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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 1 of 12 Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017 Volume 66, No. 11 Included in this issue: Notes From the Chair .............................................................................................................................. 2 Engineering Role before and after the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster .............................. 3 National Energy Technology Laboratory Tour ................................................................................... 4 Crowd Research: Labels, Workflows, and Crowd-Powered Systems ............................................ 5 What Does A Project Manager Look For In An Engineer When Hiring? ..................................... 5 The History of Cybersecurity ............................................................................................................... 6 Women in Engineering Seeking a New Chair ...................................................................................... 7 Report on the WPXI Tour ...................................................................................................................... 7 Congratulations to CMU, 2017 Winner, Pittsburgh Section Student Membership Drive ....... 9 Welcome Our New Senior Members .................................................................................................... 9 New Members Welcomed to the Pittsburgh Section .................................................................... 10 George In Big Screen Battle ............................................................................................................... 10 Report on the North American Power Symposium.......................................................................... 11 Editor: Philip Cox, [email protected]; Contributors: Steve Dobos, Joe Kalasky, Paige Kassalen, Drew Lowery, Steve Mozelewski, Sarika Khushalani Solanki, Ralph Sprang and Dave Vaglia All announcements for publication in a particular month’s bulletin are due to the Editor by the 20th of the previous month. The accuracy of the published material is not guaranteed. If there is any error, please bring it to the Editor’s attention. The Section’s web site, http://sites.ieee.org/pittsburgh, has recent issues of the bulletin and lots of other useful information.

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Page 1: Pittsburgh Section Bulletin - IEEEIEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12 Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a …

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 1 of 12

Pittsburgh Section

Bulletin November 2017 Volume 66, No. 11

Included in this issue:

Notes From the Chair .............................................................................................................................. 2

Engineering Role before and after the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster .............................. 3

National Energy Technology Laboratory Tour ................................................................................... 4

Crowd Research: Labels, Workflows, and Crowd-Powered Systems ............................................ 5

What Does A Project Manager Look For In An Engineer When Hiring? ..................................... 5

The History of Cybersecurity ............................................................................................................... 6

Women in Engineering Seeking a New Chair ...................................................................................... 7

Report on the WPXI Tour ...................................................................................................................... 7

Congratulations to CMU, 2017 Winner, Pittsburgh Section Student Membership Drive ....... 9

Welcome Our New Senior Members .................................................................................................... 9

New Members Welcomed to the Pittsburgh Section .................................................................... 10

George In Big Screen Battle ............................................................................................................... 10

Report on the North American Power Symposium .......................................................................... 11

Editor: Philip Cox, [email protected]; Contributors: Steve Dobos, Joe Kalasky, Paige Kassalen, Drew

Lowery, Steve Mozelewski, Sarika Khushalani Solanki, Ralph Sprang and Dave Vaglia

All announcements for publication in a particular month’s bulletin are due to the Editor by the 20th of the

previous month. The accuracy of the published material is not guaranteed. If there is any error, please bring it to

the Editor’s attention. The Section’s web site, http://sites.ieee.org/pittsburgh, has recent issues of the bulletin

and lots of other useful information.

Page 2: Pittsburgh Section Bulletin - IEEEIEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12 Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a …

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12

Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a lot of activity

happening in the Pittsburgh Section. All of our chapters

and affinity groups having or planning meetings

throughout the year, our sub-section in West Virginia,

which hosted our Executive and Administrative

Committee meeting last month, is also engaging the

membership, and our student chapters are busy

planning for upcoming events. Make sure you take time

to check out these amazing technical activities.

I hope by now you have renewed your IEEE

membership for the upcoming year. If you have not,

please take a few minutes and look at the IEEE

Membership and Subscription catalog, and renew your

subscription and join a new society or affinity group.

Remember, there are benefits for recruiting new IEEE

members!

