childhood Fisher-Price radios when teaching undergraduates at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts.
You can learn more about IEEE Impact Creators through posts on IEEE’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.
Francine Tardo is senior manager for IEEE’s External Communications and Public Visibility programs.
