From the Chair (Randy Rannow)

Thank you for your membership in IEEE. You are receiving this newsletter because you are a member of the IEEE-Boise section. Previous newsletters are on our section web site at https://site.ieee.org/boise/archive/ .

In this issue, we have articles about upcoming virtual events, job, networking and volunteering opportunities, and pointers to free resources available from IEEE for K-12 STEM education.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter to any of your friends and colleagues who may be interested in what IEEE has to offer. Let them know one benefit of joining IEEE is the opportunity to network with other professionals in your local area or within a specific technical interest. There’s much more information about the benefits of IEEE membership at https://ieee.org/join .

If you have any questions or feedback about the IEEE-Boise section and our activities, please feel free to contact me at pi-boson@ieee.org .

Renewal Reminder

If you’ve renewed already for 2021, thank you! If you haven’t, we’re still sending you this newsletter but your membership has lapsed and you’re no longer receiving the other benefits of membership. It’s easy to renew online at https://ieee.org/renew .

Membership Benefits

Make your membership work for you! Read this article by Kathy Land, IEEE President, on how to personalize your membership: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-member-news/ieee-presidents-note-personalize-your-membership .

Win free IEEE swag! Enter your name and email address at https://forms.gle/ye5wBYMEQjRmhysG9 . Winners will be announced in the April newsletter.

Student Member Discount

New and renewing IEEE students and graduate students can now save 50% on their membership dues. Students wishing to take advantage of the 50% discount can do so by using the promotion code FUTURE50 during the online check-out process for joining or renewing their IEEE membership.

Students who recently renewed or joined at full price can reach out to the IEEE Contact Center at: contactcenter@ieee.org and request a credit on future membership dues.

Upcoming Events

Find out more about these upcoming events in this newsletter and on our section web site at https://site.ieee.org/boise . You can also follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/IEEEBoise .

  • IEEE-USA Career Webinar: Top Tactics to Elevate Your Career for the #FutureOfWork (March 23)
  • SusTech talk: How Emerging Markets are leading the Cashless Evolution (March 23)
  • Industry Spotlight: Memory Disaggregation (March 23)
  • IEEE-Boise Computer Society Talk: Josiah Dykstra (April 7)
  • IEEE Sections Congress (April 9-11)
  • IEEE Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices (WMED-2021) (Apr. 23)

These events are being held virtually unless otherwise noted.

IEEE-USA Career Webinar: Top Tactics to Elevate Your Career for the #FutureOfWork (March 23)

Speaker: Erin Urban, UPPSolutions, LLC
Date: March 23, 2021, 11am to 12:30pm MT (US Mountain)
Details at https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/260884  

SusTech talk: How Emerging Markets are leading the Cashless Evolution (March 23)

SusTech 2021 is hosting talks on Sustainability leading up to the conference in April 2021.

Title: “How Emerging Markets are Leading the Cashless Evolution & Sustainability of a Cashless Society”
Speaker: Farhad Mafie of Handycash & Savant Company Inc.
Date: March 23, 2021
Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM MT (US Mountain)
Details at https://ieee-sustech.org/2021/02/sustech-talks-5-how-emerging-markets-are-leading-the-cashless-evolution-sustainability-of-a-cashless-society/ .

Industry Spotlight: Memory Disaggregation: Think Outside the Box (March 23)

Data growth has turned memory into a major bottleneck. To cope with this bottleneck, memory-hungry applications are increasingly taking advantage of memory “outside the box” — leveraging advances in memory technologies and networking to increase their effective memory capacity. Disaggregated, or “far”, memory is attached to the network and can be accessed by remote processors without mediation from a local processor.

Speaker: Dr. Kimberly Keeton. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlykeeton
Date: Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 7:00 PM MT (US Mountain)
Details and registration: https://site.ieee.org/scv/2021/03/09/industry-spotlight-memory-disaggregation-think-outside-the-box/ .

IEEE-Boise Computer Society Talk: Getting Started with Cybersecurity Science (April 7)

This talk offers an introduction for students and practitioners to the application of the scientific method to cybersecurity tools and systems.

Speaker: Josiah Dykstra, Technical Fellow from NSA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center and ACM Distinguished Lecturer
Date: Wednesday, April 7, 2021, Noon MT (US Mountain)
Details and registration: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/266994

IEEE Virtual Sections Congress (April 9-11)

IEEE Sections Congress, the triennial flagship event hosted by MGA, brings together IEEE volunteer leaders from every member country to share ideas and solutions. IEEE Sections Congress is going virtual and you are invited to attend!
Dates: This virtual event will take place from 9 – 11 April 2021.
Details and registration: https://sections-congress.ieee.org/ .