In other news, on October 6, Jose M. F. Moura, IEEE

Life Fellow, has been elected as the 2018 IEEE

President-Elect. Pending acceptance of the IEEE

Tellers’ Committee report by the IEE Board of

Directors in November, Moura will begin serving as

IEEE President on January 1, 2019. He will succeed

2018 IEEE President James A. Jefferies.

The Pittsburgh Section is also going to have an officer’s

election later this month. You will be contacted via

eNotice about how to cast your vote. Jim Lagree, the

immediate past chair, and the nomination committee, is

currently finalizing this year’s ballot. If you would like

to be involved in the future within the Pittsburgh

section, make sure to let us know. There are always

many volunteer opportunities available.

Drew Lowery

2017 IEEE Pittsburgh Section Chair

Section

Chair - Dr. Drew Lowery, [email protected]

Vice Chair -- Dan Wilson, [email protected]

Treasurer – Gene Kern, [email protected] Asst. Treasurer – Ted Zyra

Secretary - Navid Binesh, [email protected]

Immediate Past Chair – Jim Lagree, [email protected]

Special Events Chair – Dr. Kal Sen, [email protected]

Webmaster – Gerry Kumnik, [email protected]

UpperMon Subsection

Chair: Dr. Gianfranco Doretto, [email protected]

Chapters

Communications Society – Chair: Dr. Balaji Palanisamy, [email protected]; Sec: Phil Cox, [email protected]

Computer Society – Chair: Dr. Ralph Sprang, [email protected]

Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology/Electron Devices Societies – Chair: Dr. Louis Hart, [email protected]

Engineering In Medicine & Biology Society Chair: Steve Mozelewski, [email protected]

Electromagnetic Compatibility Society Chair: Michael J. Oliver [email protected] (814) 763-3211

Power Electronics Society – Chair: Dr. Brandon Grainger [email protected]

Power & Energy & Industry Applications Societies Chair: Steve Dobos, [email protected]; Vice-Chair: Julie Clark; Treas.: Dave Vaglia, [email protected]

Magnetics Society – Chair: Vincent Sokalsky, [email protected]

Robotics Society – Chair: Gene Kern, [email protected]

Signal Processing Society – Chair: Nicholas.O’Donoughue [email protected]

Society on Social Implications of Technology Chair: Joe Kalasky, P.E., [email protected] 724-244-1609

Council of Electronic Design Automation Chair: Baris Taskin, [email protected]

Affinity Groups

Young Professionals (formerly GOLD) – Chair: Matthew Rehder [email protected]

Women In Engineering – Chair: Paige Kassalen, [email protected]

Committees

Professional/Career Activities (PACE) Chair: Joe Cioletti, P.E. [email protected]

Student Activities – Dr. Irvin Jones, [email protected]; student reps: Chair:, Zoe Toigo, [email protected]; Vice-chair: Will Howard, [email protected];

Membership Development – Steve Mozelewski, [email protected]

Publicity – Chair: Thomas Dionise, P.E. [email protected] (724) 779-5864

Page 3: Pittsburgh Section Bulletin - IEEEIEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12 Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a …

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 3 of 12

Engineering Role before and after the Space Shuttle Challenger

Disaster

Speaker: Suresh B. Kulkarni, Ph.D

Date: November 6, 2017

Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Place: G102, ESB

West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Abstract: Dr. Kulkarni will share events of the night before and the day of the 1986 Challenger launch,

most likely not known publicly, as well as the environment that existed in the organization pre-

Challenger and how it changed after the incident. He will discuss the steps which were taken to assure

flight safety and some of the ethical challenges faced by him and his team.

Speaker Bio: Born in Hyderabad, India, he came the USA in 1967 to get a Ph.D in Engineering

Mechanics from the University of Denver. After getting his degree in 1970, he returned to India, but

could not find suitable employment. He returned to the USA and joined Thiokol Corporation (now

Orbital-ATK) in Promontory, Utah in 1972 as an entry level junior engineer. He retired from there in

2003 as the Vice President of Systems Engineering over all of ATK’s strategic and tactical programs.

