Members Present:       Harry Bell, Stan Briczinski, Larry Burton, Al Gardenhour, Kevin Kelly,
 Jack Mitchell, Sal Riggio, David Salvia, John Shannon, Mark Wharton

Mark opened the meeting at 10:00 am.  He had an agenda with 4 topics.

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Topic 1.  EE Departmental News
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Department News – Ken Jenkins

EE Department Head Ken Jenkins updated the members on the following issues:

·        Doug Werner was promoted to Professor
·        Ruyan Guo was granted tenure
·        The following people were newly-hired this year:

o       Aylin Yener – Wireless Communications and Signal Processing

o       Robert Nickel – Speech and Time-Frequency Signal Processing

o       Zhiwen Liu – Optical Systems and Devices

o       Ram Narayanan – Remote Sensing and Radar

o       Sal Riggio – Full-time instruction

·        The following positions are open:

o       Mixed-Mode VLSI

o       Computer Vision

o       Materials and Devices

·        Awards were given to the following faculty members:

o       NSF Career Award – Constantino Lagao, Victor Pasko, Aylin Yener

o       Digital Greenhouse Grant – Robert Nickel

o       Major NSF Equipment Grant – Srinivas Tadigadapa

o       IEEE Fellow – Tom Jackson, John Metzner, David Hall

o       IEEE APS Society Service Award – Ram Narayanan

·        Facts and Figures:

o       BSEE enrollment 629

o       MSEE enrollment 140

o       Ph D enrollment 143

o       Total Undergraduates 629

o       New Juniors 242

o       Graduating BSEEs 226

o       Research Expenditures $11.216 M

·        Fundraising – Melvin P. Bloom Endowment of $500k (more to come) was received

 
A discussion then ensued about the English-speaking abilities of non-native Teaching Assistants and Lab Assistants. Ken assured the members that there have been no negative reports in the Department of Electrical Engineering about any of our TAs.

A student team gave a presentation about their work with the SPIRIT (Student Project Involving Rocket Investigation Techniques) project. The student in charge of the presentation was Erin (Kate) Boland, a PSU grad, now pursuing a PhD in Chem E. Also attending was Brian Pomeroy, Sophomore, Aerospace E, and Julia Venarchick, Junior, Aero. Kate was the head of the Experiments Team on SPIRIT II. Brian worked on the Structures Team on SPIRIT II. Julie was at the launch of SPIRIT II, but has just joined the program to work on SPIRIT III.   Brian is now a leader of the Structures Team for SPIRIT III.

The presentation showcased the accomplishments of a team of students under the direction of Penn State Research Assistant Tim Wheeler. The presentation concluded with a video showing the work leading up to and immediately following the launch of SPIRIT II.

Mark updated the status of the SPSEE Graduate Fellowship Fund. Current book value of the fund is $271,707 and the market value is $263,840. The fund has grown at an average rate of 5.4% over the past 5 years, down from the historical growth rate of 8% (due to recent stock market underperformance). Fellowship awards for the current academic year are:

·        Mark Gingrich – Ph D student, electromagnetics, $5000

·        Douglas Kern – Ph D student, electromagnetics, $5000

·        Jennifer Bogard, MSEE student, electromagnetics, $2500

·        Thomas Spence, MSEE student, space sciences, $2500

·        Eftihia Vlahos, MSEE student, electromagnetics, $2500

·        Sophis Vlahos, MSEE student, electromagnetics, $2500

For the year, the total awarded from the fellowship fund is $20,000. To-date, the fund has awarded $70,543.

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Topic 4.  Election of Officers – Kevin Kelly
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Three-year terms of office for the current President, Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer expired this month, so a new election was held. The following were elected to three-year terms by the members present:

·        Secretary – Stan Briczinski, Jr.

·        Treasurer – Sal R. Riggio, Jr.

·        Vice President – David Salvia

There being no candidate for President, the current president agreed to serve an additional year until a candidate could be found to run for the remainder of the full 3-year term.

All agreed that we must increase our recruitment activities in order to attract new members to the Society.

Next meeting -- TBA