At the Engineer's Week Banquet, held at the Von Braun Center South Hall on Friday 23 February 2001, the banquet's master of ceremonies, and later our IEEE Huntsville Section Eric Grigorian, presented awards to four persons on behalf of the Section (Outstading Engineer, Service and Educator), and one on behalf of the National/International IEEE (Fellow Recognition). And our Awards Chairman Will Preussel later presented another Outstanding Service award subsequent to the banquet. Click on the Recipient's name or thumbnail picture to view a bigger picture.

William Y. ("Buddy") Bishop was honored as our Outstanding Engineer for 2001. Mr. Bishop currently serves as Chief Engineer of the NATO Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) System Management Agency, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has received numerous awards from the Government, is a member of the Army Acquisition Corps and is Certified at the highest level in System Planning, Research, Development, Engineering and in Program Management. He has co-authored and presented numerous papers at technical conferences. Buddy has also served as a part time instructor since 1978 in the Department of Electrical and Computer Sciences at UAH, teaching both undergraduates and continuing education students. He has been active with the Rocket City Kicks Soccer Club, Babe Ruth Baseball Association, and Grissom High Varsity Boy's Soccer Team and is a trombonist with the Huntsville Concert Band.

Sonya Hutchinson was recognized for Outstanding Service to the Huntsville Section. She attended our board meetings for a year before being holding an elected office. She then served as secretary for a year, and is currently the Vice Chairman and Programs Chairman. In addition, she founded, and was the first head of, the local Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) affinity group. Sonya was also the Alabama Regional Coordinator for the Future City competition held recently at NASA, and the major factor behind the outstanding success of that event. Sonya works for NASA, and is an outstanding young lady.

Will Preussel was also recognized for Outstanding Service. Will served as Vice Chair of the Huntsville Section for two years, Chair for one year, and Past Chair for three years. He headed the effort that led to revision of the Section By-Laws in 2000, and has chaired the section nominations and awards committees for several years. He is a senior member of the IEEE. Recognition of two members for outstanding service in the same year is highly unusual and serves as testimony to the quality of the efforts performed by the numerous volunteers who serve the Huntsville Section.

Dr. Reza Adhami was honored as Outstanding Educator. He has been professor and Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UAH since 1998. His background includes progressively more responsible teaching positions at UAH since 1985, as well as 20 years of research experience in the areas of digital signal processing, digital image processing, speech recognition, pattern recognition, and data/image compression. He has been a prolific author with seven published technical articles or equivalent during 2000 alone, mostly in the area of wavelet analysis. Dr. Adhami is a recipient of Murice Simpson Award for excellent in technical publication from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology and numerous other awards. He is a strong supporter of the IEEE Student Branch at UAH.

Dr. Belur Dasarathy was formally presented with a certificate recognizing his election to the grade of Fellow within the IEEE. This is the highest grade of membership in the association, and is only granted in recognition of outstanding technical accomplishments. In Dr. Dasarathy's case, these have included publication of several books and editorship of a journal in the areas of data fusion and pattern recognition under the auspices of the IEEE. He is also a past Chair of the Huntsville Section.