2002-2003 ETA KAPPA NU OFFICERS

Eta Kappa Nu is the national honor society for Electrical and Computer Engineering. Eta Kappa Nu was founded in 1904 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. Currently, HKN has over 200 chapters in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Eligibility depends mostly on scholarship, personal character, voluntary services, and distinguished accomplishments. For undergraduates, the most important qualification is scholarship during the first years in college.

While one of its purposes is certainly the stimulation and reward of scholarship, Eta Kappa Nu has a far broader purpose than merely to award a badge of distinction to scholars. As conceived by its founders and as carried forward by its membership during more than two generations, another aim is to assist its members throughout their lives in becoming better professionals as well as better citizens. In turn, it is still another purpose of the organization that its members be a constructive force, helping fellow members and non-members alike to improve the standards of the profession, the courses of instruction, and the institutions where its chapters are established.

2002-2003 IEEE OFFICERS

The IEEE is a non-profit, technical professional association of more than 377,000 individual members in 150 countries. The full name is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, although the organization is most popularly known and referred to as “I Triple E”. Through its members, the IEEE is a leading authority in a diversity of technical areas including computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications, electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics, and many others. Through its technical publishing, conferences and consensus-based standards activities, the IEEE produces 30 percent of the world's published literature in electrical engineering and computers and control technology, annually holds more than 300 major conferences, and has nearly 900 active standards with 700 under development.

WILLIAM C. LINDSEY Professor of Electrical Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, California

The speaker will discuss why he became involved with Communications Engineering, the IEEE and Eta Kappa Nu while he was an undergraduate student at the University of Arkansas. These decisions were highly influenced by the University’s Electrical Engineering curriculum and the exciting and historical satellite launches of Sputnik I in October of 1957 and Explorer I in January of 1958. He will share his experiences and contributions as they relate to NASA’s Deep Space Communications (including Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner's Venus and Mars probes), NASA’s and DoD’s Satellite Communications (TDRSS, Shuttle, Space Station, GPS, Milstar, DSP, etc.) and Wireless Communications. He will provide his vision for the future of communications and electronics by reviewing "Moore's Law" and how this law is influencing the creation of a new era for engineering and engineering education, viz., "The Invisible Revolution." It is predicted that nanoelectromechanical systems and nanotechnologies will likely become as familiar to engineers as are present day microelectromechanical systems and microtechnologies. Such nanosystems/technologies will likely have great impact on our daily lives and the future of today's engineering students and educators.

William C. Lindsey graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1958 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering; he also received the Senior Scholar award that year. Subsequently, Dr. Lindsey received his PhD from Purdue University in 1962 and joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1968, he joined the University of Southern California. Since then, he has served as Professor of Electrical Engineering. He was Chairman of the Board and CEO of LinCom Corporation, a company he founded in 1974. A frequent consultant to the US government and various industrial organizations, he has published over 150 papers on diverse topics in communication and information theory and holds numerous patents. He has written three books: Synchronization Systems in Communication and Control (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972); Telecommunication Systems Engineering, coauthored with M.K. Simon (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973; revised edition, Dover Publications, 1991); and Digital Communication Techniques: Signal Design and Detection, co-authored with Marvin K. Simon and Sami M. Hinedi (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995). He coauthored the IEEE Press Book Phase-Locked Loops and Their Applications.

Dr. Lindsey serves on Commission C, Signals and Systems of the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI) and was Vice President for Technical Affairs of the IEEE Communications Society. He also served as the second Vice Chairman of the Communications Society (circa 1963) and is a former Editor of the Communications Society journal. Currently he serves as an Editor for the Journal on Communications and Networks.

Dr. Lindsey is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and Fellow of the International Engineering Consortium (IEC). He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and serves on the advisory board for Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several other startup companies.