Appointed as the Vice President of Engineering in 1989 over 550 engineers to oversee the design,

fabrication, testing and launch of the solid rocket motors, which propelled the shuttle into space, he had

the ultimate authority to give the final “GO” for the ignition of the solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy

Space Center in Florida. His efforts helped launch 55 space shuttle flights without a failure over a period

of nine years, from 1989 to 1997.

Among the many astronauts he has worked with during his professional career were John W. Young

who walked on the moon and Robert Crippen, the Mission Commander and Pilot respectively of STS-1

(Orbiter Columbia), the first orbital flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program, as well as Dr. Story

Musgrave who repaired the Hubble Telescope twice.

Some notable Shuttle missions that Suresh was involved in include: Magellan Spacecraft to Venus (May

1989); Galileo Spacecraft to Jupiter (October 1989); Hubble Space Telescope (April 1990); and the

Shuttle-Mir (the Russian Space Station) docking (July 1995). In 1999, he served on President Bill

Clinton’s Presidential Commission known as the Space Launch Broad Area Review (BAR) to

investigate commercial flight failures and recommend corrective actions.

Suresh and his wife, Diane, reside in Perry City, Utah and have two married daughters and two

grandchildren. He spends his time doing volunteer work in the local community as well as gardening.

He has received accolades as the “Citizen of the Year” in 2009 from the mayor of Perry City, and

“Trustee of the Year” in 2010 from the Utah Hospital and Health Systems Association.

Page 4: Pittsburgh Section Bulletin - IEEEIEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12 Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a …

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 4 of 12

National Energy Technology Laboratory Tour

Sponsored by: Society for Social Implications of Technology & Professional Activities Committee

Tour Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Tour time: 1 PM (approximately 2 hours)

Location: 1354 Wallace Rd, South Park Township, PA 15129. A precise meeting point will be

provided to all registrants. Be sure to include your email address in the vtools

registration.

Link to Registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/46618

We are privileged to announce that a walking tour of the National Energy Technology Laboratory has

been arranged.

IMPORTANT Notes to ATTENDEES:

As clearly mentioned in the September Bulletin, the last date for non-US citizens to file

clearance forms was September 22. US citizens must bring a valid ID, which can be a passport

or driver’s license. PA Driver’s License will suffice or bring a valid Passport. If from another

state, please let us know which state by November 6 ([email protected]) and we will confirm.

You may need additional ID because several states do not have licenses that meet DOE

standards.

ALL VISITORS MUST WEAR CLOSED TOE SHOES! NO EXCEPTIONS!

The tour is open only to IEEE Members.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)

national laboratory system, is owned and operated by the DOE. NETL supports the DOE mission to

advance the energy security of the United States.

NETL implements a broad spectrum of energy and environmental research and development (R&D)

programs that will return benefits for generations to come. These include:

Enabling domestic coal, natural gas, and oil to economically power our Nation’s homes,

industries, businesses, and transportation.

Protecting our environment and enhancing our energy independence.

NETL has expertise in coal, natural gas, and oil technologies; contract and project management; analysis

of energy systems; and international energy issues.

In addition to research conducted onsite, NETL’s project portfolio includes R&D conducted through

partnerships, cooperative research and development agreements, financial assistance, and contractual

arrangements with universities and the private sector. Together, these efforts focus a wealth of scientific

and engineering talent on creating commercially viable solutions to national energy and environmental

problems.

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 5 of 12

The IEEE tour of the laboratory facility includes a detailed presentation to our group.

IEEE members who are US citizens must make a reservation by November 1

The tour is limited to the first twenty approved registrants.

