IEEE-HKN Town Hall

IEEE-HKN Town Hall

PROGRAM DETAILS: MARCH 4, 2021

ECEDHA + HKN = recipe for success. Few organizations have the synergy and alignment like ECEDHA and HKN. The challenges of preparing, engaging, inspiring, involving students is best met when Department Heads and HKN Chapters work together. This Town Hall will present several case studies of successful partnerships, highlight the service component of HKN, and how Department Heads can achieve their objectives for student success and outreach in their campus communities.

IEEE-HKN Town Hall

Program Schedule

March 4, 2021 | 10am-2pm CT

Thursday, March 4

10:00 am - 10:05 am	Welcome & Introductions Welcome & Introductions Brief welcome and introduction to the IEEE-HKN Town Hall. Speaker: Nancy Ostin Director IEEE-HKN Nancy Ostin, Director of IEEE-HKN (Eta Kappa Nu), the honor society of IEEE, joined IEEE in 2012. She has worked to grow HKN to 266 Chapters worldwide. In cooperation with the Board of Governors, she has established programs and services to increase the value of membership and to strengthen Chapters. She also has worked to establish a culture of philanthropy with HKN alumni. IEEE-HKN has over 200,000 members and inducts over 3,000 students each year. Signature programs include the HKN Experience (online conference), Annual Student Leadership Conference, Pathways to Industry program, THE BRIDGE magazine, and HKN Awards Program. Nancy is a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, MA, and the University of Aix-Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence, France. She has over 30 years of association management experience and received her Certified Association Executive (CAE) in 2008. She completed the US Chamber of Commerce Institute of Organization Management in 2011. She has held positions with the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the Society for Corporate Secretaries and Governance Professionals, The Girl Scouts and served as President of the Middlesex County (NJ, USA) Regional Chamber of Commerce.
10:05 am - 10:45 am	Opening Session: IEEE-HKN - Not Just Another Student Organization >> View Now Opening Session: IEEE-HKN - Not Just Another Student Organization What separates IEEE Eta Kappa Nu from all other student organizations? What is its mission? Who does it serve and how does it work in concert with universities and departments to drive student success? What can an IEEE-HKN Chapter do to help you achieve your goals as a Department Chair? Dr. Jim Conrad, IEEE-HKN President Elect, and Tony Maciejewski, Department Head at Colorado State University, offer their answers to these questions in a session that will set the stage for the rest of the day. Moderator: Nancy Ostin Director IEEE-HKN Speaker: Jim Conrad Professor, CPE Associate Chair and Director of Assessment ECE University of North Carolina, Charlotte James M. Conrad is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has also worked at IBM, Ericsson/Sony Ericsson, and BPM Technology. Dr. Conrad is a Professional Engineer, a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He will serve as IEEE-HKN President in 2022. He previously served on the IEEE Board of Directors as IEEE Region 3 Director in 2016-2017, and as IEEE-USA President in 2020. Speaker: Zhihua Qu Department Chair, ECE University of Central Florida Dr. Zhihua Qu is a Pegasus Professor at the University of Central Florida and Chair at Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a leader in the field of dynamic systems, nonlinear controls, electric power system, and autonomous systems, who has excelled in teaching, research and service. He conducts interdisciplinary research in broad fields of energy and power, autonomous vehicles, and networked systems. In energy systems, his research interests include power system stability, wide-area controls and their modular data-driven designs, self-organizing microgrids, distributed energy resources, distributed optimization, and cooperative control. For his technical contributions, he was elected a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of AAAS. Dr. Qu has been a faculty at the University of Central Florida since 1990. He served as the assistant chair of the ECE department (1995-1997) and Director/Interim Chair of Electrical Engineering (1999-2004). He has been a Professor (since 2000) in ECE and the SAIC Endowed Professor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is the founder and director of the RISES (Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems) university cluster, now a university research center whose federal research portfolio is currently over $14 million dollars. During his tenure as ECE Chair (2010-2021), ECE BSc programs are expanded to include 5 tracks and their degree production has increased by 73%, quality enhancement measures including class size limits are instituted and maintained, tenured/tenure-track faculty has increased 52% (with 7 NSF CAREER awardees), research expenditure has been more than quadrupled, research funding more than septupled, two federally-funded centers are established, and the USNWR rankings have been significantly improved for both EE and CpE programs. Dr. Qu is the PI and Director of FEEDER Center which, originally funded (2013-2019) by US Department of Energy (DOE) and afterwards by industrial/utility partners, consists of 12 universities, 18 utility companies, 10 industry companies and 2 national labs. This intercollegiate and partnership team provides a full spectrum of collaborative research, development and educational activities, including its innovative multi-institutional course sharing, to better train the current and future workforce and to accelerate the deployment of distributed power systems technologies. Dr. Qu has been leading a DOE SETO team to design autonomous inverter controls for grid forming and resilient/secure grid operations. He has also led a DOE ENERGISE research team to design and implement highly scalable technologies for distribution systems to operate reliably and securely with 100% renewable penetration. A modular and plug-and-play grid platform has been