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PAC 2007 Activities
EAB Public Awareness
Committee (PAC)
Amy Bell, PAC Chair
02/17/2007 Universal City, CA, USA
Introduction
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Associate Professor
ECE at Virginia Tech
Signal processing and
image processing
Husband: Sanjay
Raman also an ECE
professor (RFIC)
Two sons: 7 and 3
years old
Primary 2007 Activity
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Joint New Initiative with WIE
Increasing the Representation of
Women in IEEE Fields of Interest
EAB-WIE New Initiative: Increasing the
Representation of Women in ECE and CS
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EAB-WIE New Initiative
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Two year project: 2007-2008
Total budget: $380,000
Approved for funding in 2007
Discovery-based projects for firstyear ECE and CS students
Best teaching practices workshops
for the ECE and CS classroom
New Initiative: Focus on High-Quality
Undergraduate Education
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IEEE will provide ECE and CS faculty with
first-year, discovery-based, projects that
focus on real-world problems whose
solutions impact society
IEEE will provide ECE and CS faculty with
online, self-study workshops on the best
pedagogical techniques for the
engineering/computer science classroom
Discovery-Based Projects
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Novel: emphasis on contemporary, realworld technical projects where the benefit
to society is explicitly addressed
Benefit: improve quality of undergraduate
ECE and CS engineering education for all
students; impact will be greater for
students from under-represented groups
Example Projects
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Power Engineering
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Computer Systems (Hardware)
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Biomedical Tomographic Image Reconstruction
Computer Systems (Software)
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Energy-Efficient Tracking Devices for Container Security
Image Processing
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Blackout Prevention—the Big Picture
Simulating the Motion of the Bacterium E. Coli
Microelectronics, Wireless Communications and
Networking
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Environmental Sensor Network for the Detection of
Toxic Heavy Metals in Groundwater
Signal Processing: Arrhythmia Detection Algorithms
for Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators
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Heart controlled by electrical impulses that govern the
contract-relax cycle
Arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat caused by disordered
electrical activity
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Person can faint, suffer chest pains, and even sudden death
may occur
Heart can be converted back to a normal rhythm with an
electrical shock
An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) administers an
electric shock to the heart; it is an effective treatment for
people at high-risk
ICD must accurately and quickly detect when the rhythm
becomes abnormal
Signal Processing Example (cont.)
A normal heart rhythm (left) is described by the “PQRSTU” wave.
A ventricular fibrillation arrhythmia occurs (right) when abnormal
electrical activity upsets the heart’s normal contract-relax cycle.
Example (cont.)
Hands-on project: the students will use Matlab to
program and evaluate basic rate-based
arrhythmia detection algorithms employed in
ICDs
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Evaluate their algorithms using real electrocardiograms
Learn some statistical performance measures like sensitivity
Through their evaluation, the students will
discover the impact of algorithm computational
complexity on the real-time constraint that is
critical to the ICD’s ability to save lives
Why Does IEEE Care?
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“IEEE needs to better define its role
in engineering education beyond its
focus on outreach.”
“Too many industry managers do not
recognize the value of IEEE.”
From “IEEE Strategic Challenges”
57th Intel International Science and
Engineering Fair: 3 Grand Award Winners
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1,500 students from 47
countries competed for $4M
(US) in scholarships
Each young woman will
receive the distinguished
Intel Foundation Young
Scientist Award
Each award includes a
$50,000 scholarship
Women’s Persistent Under-representation
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<10% of BS engineering degrees awarded to
women in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Austria
19.5% in U.S. (2005, all BS engineering degrees)
 15% of all Electrical Engineering degrees
 12% of all Computer Engineering degrees
 Enrollment in BS engineering is declining
Why?:
 Few examples of how engineering helps people
 Lack of faculty interest and involvement
Reasons IEEE Cares
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Industry managers are very concerned
about hiring enough technically proficient
engineers
Women represent the largest untapped
population for ECE and CS degrees
Women’s persistent under-representation
adversely impacts our profession, our
technological proficiency, and countries’
economic stability
Best Pedagogy Workshops: Topics
from Research on Learning
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Design course around core concepts
Employ real-world, contemporary applications (context)
Address student diversity: learning styles,
background/preparation level, entering skills and
knowledge, attitudes and expectations
Develop problem-solving skills through use of hands-on
projects and case studies
Use collaborative learning techniques to help students
work effectively on teams (one example: pair-programming)
Effective (contrasted with ineffective) assessment
techniques
Foster community and create a supportive learning
environment
Generating High-Quality Project and
Workshop Submissions
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Two-step, peer-reviewed, competitive
selection process
Author award:
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$5000 development grant
Honor—serve a term in the “IEEE
Education Academy”
Recognition and promotion of work
Promoting Use of Projects and
Workshops
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High-quality, free, material for use in
ECE/CS curriculum
Educators who use these products
awarded a certificate of achievement
Educators would have access to
other users’ experiences and
results—thereby creating a virtual
community
Evaluating Impact
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Educators would “register” to access the
projects and workshops
Educators given assessment tools to
administer and report back on results
Primary impact on student outcomes:
retention, satisfaction, and enrollment (all
students, but expect greater impact on
women)
How You Can Help
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Help promote initiative
generate
many high quality project and
workshop submissions
Promote use of projects and
teaching workshop methods in
undergraduate curriculum by IEEE
members