IEEE SusTech 2021 (April 22-24)

The 8th SusTech will be held virtually on April 22-24 from the Orange County Section. Early Registration ends March 30. Great early attendee rates – $50 IEEE, $75 non-IEEE, $25 IEEE Life Member/Student. Find out more at https://ieee-sustech.org/ .

IEEE Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices (WMED-2021) (Apr. 23)

WMED 2021 will be held virtually Friday, April 23rd. The advance registration deadline is April 9th. The poster submission deadline is March 26th. For more information, see https://site.ieee.org/boise/2021/03/10/ieee-wmed-2021-registration-open-virtual-and-call-for-posters/ .

BSU Summer Faculty Adjunct Opportunity

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University is looking for qualified professionals and educators for Adjunct Faculty to teach one or two undergraduate courses:

ECE230/L – Digital Systems and lab, and ECE330/L Microprocessors and lab during Summer 2021. Sessions can be 7 or 10 week terms and modality of instruction is flexible. For more information or to apply contact or email your resume/curriculum vitae to Dr. Nader Rafla (nrafla@boisestate.edu), Professor and Chair of the ECE Department.

Free K-12 STEM resources available from IEEE

In last month’s newsletter we mentioned https://tryengineering.org, an IEEE website that provides free pre-university-level engineering resources for educators, parents, and students. The site offers a catalog of engineering lesson plans with hands-on design challenges, resources for teaching in a virtual environment, career profiles, games, and much more.

Here are just two of the many TryEngineering programs you can check out:

  • Photonics TryEngineering Tuesday. Photonics is the science and technology of generating and controlling light particles and using light to carry information. Our friends at TryEngineering and the IEEE Photonics Society are posting about it every Tuesday of March. Explore more at https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/photonics-tryengineering-tuesday/ .
  • TryEngineering Summer Institute, an exciting two-week on-campus engineering summer program for high school students held at premier universities across the United States. Find out more at https://tryengineeringinstitute.ieee.org/ .

There’s also information about additional IEEE pre-university resources here: https://www.ieee.org/education/preuniversity/index.html .

Volunteer!

We know your free time is limited and it may be difficult to volunteer on a continuous or regular basis. IEEE has many volunteer opportunities available, short-term as well as long-term. We’ll publicize local opportunities in this newsletter. You can find out about more opportunities through the IEEE Volunteering platform, https://volunteer.ieee.org/ .

Microvolunteer opportunity: Capstone judging

The IEEE-Boise section plans to recognize the top Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science capstone projects at BSU and NNU. If you are interested in helping to judge these projects, please contact Chris Gunning at cgunning@ieee.org . Put “Capstone judging” in the subject line.

Section Volunteers Needed

As an IEEE member in the Boise section, you are invited to participate in our section operations committee (OpComm). We meet virtually on the third Thursday of the month. The exact day varies, so the best way to stay informed is to subscribe to our IEEE Boise OpComm mailing list. Contact Walter Bruehl (bruehlwalter@gmail.com) to be added to the mailing list.

The Boise section is currently seeking volunteers for the following positions:

  • Education Activities Chair (Professional education and K-12 STEM outreach activities)
  • Student Activities Chair – Your principal responsibility is to promote student activities in all student branches within our section. You will be working with student officers and branch counselors as well as your Regional leadership team to ensure that our section has a strong and vital student activities program.
  • Signal Processing Society Chapter Chair
  • Membership Development (MD) Chair

If you are interested in any of these positions or volunteering for another role within the section, please contact Randy Rannow at pi-boson@ieee.org .

Volunteer Recognition

A huge thank you to Ujjwal Roy who has volunteered for our section for several years. He was our previous Membership Development Chair and past section Vice Chair, Secretary, and Young Professionals (YP) Chair. He has just started a new position with Intel in Folsom and plans to be active in the IEEE section there.

Many thanks also to our other 2020 section officers, including:

  • Utsav Roy, our 2020 Vice Chair and past YP chair
  • Madia Mousa, our 2020 Section Treasurer
  • Justin Brown, our 2020 section PACE Chair

Our current section officers are listed on our website at https://site.ieee.org/boise/contact/ .

Future Newsletters

If you have a topic you’d like to suggest or an article you’d like to contribute to a future newsletter, please send it to Chris Gunning at cgunning@ieee.org . Thank you!