How to be an IEEE fellow ?

Dr. Bimal K. Bose, Life Fellow, IEEE

The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic leagues as much as you can, send your out- than one Society/Council, select one that will
Engineers) is the largest international profes- standing publications to selected people and tend to give you better evaluation. The
sional organization with membership around ask for comments, etc. Participation in inter- Nominator will need your intimate cooperation
271,000. To receive the Fellowship award national conferences is becoming more in filling up the Nomination Form. The salient
from the IEEE is highly prestigious and a sym- expensive, and therefore, promoting visibility points in contributions and evidence of
bol of status in your profession. It is the recog- becomes more difficult, particularly for people accomplishment should be included, but the
nition of your outstanding professional accom- from the developing countries. However, easy whole space should not be filled with “dry” and
plishment. If you become an IEEE Fellow, the internet communication is a favorable tool for “highly technical” statements which are not
gate will open for you for more prestigious this. At appropriate time, when you think you comprehensible by persons outside the candi-
IEEE Medals, Field Awards, Society Awards, are eligible to be an IEEE Fellow, propose it to dates area of expertise. The number of publi-
and you will be eligible for Distinguished a potential Nominator and ask his opinion. Or cations (including journal papers), patents and
Lectureship offered by some selected IEEE else, a Nominator takes initiative and identi- books (if any) should be mentioned. General
Societies. It is also likely that the door comments highlighting the impor-
will open to you for promotions and tance of the work should be includ-
higher responsibilities in life. ed. Did the work have any special
However, to be an elite member of the impact? All the important eye-catch-
Fellow group, you have to face severe ing words should be in bold charac-
global competition. Every year, the ters. Minimum font size of 10 can be
IEEE restricts the Fellowship award to used. If necessary, the space should
only 0.1% of total membership. As be filled up using larger font size.
the IEEE is expanding globally bring- Carefully chosen words should be
ing in more membership, i.e., more selected in the Form and it should
Fellowships awards annually, to be be revised several times until the
an IEEE Fellow remains as competi- write-up is optimal. Note that pro-
tive as ever. fessional ethics is important, and
conflict of interest should be avoided
How can you be an IEEE Fellow? You in all stages. It is unethical for the
can deserve this award if you have candidate (as well as the Nominator)
made significant contributions as to fill-up the Form and pass it to the
research engineer/scientist, applica- Nominator for acceptance as it is.
tion engineer/practitioner, technical The Nominator forwards the com-
leader, or educator although, practi- pleted Form to the IEEE Fellow
cally speaking, majority of the awards Committee with copies to the
are bagged by the university profes- Referees and one or more
sors with doctorate degree and sub- Endorsers, if any. All the deadlines
stantial research publications [1]. shown in the flowchart can be modi-
Industrial engineers/researchers fied by the IEEE for any year.
(preferably with doctorate degree)
with significant patents and publica- Referees
tions also constitute a large number of As mentioned above, all the
Fellow recipients every year. Only the Referees should be IEEE Fellows,
first category will be emphasized in and they should fill up the Fellow
this article. The IEEE Fellowship is Reference Form and forward to the
awarded by nomination, and you Fellow Committee within a deadline.
must be a Senior Member with Fig.1 Flowchart for IEEE Fellowship election It is better to distribute Referees
Membership status at least for five around the world and among out-
years. The Fellowship election by the IEEE is fies you as a potential Candidate. Although a standing professionals, if possible. A bad
a very complex process and is given by the Nominator can be anybody (except the IEEE impression is easily created if, for example,
flowchart shown in Fig.1. officials participating in the Fellowship only Chinese Referees are selected for a
process), even a non-member of the IEEE, it Chinese candidate. Also, concentration of
Nominator is better that he is an important professional, Referees from the local area should be avoid-
By the time you become eligible for preferably an IEEE Fellow. At the same time, ed. In the Reference Form, the core accom-
Fellowship with your “extraordinary record of help the Nominator to identify 5 (minimum) – plishment should be mentioned, but should
accomplishments”, many senior professional 8 (maximum) IEEE Fellows who will be willing not be dragged too deep into highly technical
colleagues come to know you and admire to act as Referees admiring highly your contri- points which are incomprehensible beyond
your work. The professional visibility is butions. Once the Nominator and Referees the Candidates area of expertise. In general
extremely important for being an IEEE Fellow. have been identified, the next step is comple- terms, the importance of the work should be
Attend as many conferences as possible, tion of Fellow Nomination Form very carefully. mentioned highlighting any special impact of
present papers, chair sessions, participate in At this point, determine the IEEE the work. The number of publications (includ-
panel sessions, review papers, establish con- Society/Council that will evaluate the ing journal papers), patents and books (if any)
tact and impress the senior professional col- Nomination Form. If you are active in more should be mentioned. Again, easy, simple and

