To ensure you receive our e-mail, please add e-mail@ieee.org to your address book now.

President's Corner

Greetings UFFC-S members,

As my term as President draws to a close, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of the dedicated and hardworking volunteers who have served on AdCom and its subcommittees, and to briefly summarize some of the highlights of our activities during the past two years. The time has flown by, but not without some significant (and I think positive) changes to Society operations.

Thanks to the hard work of our outgoing Vice President for Publications, John Hossack, and Editor-in-Chief Steven Freear, the T-UFFC has experienced both an increase in impact factor and improvement in timeliness of publication, with the average time from paper submission to publication now standing at only 69 days! After several years with no newsletters published, outgoing Editor-in-Chief of the UFFC-S Newsletter Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb took on the task of transitioning the historically print-based newsletter to electronic format at the beginning of 2012, worked with IEEE to set up the needed templates, and published one issue in 2012 and two issues in 2013. Web Editor-in-Chief Sidney Lang undertook a major reworking of the UFFC-S website, enhancing functionality, appearance, and content while ensuring compliance with IEEE requirements for accessibility. Sidney also worked closely with our student representatives and others to enhance and formalize society usage of social media, and to add appropriate links to the website.

Our Women in Engineering (WIE) activities have increased, with events held at every conference, and Linked in groups such as the Women in Ultrasonics group being used for outreach to professionals within and outside the society. Active discussions have identified areas in which the society could enhance services to our members. Our new WIE representative, Lori Bridal, is spearheading an initiative to provide on-site childcare for young children at UFFC-S conferences on an as-needed, fee-for-service basis starting in 2014. It is our hope that this will encourage increased attendance, and provide attendees with the freedom to bring family members along – enhancing both their personal and professional experience.

Following a review of the status of the society’s chapters, which identified several chapters as inactive, we have recently begun an initiative to revitalize chapter activities, led by Chapters Chair Estelle Camus. This initiative will continue in the upcoming years, with the goal of establishing new chapters and maintaining an active role in chapter operations – providing speakers and financial support to encourage active participation in local chapter technical meetings.

On the administrative front, UFFC-S has recently hired a part time administrator, Jennifer Roland. She will assist AdCom with operations, and will also be available to all society members and volunteers as a resource, to address questions that arise relating to society matters – including e-mail communication, conference planning and organization, contractual issues, and historical information on society operations. Jennifer can be reached at AdminUFFC@ieee.org. In addition, AdCom has transitioned to the electronic agenda planning tool used by IEEE, which allows all AdCom members to access agenda attachments remotely, and provides a centralized record of meeting documents for archival purposes. It is our hope that utilization of these resources will continue to reduce complexity and improve the efficiency with which society volunteers can accomplish their goals.

Two new awards have been established by the UFFC Society and approved by IEEE, the IEEE Ultrasonics Young Investigator Award, and the IEEE Carl Hellmuth Hertz Ultrasonics Achievement Award. These awards will be given for the first time in 2014.

UFFC-S has been a sponsor of the Transactions on Medical Imaging – one of the top medical imaging journals in the world today – since its inception more than 30 years ago. Co-sponsored by the Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society, Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, and Signal Processing Society, this journal had operated under an agreement formalized in about 1984. Last month, after more than a decade of discussion regarding the terms, the four societies finally signed a renegotiated MOU that is compliant with current IEEE requirements for periodicals and will govern TMI operations into the future.

Congratulations to Kurt Gibble, Ken-ya Hashimoto, Jan Kuypers, and Ronald Polcawich on their recent election to AdCom for terms starting January 2014, and to Clark Nguyen, outgoing VP of Frequency Control, on his election to President-Elect of UFFC-S.

Finally, I would like to thank all the outgoing AdCom members for their service to the Society, including elected members Lori Bridal, Paul Clem, Pai-Chi Li, and Takeo Oita. In particular, I am grateful for the dedicated service of Helmut Ermert as Awards Chair, David Cann as VP Ferroelectrics, Stanislav Emelianov as VP Ultrasonics, John Hossack as VP Publications, Susan Trolier-McKinstry as Sr. Past President and Strategic Planning Chair, and Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb as Newsletter Editor-in-Chief, WIE representative, and Representative to the Nanotechnology Council. And last but certainly not least, thank you to Herman van de Vaart for his several decades of service to AdCom, most recently as VP Finance – and congratulations on your appointment to the position of AdCom Emeritus.

Wishing everyone all the best during this holiday season and a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year,

Jackie

 

back to Home Page