2015 IEEE North Jersey Awards Banquet

2015 Award recipients and members of the IEEE North Jersey Section and Region 1: from left to right: Howard Huang, William Magerkurth, Russell Pepe, Virginia Sulzberger, Thomas Marzetta, Ajay Poddar, Peter Eckstein, Richard Tax, Ulrich Rohde, Meta Rohde, Bob Pellegrino, Ken Oexle, Ron Quade, Har Dayal, Adriaan van Wijngaarden, Mani Iyer, Krishna Raghnunandan, Howard Leach, Shweta Jain, Robert Safranek, Matthew Andrews, and Gary Hoffman.

The 2015 IEEE North Jersey Section Awards Banquet was held at the Birchwood Manor, Whippany, NJ, on Sunday, May 3, 2015. The Awards Banquet started at 3:00 pm with a get together and a buffet, and was followed by the Awards ceremony, where a record number of award recipients were recognized. The event was well attended, with 67 in attendance. The Awards Ceremony started with opening remarks from the IEEE North Jersey Section Chair, Dr. Adriaan van Wijngaarden. He welcomed everyone and introduced several special guests: Peter Eckstein, 2015 IEEE USA President-Elect and past IEEE Region 1 Director (2012-2013), Bala Prasanna, IEEE Region 1 Treasurer, and Dr. Raghu Raghunandan, 2014-2015 IEEE Metropolitan Area Sections Activities Council (METSAC) Chair. Dr. Van Wijngaarden and Peter Eckstein to took turns to recognize the award recipients.

Five new 2015 IEEE Fellows in the North Jersey Section were recognized:

  • Dr. Matthew Andrews, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, for contributions to network design and wireless resource allocation.
  • Dr. Gary Hoffman, Advanced Power Technologies, LLC, for leadership in the advancement of monitoring systems for power transformers and power line protection.
  • Dr. Howard Huang, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, for contributions to multiple antenna techniques in wireless cellular networks.
  • Dr. Unnikrishna Pillai, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, for contributions to adaptive signal processing and radar systems.
  • Dr. Robert Safranek, Benevue, Inc., for contributions to perceptual image and video compression and quality.

IEEE Region 1 Awards
Four IEEE Region 1 Award recipients were recognized:

  • Dr. Mani Iyer, Alcatel-Lucent, for outstanding leadership and service to the IEEE North Jersey Section.
  • Dr. Shweta Jain, Mathematics and Computer Science Department, York College, for contributions in engineering education and technical leadership in wireless communication.
  • Dr. Meta Rohde, Synergy Microwave Corp., for outstanding management in the design and production of the state-of-the-art RF and microwave components.
  • Dr. Ulrich Rohde, Synergy Microwave Corp., for outstanding scientific contributions and leadership in the design and implementation of sophisticated RF technologies.

Major IEEE Awards
Four recipients of major IEEE Awards were recognized:

  • Howard Leach, Member and Geographic Activities Award, for distinguished section volunteer leadership and outstanding contributions as Section Historian and IEEE Milestone Coordinator, serving IEEE for the benefit of the members and the engineering profession.
  • Dr. Thomas L. Marzetta, Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, IEEE W.R.G. Baker Award, in recognition of the most outstanding paper reporting original work published in any IEEE archival publication: “Non-cooperative cellular wireless with unlimited numbers of base station antennas,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 3590-3600, Nov. 2010.
  • Dr. Ajay K. Poddar, Synergy Wave Corp., 2015 IFCS W.G. Cady Award, for the analysis, design and development of a host of frequency control products exhibiting state-of-the-art performance, including the development of extremely low noise crystal oscillator circuitry.
  • Dr. Ulrich Rohde, Synergy Wave Corp., 2015 IFCS I.I. Rabi Award, for intellectual leadership, selection and measurement of resonator structures for implementation in high performance frequency sources, essential in the determination of atomic resonance.

IEEE History Committee Awards

  • Howard Leach, for proposing and researching the Milestone: Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., 1925-1983.
  • North Jersey Section (accepted by Russell Pepe), for contributing greatly to the preservation of the achievements of our electrical engineering and computing profession, as well as, regional history of great value.

IEEE Power and Energy Society Awards

  • Virginia Sulzberger, IEEE PES Lifetime Achievement Award, for pioneering leadership in developing reliability analysis methods, performing reliability assessments of interconnected transmission systems, and establishing transmission reliability planning standards applied in North America during a 50-year career.
  • William Magerkurth, PES Outstanding Engineer Award, for leadership and contributions in the design, analysis, operating performance and efficiency of electrical industrial power systems.

2015 IEEE North Jersey Distinguished Service Awards

  • Har Dayal, in recognition of leadership and outstanding service to the IEEE North Jersey Section.
  • Richard Tax, in recognition of leadership and outstanding service to the IEEE North Jersey Section.

The Awards Banquet was organized by Ken Oexle, Russell Pepe, and Adriaan van Wijngaarden. The Awards Program was prepared and printed by Ann Giedlinski. The group photo was taken by Bala Prasanna.