Crowd Research: Labels, Workflows, and Crowd-Powered Systems

Speaker: Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang

Date: November 13, 2017

Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Place: G102, ESB

West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

Abstract: Amazon Mechanical Turk, one of the largest crowdsourcing marketplaces, was launched to

the public in 2005. Since then, researchers have developed a tremendous amount of work around this

platform. In this talk, we will walk through three types of crowdsourcing projects via the lens of

building future computer systems, including (i) labeling datasets and providing human feedback for

computer systems, (ii) developing workflows for workers to accomplish complex tasks, and (iii) creating

real-time interactive systems using human-in-the-loop architectures.

Speaker Bio: Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang is a Yahoo Fellow PhD candidate at Language Technologies

Institute, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU.) His research focuses on real-time crowdsourcing and

conversational agents, under the broader umbrella of fast-paced human-in-the-loop architectures. As a

part of his PhD work with Prof. Jeffrey P. Bigham, Kenneth deployed Chorus

(http://talkingtothecrowd.org/), a first chatbot that is powered by real-time crowdsourcing; he also

developed the Visual Storytelling Dataset (VIST) as a summer intern at Microsoft Research in 2015.

Prior to his PhD, Kenneth worked on natural language processing for many years during his studies at

CMU and National Taiwan University, where he obtained a double degree in computer science and

Chinese literature.

Life As A Project Manager In The Tech Industry: What Does A

Project Manager Look For In An Engineer When Hiring?

Speaker: Dale G. Dzielski

Date: November 27, 2017

Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Place: G102, ESB

West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 6 of 12

Abstract: The talk will present a look inside of the operations of a tech firm from the project manager's

perspective. He will address stages of a project from concept to completion. He will focus on what

makes one candidate more appealing than another when hiring to fill a position in a project. He will also

discuss what happens to the team when a project comes to completion.

Speaker Bio: Dale G. Dzielski is a results oriented Project Management Professional (PMP®) and

Certified Management Accountant (CMA®) with 25+ years of extensive experience supporting

complex, deadline-driven operations with IT professionals across various industries including Private,

Federal and State Government sectors. His reputation to effectively communicate and build relationships

with clients and customers at all levels of the organization has earned him a 99.7% satisfaction rating

from customers. His industry experience as a project manager and program manager focused

on developing and maintaining quality IT processes that reduce redundancy, improve accuracy and

efficiency, and achieve organizational objectives. He is repeatedly recognized for successfully coaching,

mentoring, and training of peers and subordinates. He earned a BS in Business Administration with a

double minor in Economics and Electronic Data Processing from Fairmont State and an MBA from

Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. With over 20 years teaching in higher education, Mr.

Dzielski is currently the Graduate Program Coordinator for the WVU Online Software Engineering

Programs, leading the program of over 60 graduate students across 17 States into nationally ranked

status as 10th in 2017 Online Graduate Computer & Information Technology Programs by US News &

World Report. He received the 2017 Lane Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Outstanding

Advisor award. He was the program manager in 2014 for the Center for Identification Technology

Research (CITeR) program and is now the Technology-to-Market Lead on the WVU DoE ARPA-E

GENSETS Program Research Project; developing the next disruptive technology in the energy sector for

military, residential, and commercial applications.

The History of Cybersecurity

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 29th, 2017

Time: 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM

Place: TBD, around I279 and McKnight Road, see event registration page for details

Organizer: Computer Society

RSVP: at https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/47293. IEEE membership number is required.

Abstract: As recent events have demonstrated, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important in

almost all aspects of modern life, from personal finance to the electric grid to geopolitics. The potential

for negative impacts will continue to increase as businesses, governments and society become more and

more dependent on digital information processing systems. In order to build systems and shape

behavior that can account for these risks, we need to understand the circumstances that contributed to

our current situation.

This talk is a review of significant events in the history of computer and network security and is based

on literature reviews, news articles, interviews and the speaker’s personal and professional experience.

It is presented in timeline format starting with a brief review of pre-computer information security. The

timeline divides itself into four eras that are aligned with advances in general computing technology:

the run-up and aftermath of World War II, mainframes and the adoption of business systems, the public

switched telephone network boom, and the rise of Internet.

