Huntsville Section Honors Five
By Will Preussel, Chair, Awards Committee
(Event photos by Woody Williams, http://www.ieee-huntsville.org/y2007/lw0703/index.html)
The IEEE Huntsville Section makes six annual awards to recognize excellence in the local electrotechnology community. Five of these were presented at the Huntsville E-Week banquet, held at the Space Center Marriott February 22, 2007 (see event photos in a slide show and view more details in the banquet program). George Hamilton, IEEE Huntsville Section member and Alabama Society of Professional Engineers president, presided as master of ceremonies for the E-Week banquet this year and AEgis Technologies Group president and co-founder Bill Waite delivered an excellent and humorous presentation as banquet speaker.
The IEEE Section Outstanding Educator award went to Dr. Kaveh Heidary, Professor and Chair, Department of Electrical Engineering, Alabama A&M University. Dr. Heidary received his BSEE (Magna Cum Laude) in 1982, MSEE in 1984 and PhD in EE in 1993, all from Syracuse University. Prior to coming to AAMU in 1998, he was at Carnegie Mellon University and before that at Matrix Technologies. Dr. Heidary has more than 20 years of industrial and academic experience and has been a consultant to many companies. His areas of research interest include pattern recognition, target identification, signal processing, communication systems, applied electromagnetics, and antenna engineering. He has authored or co-authored at least 18 recent research papers and the “UWB Beamforming” chapter of Advances in Radar Systems.
The Outstanding Engineer award was received by our own Keith Jadus. Keith received his BS in Computer Engineering in 1999 and his MS in Electrical Engineering in 2003, both from UAH. He currently serves as an electronics engineer in the System Simulation and Development Directorate of the US Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center. He has over 10 years of experience supporting US Army simulation programs, currently as a Government Civilian, and previously as a contractor. He has co-authored over 20 technical reports and publications. Keith has been active in the IEEE since 1999 having been successively Treasurer, Vice-Chair, and Chair of the Section as well as Finance Chair for the 2003 IEEE Radar Conference. He currently serves as the Section past Chair, 2008 IEEE Southeast Conference Co-Chair, and most recently was appointed as the IEEE Region 3 Area 6 (Alabama/Mississippi) Chair. Keith is also active in the Huntsville Simulation Conference as a Committee member and Session Chair for Tactical Missile Simulation. He was previously recognized for Outstanding Service to the Section in 2004.
The Outstanding Service award went to another familiar name---Bob Robinson. Bob earned his BS in Mathematics and BSEE from Louisiana Tech in 1980, and his MSSAE Software Engineering Specialization Track from the University of Southern California in 2004. An IEEE Computer Society Computer Software Development Professional (CSDP), he has been employed as an embedded software and systems engineer at Boeing since 1991, working since 2004 with Boeing Phantom Works where he has been principle investigator of Boeing Unmanned Ground Systems and currently as a Boeing Tech Fellowship member, supporting ongoing Department of Homeland Security research and other programs. He was employed at AVCO, SAIC, SDC (Unisys) and GTE before beginning a distinguished career at Boeing. He has served the Huntsville Section as a volunteer for many years in such positions as Member at Large, Computer Society Chair, Communications, Publicity, and Robotics Committee Chairs, and as LiveWire Editor. He has also served as a manuscript reviewer for the IEEE Computer Society, IEEE technical journals, and numerous IEEE standards working groups. This specific award, like the ones for 2005 and 2006, is intended to recognize the vital importance of those who serve the local Huntsville Section over a long period of time in less visible positions. The organization simply could not operate without such dedicated volunteers, of whom Bob is a prime example.
For the third year, awards were presented for the most outstanding member of the Student branches at UAH and A&M Universities respectively. Recipients of these awards are selected by those who know them best --- their fellow student branch members. The student branches are free to choose their own criteria for the award, and, as in previous years, have stressed somewhat different mixes of qualities.
The Outstanding UAH Student Branch Member award went to Justin Watson, an undergraduate in Electrical Engineering. He has been very active in the Charger IEEE, currently serving as Communications Director. He is also the team lead for the Trinity Firefighter Robot and a member of the IEEE website team. Justin currently works for CMSA (UAH Center for Modeling and Simulation Analysis) at UAH and was previously a web developer for the UAH Transportation Department. Aside from school and IEEE, Justin enjoys running and playing Ultimate Frisbee. Some of his hobbies include reading tech magazines, computer programming, and amateur radio. The previous recipients of this award have been Matt McDougal (2005) and Josh Eliser (2006).
Tiffany Tarver was named the Outstanding Alabama A&M Student Branch Member. She is a senior EE major with computer engineering option at Alabama A&M with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 over the last six semesters. She is an outstanding all around student, who has been an active member of the AAMU IEEE Student Branch for two years. She does an excellent job of balancing the demands of campus social life with a rigorous academic engineering schedule. She has served in an intern position with El Paso Energy Corporation, Southwest Division, where she worked under the mentorship of senior plant engineers to improve the reliability and availability of vital electrical and mechanical systems. She received several awards for her efforts and was invited back during the summers of 2005 and 2006, as well as being offered employment after graduation. The previous recipients of this award have been Chris Payne (2005) and Ebonee Walker (2006).
The remaining annual award, Professional of the Year (POY) will be presented at the POY banquet hosted by HATS at a later date. Our POY has not yet been selected, and nominations are currently being solicited by the awards committee.