developed for real-time operation and control of large scale (one-million-node) distribution networks, and self-organizing distribution operation and distributed control functions have been tested to manage distributed energy resources in a cost-effective, reliable, scalable and secure manner. As the Co-Director of Electric Vehicle Transportation Center (a tier-1 university transportation center funded by U.S. Department of Transportation), he led the effort of developing smart interfaces between electrical vehicles and electrical grid as well as autonomous vehicle technologies. Dr. Qu received his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Fundamental advances of his recent work encompass plug-and-play operation of networked systems, distributed optimization, cooperative control and game-theoretical algorithms, and resilient networked controls against attack. In addition to smart grid, he has successfully pursued applications in autonomous vehicles, medical robotics, and missile guidance. He is also known for his earlier work on robust control of nonlinear uncertain systems. In his areas of expertise, Dr. Qu has published 183 archival journal articles and 302 conference papers. He is a co-editor of and contributing author to Smart Grid Control: An Overview and Research Opportunities by Springer (2018), and is one of the contributors to IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Controls: 2030 and Beyond by IEEE Standards Association (2013). He is the author of four books, including Cooperative Control of Dynamical Systems by Springer (2009) and Robust Control of Nonlinear Uncertain Systems by Wiley (1998). Dr. Qu is an inaugural member, Standing Council, Vision for Engineering Leadership Multi-sector Alliance, the NSF Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA). He served on the Committee of Visitors (COV), a review panel of NSF ECCS Division; on IEEE Smart Grid Operational and Steering Committees; IEEE Educational Activities, University Resources Committee; as IEEE CSS Smart Grid TC Chair; Conference Chair of IEEE CSS TCAC; Secretary, Vice President, President of Southeast ECE Department Head Association (SECEDHA); Board of Directors of ECE Department Head Association (ECEDHA); Chair of ECEDHA award committee; Vice President, President and Past President of ECEDHA; Secretary and Board of Directors, Southeastern Center for Electrical Engineering Education (SCEEE); Board of Governors, IEEE CSS; and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer. He is/was an Associate Editor for several journals, including Automatica, IEEE ACCESS, and IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
10:45 am - 11:00 am	Networking Break
11:00 am - 12:00 pm	HKN Impact: How your department will benefit from your HKN Chapter >> View Now HKN Impact: How your department will benefit from your HKN Chapter HKN Chapters are closely tied with their host Department and share many of the same goals and objectives. Successful Chapters and Departments leverage these commonalities for mutual benefit, including building and growing a sense of community within the Department, promoting research and graduate studies, improving educational outcomes for all students through tutoring and mentoring, and facilitating alumni engagement and development activities. Departments of all sizes can benefit from the participation of an active HKN Chapter. This session will explore a few key examples and will enable attendees to share their own successes. Department representatives may also seek assistance in chartering an HKN Chapter or in establishing a new purposeful direction with an existing Chapter. Moderator: Michael Benson PhD candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Michael L. Benson is a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan’s Radiation Laboratory and a research scientist at Maxar. He is a co-advisor to the Beta Epsilon Chapter of HKN, was the IEEE-HKN Student Governor in 2017 and 2018, and has served as the IEEE-HKN Governor for Regions 3 and 4 since 2019. He additionally serves as the chair of the IEEE-HKN Membership & Chapters Committee. His research interests include multi-modal remote sensing and environmental modeling. Panelist: Jaimie Davis Shapter President Florida Polytechnic University Jaimie Davis received his A.A. degree from Florida SouthWestern State College, Fort Myers, FL in 2018, and will receive his B.S.E.E. degree from Florida Polytechnic University, Lakeland, FL in 2021. He is the President of the IEEE-HKN Mu Omega Chapter. His interests include deregulated power grids with renewable energy, sensor fusion utilizing Kalman filter variants, and control system design using AVR microcontrollers. He is currently employed with Florida Polytechnic University's research assistant program and the Florida Department of Transportation's Traffic System Management and Operation team. He has also enjoyed designing wearable biotechnology for dancers in Lakeland to integrate STEM into the Arts since 2019. Panelist: Ashfaq Khokhar Department Chair Iowa State University Ashfaq Khokhar began his appointment as the Palmer Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering in January 2017. Khokhar was previously chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Illinois Institute of Technology since 2013. Before that, he was a professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Khokhar was named an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE) Fellow in 2009. Khokhar’s research centers on context-aware wireless networks, computational biology, health care data mining, content-based multimedia modeling, retrieval and multimedia communication and high-performance algorithms. He is considered a leading expert in the area of high-performance solutions for multimedia applications, especially those that are data or communication intensive. He has contributed to five edited volumes and co-authored nine book chapters, 53 publications in archival journals, and 158 refereed conference papers. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the United States Army, the Department of Homeland Security and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Khokhar earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan; his master’s degree in computer engineering from Syracuse University; and his Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Southern California. Panelist: Katie Brinker Nu Chapter/HKN Board Iowa State University Katelyn Brinker is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Iowa State University with the support of a NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF/NSTGRO). She graduated from Missouri S&T with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer engineering in 2017 and with a master’s in electrical engineering in 2019. She was inducted into IEEE-HKN in Spring of 2016 to the Gamma Theta Chapter at Missouri S&T and has since served as a chapter president, IEEE student branch president, IEEE-HKN Student Governor, and Undergraduate and Graduate Representative to the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society AdCom. She is also the 2017 recipient of the IEEE-HKN Outstanding Student Award. Panelist: James Worthington Chapter Officer University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Panelist: Mohammed-Baasim Rohan Chapter Officer Georgia Tech Panelist: Pei-Cheng Ku ECE Associate Chair University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Panelist: Tom Gaylord Regents Professor; Julius Brown Chair Professor Georgia Tech Dr. Gaylord received the B.S. in physics and the M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rice University. He came to Georgia Tech in 1972. Dr. Gaylord was instrumental in the founding and development of the optics educational and research programs in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This includes the development of the Optical Engineering, Integrated Optics, Modulation, Diffractive and Crystal Optics, and Optoelectronics: Materials, Processes, and Devices courses, the development of optics research programs, and the development of research and instructional laboratory facilities. Dr. Gaylord is the author of over 300 technical journal publications and 25 patents in the areas of optics, optoelectronics, and semiconductor devices.
12:00 pm - 12:30 pm	Networking Break
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	How the Peer-to-Peer HKN Community Enriches a Department >> View Now How the Peer-to-Peer HKN Community Enriches a Department HKN Chapters provide a structure for students to contribute to life within a department. In addition to service and technical activities such as tutoring and workshops, many effective chapters host meeting spaces, informal student networking, and social events. Some of these activities target just the HKN membership; other activities support the entire student population. Since the chapter members plan and organize such activities themselves, the students become invested in the department. Peer-to-peer involvement can establish a community that connects alumni to the department long after graduation. During this session, HKN chapters will describe activities that enrich the environment of a department. Moderator: Steve Watkins Professor, ECE Missouri University of Science and Technology Steve E. Watkins is professor and interim chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of Missouri-Rolla). He is a co-advisor to the Gamma Theta Chapter of HKN, was the 2018 President of IEEE-HKN, is current co-EIC of HKN’s THE BRIDGE Magazine, and a Vice-President of the IEEE Education Society. He a Fellow of SPIE and a senior member of IEEE. He has served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and an IEEE-USA Congressional Fellow. His research areas include instrumentation and engineering education. His PhD is from the University of Texas at Austin. Panelists: Alain Chen Vice President Beta Chapter, Purdue University Alain Chen is a PhD Student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He is currently the Vice President of the Beta Chapter. He was previously the Treasurer of the Beta Chapter for multiple semesters, overseeing the finances of Purdue’s HKN Lounge. His technical interest is in imaging processing and machine learning. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Missouri. Matthew Golla Vice President Psi Chapter, The University of Texas at Austin Matthew Golla is a senior undergraduate electrical and computer engineering major on the software engineering track at the University of Texas at Austin. This past summer he interned with Amazon and plans to work there after graduation. He pledged Eta Kappa Nu Psi Chapter in Spring 2019. Within the chapter, he has served as recording secretary, president, and is currently serving as vice president this semester. His interests outside of HKN include soccer and hiking. Aaron Burke Chapter Officer Gamma Theta Chapter, Missouri University of Science and Technology Aaron Burke is a junior in Electrical Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology with a minor in Mathematics. He is currently the Pledge Chair of the Gamma Theta Chapter of HKN, and he is active in IEEE and the Missouri S&T Honor's Academy. He has had a CO-OP with Yaskawa America Inc as a Technical Support Engineer. This upcoming Summer and Fall, Aaron has another CO-OP planned with Vermeer. Dr. Jennifer Marley Assistant Professor of Engineering, Faculty Advisor Mu Rho Chapter, Valparaiso University Jennifer Marley is an Assistant Professor and Frederick F. Jenny Jr. Professor of Emerging Technology in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Valparaiso University. She received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering with a concentration in renewable electric energy systems from North Carolina State University. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering: Systems from the University of Michigan. She is the faculty advisor for the Mu Rho Chapter of IEEE-HKN and is the 2020 recipient of the IEEE-HKN C. Holmes MacDonald Outstanding Teaching Award. Her research interests include power system optimization and the integration of storage devices and renewable generation.
1:30 pm - 1:45 pm	Conclusion