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 7 of 12

The presentation tries to make the case that there are no new problems, only old problems reinterpreted

for new technologies. It is delivered in a straightforward format conveying the facts as they were

recorded by history, but also includes analysis that highlights the human elements that are sometimes

humorous, somber, amusing or tragic. The goal of this talk is to encourage discussion among the

participants who lived and worked through these times in order to add to the body of work.

Bio: George Warnagiris is a professional information security analyst and a novice computer historian.

He currently works at a global firm that engineers and manufactures advanced materials and is

headquartered in Butler County. He has been in the field of information technology for the past 18 years

with several companies in multiple sectors including finance, academia, government, manufacturing,

chemical processing and power generation.

Mr. Warnagiris is an IEEE Senior Member and holds a B.A. in Computer Science with a minor in

Mathematics from Hunter College, City University of New York. George originally performed the

cybersecurity history research in 2011, but has continued to update it with new information gathered

from interviews and group discussions like this one.

Women in Engineering Seeking a New Chair

Seeking a chair for the Women in Engineering IEEE Affinity group starting in January 2018.

Time commitment includes:

Monthly executive committee meetings on the 3rd Thursday of each month

Planning for at least 2 WIE events per year

Please contact Paige Kassalen at [email protected] if you are interested!

Report on the WPXI Tour

On Tuesday15AUG17. the Pittsburgh IEEE IAS/PES Joint Chapter held a meeting and engineering tour

at the WPXI Channel 11 Television Studio located just North of Pittsburgh, PA. Our tour presenter was

Otto Schellin. Otto is the Director of Engineering at WPXI.

We had a great turnout of 36 attendees that included 21 IEEE members. The meeting and tour walked

through the history of WPXI which included the signing on of the TV Station known as WIIC back in

August 1957. The station broadcast launch was performed by Bill Cardille. Bill Cardille was also known

for hosting memorable programs such as Chiller Theatre and Studio Wrestling.

In April 1981, the station's call sign was changed to WPXI for "Pittsburgh 11", (with XI being the

Roman Numeral for 11).

WPXI currently transmits as virtual channel 11 (UHF digital channel 48) with its antenna located in the

Fineview section of Pittsburgh putting out an Effective Radiated Power Output of 1000 kW (1 Million

Watts). There are backup generators located at both the antenna and also the TV Studio. The TV Studio

employs a 1.5-Megawatt backup generator that spins up to power in a superfast speed of just 8 seconds!

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 8 of 12

We were lucky enough to have special guest Stephone Cropper stop by for a surprise visit during the

meeting. Stephen is the Chief Meteorologist (Weather Man) of WPXI. He gave us a brief overview of

meteorology for the Pittsburgh area. He also gave us insight and safety tips on the Solar Eclipse of

Mon-21AUG17. Below left, is Stephen talking with our group. Below right, is a great picture of our

whole IEEE group behind the official WPXI TV News Desk!

The use of Green Screen video screen is used in television news especially for the weather forecasters.

Below we have a demonstration on the use of the Green Screen Technology. Take notice of our pointing

volunteer in front of the big green screen with nothing on it, below left. He seems to be pointing to

nothing on the screen, ahhhh, but then look to the left of our volunteer and you’ll notice that he is

pointing at a super imposed weather map of the PA Tri State area. Below right, take notice of the photo

with fully automated cameras that are used to broadcast the news to the viewers at home.

See the news room area below left where news comes into WPXI and the many members of the WPXI team

organize and get the news out to the public. Otto Schellin below right is a major contributor to getting this news to

you in a perfect HD picture with his many years of engineering experience.

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 9 of 12

We would like to thank Otto Schellin and all the WPXI Channel 11 Television Studio members for a

awesome tour and great behind the scenes memories!

