IEEE-HKN Town Hall

Brief welcome and introduction to the IEEE-HKN Town Hall. 

Speaker: 
Ashfaq Khokhar
Palmer Department Chair, ECE
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.

 

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.

 

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.  

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: 
Tony Maciejewski
Department Chair
Colorado State University

Anthony A. Maciejewski was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 19, 1960. He received the B.S.E.E (summa cum laude), M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1982, 1984, and 1987, respectively, all from The Ohio State University under the support of a National Science Foundation (NSF) graduate fellowship. From October of 1985 to September of 1986 he was an American Electronics Association Japan Research Fellow at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan where he performed work on the development of parallel processing algorithms for computer graphic imaging and simulation. In 1988, Prof. Maciejewski joined the faculty of Purdue University as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1993 and Full Professor in 1998. In August of 2001 he joined Colorado State University where he is currently a Professor and Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). In 2018-2019 he served as President of the ECE Department Head's Association. His primary research and teaching interests center on the analysis, simulation, and control of kinematically redundant robotic systems. His current work focuses on how kinematic redundancy can be utilized to design failure tolerant robotic systems for remote or hazardous operations. He has published over a 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 300 total papers, graduated 30 PhD students, and developed multiple graduate and undergraduate courses. His research has been supported by NSF, Sandia Nat'l Lab, Oak Ridge Nat'l Lab, DARPA, NASA, Nat'l Imagery and Mapping Agency, Missile Defense Agency, Non-lethal Technology Innovation Center, the NEC Corporation, Caterpillar, AT&T, H-P, Intel, Chrysler, Wolf Robotics, and the TRW Foundation. His commitment to education resulted in his receiving five teaching awards, including CSU’s “Instructional Innovation Award,” and multiple NSF education grants, including the first Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (RED) grant awarded to an ECE Department. The RED project at CSU received the National Society of Professional Engineers – Colorado chapter “Public Project of the Year” award in 2019 and the ECEDHA “Innovative Program” award in 2020. Prof. Maciejewski is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) "for contributions to the design and control of kinematically redundant robots," and has received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award for contributions to the society as VP for Financial Activities and AdCom member as well as other roles. He has served on the editorial boards of nine different journals and as Editor in Chief of the Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) Conference Paper Review Board. He also was Program Chair for the 2002 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) and has served on over 100 other conference program committees. He has also served on the Board of Governor’s for the IEEE Education Society and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery.

 

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.

 

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