PAC 2007 Activities Amy Bell, PAC Chair EAB Public Awareness Committee (PAC) 02/17/2007 Universal City, CA, USA

Introduction l Associate Professor ECE at Virginia Tech l Signal processing and image processing l Husband: Sanjay Raman also an ECE professor (RFIC) l Two sons: 7 and 3 years old

Primary 2007 Activity l 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 l EAB-WIE New Initiative l Two year project: l Total budget: $380,000 l Approved for funding in 2007 l Discovery-based projects for first- year ECE and CS students l Best teaching practices workshops for the ECE and CS classroom

New Initiative: Focus on High-Quality Undergraduate Education l IEEE will provide ECE and CS faculty with first-year, discovery-based, projects that focus on real-world problems whose solutions impact society l 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 l Novel: emphasis on contemporary, real- world technical projects where the benefit to society is explicitly addressed l 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 l Power Engineering l Blackout Preventionthe Big Picture l Computer Systems (Hardware) l Energy-Efficient Tracking Devices for Container Security l Image Processing l Biomedical Tomographic Image Reconstruction l Computer Systems (Software) l Simulating the Motion of the Bacterium E. Coli l Microelectronics, Wireless Communications and Networking l Environmental Sensor Network for the Detection of Toxic Heavy Metals in Groundwater

Signal Processing: Arrhythmia Detection Algorithms for Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators l Heart controlled by electrical impulses that govern the contract-relax cycle l Arrhythmia is an irregular heartbeat caused by disordered electrical activity l Person can faint, suffer chest pains, and even sudden death may occur l Heart can be converted back to a normal rhythm with an electrical shock l An implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) administers an electric shock to the heart; it is an effective treatment for people at high-risk l 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 hearts 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 l Evaluate their algorithms using real electrocardiograms l 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 ICDs ability to save lives

Why Does IEEE Care? l IEEE needs to better define its role in engineering education beyond its focus on outreach. l 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 l 1,500 students from 47 countries competed for $4M (US) in scholarships l Each young woman will receive the distinguished Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award l Each award includes a $50,000 scholarship

Womens Persistent Under-representation l <10% of BS engineering degrees awarded to women in Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Austria l 19.5% in U.S. (2005, all BS engineering degrees) l 15% of all Electrical Engineering degrees l 12% of all Computer Engineering degrees l Enrollment in BS engineering is declining l Why?: l Few examples of how engineering helps people l Lack of faculty interest and involvement

Reasons IEEE Cares l Industry managers are very concerned about hiring enough technically proficient engineers l Women represent the largest untapped population for ECE and CS degrees l Womens persistent under-representation adversely impacts our profession, our technological proficiency, and countries economic stability

Best Pedagogy Workshops: Topics from Research on Learning l Design course around core concepts l Employ real-world, contemporary applications (context) l Address student diversity: learning styles, background/preparation level, entering skills and knowledge, attitudes and expectations l Develop problem-solving skills through use of hands-on projects and case studies l Use collaborative learning techniques to help students work effectively on teams (one example: pair-programming) l Effective (contrasted with ineffective) assessment techniques l Foster community and create a supportive learning environment

Generating High-Quality Project and Workshop Submissions l Two-step, peer-reviewed, competitive selection process l Author award: l $5000 development grant l Honorserve a term in the IEEE Education Academy l Recognition and promotion of work

Promoting Use of Projects and Workshops l High-quality, free, material for use in ECE/CS curriculum l Educators who use these products awarded a certificate of achievement l Educators would have access to other users experiences and resultsthereby creating a virtual community

Evaluating Impact l Educators would register to access the projects and workshops l Educators given assessment tools to administer and report back on results l Primary impact on student outcomes: retention, satisfaction, and enrollment (all students, but expect greater impact on women)

How You Can Help l Help promote initiative generate many high quality project and workshop submissions l Promote use of projects and teaching workshop methods in undergraduate curriculum by IEEE members