Thank You,

Pittsburgh IEEE IAS/PES Joint Chapter

Congratulations to CMU, 2017 Winner, Pittsburgh Section Student

Membership Drive

Congratulations to Carnegie Mellon University for winning the 2017 Pittsburgh section student

membership drive. During the month of September, CMU added 17 new members to their student

section. Coming in second place, the University of Pittsburgh added 16 new members. Both schools

had various activities to encourage students to join. CMU participated in the student fair and Pitt held a

raffle. New to the section this year was Point Park University. We wish them much luck in their efforts

to grow their student chapter. As winner, CMU received 3 Amazon Echo Dots for use in their student

labs. Congratulations to all involved!

Welcome Our New Senior Members

Darryl Davis

Mor Harchol-Balter

Alonzo Kelly

Dale Dzielski

Charles Li, President of the CMU

student section receives a certificate of

recognition from Steve Mozelewski,

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Membership

Development Chair

(L-R) Samantha Wang (Secretary),

Charles Li (President), and Justin Ahn

(Vice President)

Page 10: Pittsburgh Section Bulletin - IEEEIEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 2 of 12 Notes From the Chair As fall is now in full swing, there is a …

IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 10 of 12

New Members Welcomed to the Pittsburgh Section

Within the last month, the following members joined the IEEE Pittsburgh section

Member Andrew Doller

Brad Robert Leccia

Fabrizio Sauro

Aaron C Taylor

Student Member Ryan Becker

Shane Benning

Vijay Bhattiprolu

Kathleen Bracken

Benjamin Harper

Sidharth Vaidyanathan Iyer

Zachary Mattis

Anjali Menon

Brendan Schuster

David Skrovanek

Toby Sun

Robert Taylor

Aarushi Wadhwa

Corey Weimann

Roger Xue

Jake Zimmer

Graduate Student Member

Martin Bbaale

Evren Gokcen

Justin H Hawks

Zeye Liu

XIn Liu

Siqi Liu

Yuzuko Carol Nakamura

Jiangwei Zhang

George In Big Screen Battle

The following may be of interest to our Pittsburgh Section members:

A biographical historical film throwing light on one of George Westinghouse’s technical struggles in the

nineteenth century is due for release soon.

The Current War is the dramatic, illuminating story of the cutthroat race between

electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to determine whose

electrical system would power the modern world.

It’s 1879 and Edison and Westinghouse -- the greatest inventors of the industrial

age -- engage in a battle of technology and ideas that will determine whose

electrical system will power the new century. Edison dazzles the world by lighting

Manhattan. But George Westinghouse, aided by Nikola Tesla, sees fatal flaws in

Edison's direct current design. Westinghouse and Tesla bet everything on the risky

and dangerous alternating current. It’s electrifying stuff!

The film starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon as Thomas Edison and George

Westinghouse respectively is due for release in the USA in November, and early 2018 in the UK.

