| 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 295 Fellows named in 2008, only
20 were from the practitioner group compared to the 15 in the 268
member Class of 2007
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 2008
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 225 Fellows from the research engineer/scientist group
in the 2008 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 Fellows in the Application Engineer/Practitioner
category, were those 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 2010 are now being accepted. The deadline
is 1 March 2009. Nomination instructions, forms and additional information
are available on the Fellows web site at http://www.ieee.org/fellows
* Originally published in The Institute and updated by
Fellow Activities Staff
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