| Even
though it’s been nearly three years since nominations were
first accepted for the newest Fellows category, Application Engineer/Practitioner,
few have been nominated. Out of the 268 Fellows named in 2007, 15
were from the practitioner group compared to the 17 in the 271-member
Class of 2006.
One reason might be because people are still unsure about the type
of work that qualifies someone for this category, says 2003 IEEE
President Michael Adler and chair of the IEEE Board-appointed 2007
Fellow Ad Hoc Committee, which reviews the Fellows process.
“Many nominators are checking off the Research Engineer/Scientist
box on the nomination forms when perhaps they should be marking
the Application Engineer/Practitioner category,” he says.
“The position of some nominees is identified to be that of
a research scientist or engineer, but the work for which they are
being cited could be considered that of a practitioner,” Adler
explains.
There were 213 Fellows from the research engineer/scientist group
in the 2007 class.
To help clear up any confusion and help boost the number of Fellows
from industry, here is a primer of the type of work that qualifies
for the application engineer/practitioner category.
The person has to be an IEEE senior member in good standing with
five years of service in any grade of membership excluding affiliates,
and who has made significant contributions in any of these areas:
product development, systems, applications or operations, project
management or construction, process development, manufacturing innovations,
or codes or standards development.
Adler notes that it could be someone who develops a process to produce
a product that may have been designed by others, and that has had
a major impact.
For example, among the 2007 class of Fellows in the Application
Engineer/ Practitioner category, were members who invented and standardized
elements of optical transmission systems, developed applications
for satellite data and airborne LIDAR (light detection and ranging)
imagery, researched signal processing for acoustics and sound reproduction,
and provided technical leadership of a project that turned novel
concepts for computer architecture into commercial processors.
Nominations for the class of 2009 are now being accepted. The deadline
is 1 March 2008. Nomination instructions, forms and additional information
are available on the Fellows web site at http://www.ieee.org/fellows.
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