6 Industrial Electronics Society Newsletter

concise sentences should be selected with The scores are weighted according to the fol- date’s accomplishment. Sometimes, the help
emphatic words. The space can be filled up lowing priorities: of “scholar.google.com” is taken to evaluate
using higher font size (minimum size 10), if • Individual Contributions how the nominee’s publications are cited by
necessary. Bold letters should be used for • Society Evaluation others. Finally, a score will be given from the
important points to catch the eye. Here, again, • References judgment.
the code of ethics and conflict of interest are • Professional Activity A Fellow judge also gives a Pass/Fail recom-
important. The Referee classifies the candi- This is the most crucial stage for evaluation. mendation in the Form with the Fail grade if
date in one of the following categories: Not Note that a Fellow judge may be a computer the candidate appears to be unqualified. All
Qualified, Qualified, Highly Qualified and scientist evaluating a power engineer who the percentage scores are multiplied with the
Extraordinarily Qualified. The recommenda- may not know anything on power engineering. appropriate weighting factors, added, and
tion statements should match this classifica- He will try to get impression about the candi- averaged for the group members. A final score
tion. date from all the statements and Society (with small weightage) that depends on the
scores. The practical approach of evaluation number of years since receiving the first
Endorsers may be as follows: degree is easily added by the IEEE staff.
The letters of endorsement in Fellow (1)Have first impression of the candidate by Similar scorings are done by the other
Endorsement Form can be submitted by pro- looking into the year of Ph.D. degree, the uni- groups, and all the results are blended togeth-
fessional organizations or individuals support- versity, and his employment record. A good er in a master list with serial or totem pole
ing the nomination of the candidate, but the university, 8-10 year employment experience ranking of all the candidates. The Fellow
endorsement is optional. Often, the endorse- and a reputed place of employment gives Committee members will then meet in a place,
ments go unnoticed for the evaluation of the good impression. discuss discrepancy of scoring, iterate the
Fellowship process. (2) Look into Society evaluation score and serial ranking and finalize the citation . At the
comments, and select a score. This early end, the upper slab (0.1% of total member-
Society/Council Evaluation impression is very important. The score may ship) will be selected and forwarded to the
Every IEEE Society/Council has an be somewhat different from Society score Board of Directors with favorable recommen-
Evaluation Committee with a number of mem- because he is trying to equalize among differ- dation. Finally, a congratulatory letter comes
bers and the Chair which is responsible for ent Societies to the lucky candidate announcing his
evaluation of the Fellow Nomination Forms (3) Look into IEEE and non-IEEE activities of Fellowship. Then, the official Fellow
forwarded in that Society. Note that the the Nomination Form and select the score for Certificate is given in an IEEE conference.
Society evaluator may not be necessarily in Professional Activity. The awards, offices Apparently, IEEE Fellowship nomination and
the candidate’s field of specialization, and held, committee membership, etc. determine evaluation constitute a complicated and
may not understand much of the candidate’s this score. painstaking process that requires many man-
professional accomplishment. He will try to (4) Read the Reference Forms and score hours of strenuous work for many people.
search for good words about the candidate. References with an impression. Often, the However, such an effort is justified consider-
The Committee fills up an Evaluation Form Reference Form by an outstanding profes- ing the weight and prestige of the award.
scoring the candidates into four groups: Not sional carries weight. Good luck to you.
Qualified, Marginally Qualified, Qualified, (5)Scoring the Individual Contribution which (Note – The Fellowship policy is determined
Highly Qualified and Extraordinarily Qualified has the maximum weightage is the most cru- by the IEEE Fellowship Committee, and
with a corresponding numerical score. All the cial part of the evaluation. By scoring the first therefore, the evaluation procedure may
candidates are then ranked in serial order. three items, the Fellow Judge has made a def- change from year to year.)
The Society evaluation score is extremely inite impression about the candidate. He will
important for being an IEEE Fellow. The larg- then look into the Nomination Form and [1] www.ieee.org/fellows
er Societies have many nominations and search further impressions about the candi-
competition tends to be severe. The nomina- date. He does not really understand the tech-
tion for low score candidates die at the nical jargons of the accomplishment and will
Society level. On the other hand, in a small look for key words that will highlight the candi-
Society, normally the score tends to be high
because of less competition. In order to get
good score at the Society level, the candidate IES members appointed as IEEE Fellows in 2005
must be highly visible within the Society. Often
We are proud to comunicate that recently these IES high power converters in power systems
a good impression comes by the Society members have been appointed as IEEE Fellows
work, such as organizing and chairing ses- Prof. Makoto Kaneko
sions, tutorials, workshops, being active in Prof. Dushan Boroyevich Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan
various committees, or such visible activities. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, USA kaneko@hfl.hiroshima-u.ac.jp
dushan@vt.edu for contributions to design, sensing, and manipula-
for advancement of control, modeling and design of tion schemes for robotic hands
Fellow Committee switching power converters
The IEEE Fellow Committee is the guardian Prof. Kazuhiro Kosuge
that administers the Fellow evaluation Prof. Carlo Cecati Tohoku University, Sedai, Japan
process and sends the final recommendation University of L'Aquila, L'Aquila, Italy kosuge@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp
c.cecati@ieee.org for contributions to multiple robots coordination
about the successful candidate to the Board
for contributions to advanced control of power elec- and human-robot interface
of Directors for formal award of the Fellow tronics converters and electrical drives
grade. It consists of a number of members Dr. Alfred Rufer
(called judges) with a Chair on the top. The Prof. Hideki Hashimoto EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
members are divided into several groups with University of Tokyo alfred.rufer@epfl.ch
Tokyo, Japan for contributions to supercapacitive energy storage
several members in each group. Each mem- hashimoto@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp techniques and asymmetrical multilevel inverters
ber receives the complete nomination pack- for contributions to mechatronics systems
age (Fellow Nomination Form, Reference Dr. Dennis Woodford
Forms, Endorsement Forms and Society Prof. Geza Joos Electranix Corporation, Winnipeg, Canada
Evaluation Form), say, of 100 candidates and McGill University, Montreal, Canada daw@electranix.com
joos@ece.mcgill.ca for leadership in the development of digital simula-
fills up a score sheet about each candidate. for contributions to the theory and application of tion of DC links and flexible AC transmission devices

Industrial Electronics Society Newsletter 7