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 11 of 12

Report on the North American Power Symposium

General Chair and Co-Chair of NAPS 2017 The 49th North American Power Symposium was held at The Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Morgantown, WV from September 17-19, 2017. The conference included more than 250 technical papers on research, practice and education in key power system areas and represented more than 15 countries. NAPS is held every year at a different university in North America and provides an open forum for participants from academia and industry to exchange innovative ideas and solutions. The conference began on Sunday September 17 th by three tutorials on Cybersecurity, Big data and Microgrids and continued with tours to AES Laurel Mountain Windfarm, Longview Power Plant and WVU Campus as well as Coopers Rock tours along with some committee meetings. Monday began with a Welcome address by Symposium Chair Jignesh Solanki and Co-Chair Sarika Khushalani Solanki and opening remarks by Gordon Gee, President of West Virginia University and Gene Cilento, Glen Hiner Dean of College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. Wayne Carr from Milsoft Utility Solutions; Mark McGranaghan, Vice President of distribution and energy utilization sector from Electric Power Research Institute; Mike Doran, Vice President of Operations, Duquesne Light Company; Eyad Abed, Program Director-Division of Electrical Communications and Cyber Systems were the keynote speakers on Monday. Tom Weaver, manager distribution system planning, American Electric Power; Marija Ilic, Professor at Carnegie Mellon University and Di Shi, manager, PMU and System Analytics Group, GEIRI North America were the plenary speakers on Tuesday. The keynote and plenary sessions were followed by eight parallel technical sessions with 32 sessions over two days. NAPS continued the long-held tradition of encouraging student-presented papers and recognizing student best efforts by six prize paper awards presented during the closing ceremony where all efforts including volunteer efforts were recognized. The 300 attendees at the conference had a fun night on Monday with gala dinner at the local Crab Shack Caribba at Cheat Lake. The Symposium organizers wanted to showcase Morgantown and its natural beauty through boat rides for attendees. The attendees also danced to live music from local band. “I will never forget the boat ride – that was terrific,” said Gerald Heydt, Professor Arizona State University. The conference was marked as a huge success, at the closing ceremony, by Anil Pahwa, Logan-Fetterhoof Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “The bar of NAPS has been raised by Jignesh and Sarika” said Rajesh Kavasseri, a faculty from North Dakota State University who will be hosting this event in 2018. The students got motivated and mentioned that they would like to attend this conference every year and noted this conference as the best NAPS conference. In particular, the views surrounding the hotel, plenary and keynote setup, food, boat ride, tutorials, tours, and the technical papers got high remarks. In 2019, NAPS will be hosted by Wichita State University and in 2020 by Arizona State University.

Photos from the top left corner: Buses line for tours; Attendees enjoy the boat ride; Few of the attendees; Dance

during Gala dinner and exhibitors

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IEEE Pittsburgh Section Bulletin November 2017, Volume 66 No. 11 Page 12 of 12

2017 Calendar – Meetings of IEEE Pittsburgh Section Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July August Sept Oct Nov Dec

Executive

Committee

(AdCom)

19

U Pitt

Oakland

16

Panera

Robinson

16

Panera

Galleria

20

Panera

Wexford

18

Panera Bread

Robinson

15

Panera,

Wexford

19

Panera Bread

Oakland

17

Panera Bread,

Mt. Lebanon

21

Panera

Robinson

19

Morgantown

TBD TBD

Section 25 Engineers

Week

5 History

Dinner

4 - Pirates Baseball

12 - Picnic

Communic

ations

1 Spectrum

Sensing

7 Privacy

Protection

19 Cellular

Networks

Computer 7

Int’l Patents

23

Int’l Patents

19

Social

29

Cybersecurity

EMBS 21

Edible

Electronics

19

Surgical

System

23

Biomedical

Modeling

EMCS 11 Military EMC

7 Reverse

Eng.

Power

Electronics

18 Power

Source

Buffer

20 VSC-HVDC

20 EMC

25 Control Tech.

25 Microgrids

20 Environ.

Consider.

22 FACTS

converters

6 Stability

Issues

PES/IAS 9 Chernobyl

20 EMC

11 Military EMC

15 WPXI Tour

2 - Mine Tour

7 - Reverse Eng.

17 Uber Tour

14 TraDet

Magnetics

Robotics

Sig.

Processing

14 DNA of City

19 Cell Networks

CPMT/ED 25

Scientific Validity

14

TraDet

Social Impl

Technology

14

Russ

Harrison

5

Joe Markosek

8

NETL Tour

Upper Mon 13

Resources

20 Publishing

20

NSF

3

Sample Robot

24 Neuroscience

17-19

Power

Symposium

19

Virtual

Reality; 20 - Cell Networks

6 – Space

Shuttle

13 - Crowd 27 - Hiring

Women in

Eng’ing

18

Dream Big

4

Baseball

Young Pros 4

Baseball

12 - Picnic

PACE 13

Solar City

14

Russ Harrison

5

Joe Markosek

8

NETL Tour

Student Act 14

DNA of City