FELLOWS EVALUATION COMMITTEE
IEEE FELLOW NOMINATIONS ARE DUE BY MARCH 1, 2009

I encourage you to nominate a deserving colleague for IEEE Fellow and begin the job of preparing the application and lining up references now. It’s not too early. Each year, deserving nominations just make the deadline, while others fall short by only a few days. 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. 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. NPSS has elected many fellows over the years, so it shouldn’t be difficult to identify a strong list of references. I suggest that nominators contact the Chairs of NPSS’s technical committees for assistance. They can be found on the NPSS website at http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/adcom_officers.html.
IEEE hopes its Electronic Fellow Nomination Process to be fully implemented in 2009, which will make it even easier for you to complete the nomination form. I say “hope” because we expected a fully electronic nomination process four years ago, and it hasn’t happened!
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.” In the last two years, NPSS has successfully elevated a few members in this category.
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.
In 2008, NPSS had 17 Fellow nominations. The quality of these nominations was extremely high. The NPSS Fellow Evaluation Committee has finished its work for the year. All materials in support of NPSS nominees have been forwarded to IEEE. In December, the IEEE Board of Directors will announce the names of nominees that will be elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow. As always, this is an extremely competitive process – only 0.1% of the total IEEE membership can be elected to the grade of Fellow each year.
I want to thank the members of the FEC for all their efforts. They are 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 2009.
On behalf of the NPSS Fellow Evaluation Committee, I urge you to consider making an IEEE Fellow nomination next year. March 1, 2009 will be here sooner than you think.
Peter S. Winokur, Chair, NPSS Fellow Evaluation Committee, can be reached at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Washington, DC; Phone: +1 202 694-7090; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.org.