FELLOW EVALUATION COMMITTEE
IEEE FELLOW NOMINATIONS ARE DUE BY MARCH 1, 2007

In my first year as Chair of the NPSS Fellow Evaluation Committee (FEC), there were 19 nominations from NPSS, an all time high. This year there were only 9, a bit disappointing. For the record, in calendar years ’99 through ’06, the NPSS FEC evaluated 12, 11, 18, 13, 11, 12, 19, and 9 nominations, respectively. The average is 13, so by any standards this year’s total was below par. NPSS isn’t guaranteed that a certain percentage of our nominations will be elected to the grade of Fellow, but a rule of thumb is about 40%. As I’ve said in the past, that’s higher than other societies. Hopefully, NPSS will have 4 or 5 new Fellows announced at the Board of Directors meeting in December!
I want to thank the members of the FEC for all their efforts. They are Victor Granatstein, Ron Huesman, Osamu Ishihara, Stan Schriber, Jim Schwank, and Peter Turchi. It’s always challenging to review these nominations. I hope you can make our job ever more difficult by increasing the number of nominations in 2007.
I encourage you to nominate a deserving colleague and begin the job of preparing the application and lining up references now. Nominating forms, detailed instructions, and frequently asked questions can be found at the IEEE Fellow Program Web Site at www.ieee.org/fellows.
To be nominated, the candidate must meet the following three basic qualifications: hold Senior Member grade at the time the nomination is submitted; be an ‘active’ member (that is, dues must be current); and must have completed five years of service in any grade of IEEE membership. Note: IEEE affiliate membership within an IEEE society does not apply. I’m often shocked to learn that folks who have made significant contributions to our Society aren’t even Senior Members. It only takes a few minutes to prepare an application to be a Senior Member and it is web based.
A nomination must be supported by at least five, but no more than eight references from active IEEE Fellows. The biggest stumbling point for nominations is getting five references. If possible, nominators should list eight references. That way, if one or two references can’t meet the deadline, the nomination still has the required five references. A list of IEEE Fellows can be found at the IEEE Fellow Program Web Site or in the current IEEE Membership Directory. In addition, a Fellow Nomination Resource Center (FNRC) was established. The purpose of the Center is to assist nominators in locating the required number of references to support a nomination to IEEE Fellow Grade. The Center will operate on an experimental basis for a 3-year period. It is a volunteer support group comprised of a Chair and Case Managers, all of whom must be IEEE Fellow-Grade members. Nominators wishing assistance from the FNRC must initiate a request by sending an e-mail to FNRC@ieee.org.
IEEE hopes its Electronic Fellow Nomination Process to be fully implemented in 2007, which will make it even easier for you to complete the nomination form. I say “hope” because we expected a fully electronic nomination process two years ago, and it hasn’t happened yet. It will happen some day soon.
The IEEE Board of Directors recently approved changes to the process for nominating and electing IEEE members to Fellow Grade. The goal of these changes is to increase the number of nominations received for members from industry and to make the process more receptive to nominations received for application engineers or engineering practitioners who have made contributions of unusual distinction to the profession. Specifically, the changes established a new nomination category for individual contributions, “Application Engineer/Practitioner.” This category recognizes significant contributions in “product development, advancement in system, application or operation, project management or construction activity, process development, manufacturing innovation, codes or standards development, or other application of technology.”
Also, the existing designation; “Engineer/Scientist” was changed to, “Research Engineer/Scientist.” The other existing categories, “Educator” and “Technical Leader” remain the same. So, the IEEE now recognizes contributions in four distinct categories.
On behalf of the NPSS Fellows Evaluation Committee, I urge you to consider making an IEEE Fellow nomination next year. March 1, 2007 will be here sooner than you think.
Peter S. Winokur, Chair, NPSS IEEE Fellow Candidate Evaluation Committee, can be reached at the National Nuclear Security Administration, Washington DC Office; Phone: +1 202 586-5480; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.org.