LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 22 June 2020 – The IEEE Computer Society (IEEE CS) Board of Governors has approved the slate of candidates for the IEEE CS 2020 election. Voting for IEEE CS president-elect, first and second vice presidents, and Board of Governors members will begin on 3 August and end on 21 September 2020.
Only IEEE CS members without an email address in their member record, or those who have opted out of IEEE email communications, will receive a paper ballot package. Those who receive paper ballots should return them by mail using the business reply envelope provided, or to IEEE Technical Activities, Attn: SGA, 445 Hoes Lane, PO Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331, USA.
All other members will receive a broadcast email message with voting instructions to access their web ballot package information. Members in all regions can vote online at the IEEE CS election site. For replacement ballots or to request a paper ballot, call +1-732-562-3904 or email ieee-computervote@ieee.org.
Officers are elected to one-year terms and Board members to three-year terms, each beginning 1 January 2021. Candidate bios and position statements will be published in the August issue of Computer magazine, which is distributed to all IEEE CS members.
Candidates for president-elect:
William D. Gropp and Nita Patel will be on the ballot for 2021 president-elect and 2022 president. The president serves as the chief elected officer of the IEEE CS, representing the entire membership. The president, under the direction of the Board of Governors, provides direction for IEEE CS officers and Society programs, and is responsible for the general supervision of the Society. The president serves one year as president-elect, one year as president, and one year as past president.
Dr. William “Bill” Gropp is director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and holds the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gropp has served as the IEEE CS Vice President for Technical and Conference Activities since 2019 and has been a member of the Board of Governors since 2017. A Fellow of AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and SIAM and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, Gropp received the IEEE CS Sidney Fernbach Award in 2008 and the ACM/IEEE CS Ken Kennedy Award in 2016. Gropp served as technical program chair (2009), finance chair (2011), and general chair (2013) of the SC conference, which is the largest conference co-sponsored by the Computer Society.
Nita Patel, P.E., is senior director, engineering at L3Harris Technologies, where she was recognized as 2014 L3 Engineer of the Year. Patel is a director on the IEEE Foundation, a member of the Industry Engagement Committee, and a mentor for several IEEE WIE Summits. In her over 25 years as an IEEE volunteer, Nita served as IEEE CS first vice president, served a three-year term on the IEEE CS Board of Governors, founded and led the first five years of the IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE ILC), served as Women in Engineering International Chair—for which she received the 2014 Larry K Wilson Transnational Award for distinguished contributions to IEEE global activities and was IEEE-USA Vice President of Communications & Public Awareness.
Candidates for first and second vice presidents:
Candidates for 2021 first vice president are David S. Ebert and Riccardo Mariani. Ebert is an Associate Vice President for Research and Partnerships, the Gallogly Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges at the University of Oklahoma. He is an IEEE Fellow, an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University, and director of the Visual Analytics for Command Control and Interoperability Center (VACCINE), which is the Visualization Science team of the Department of Homeland Security’s Visual Analytics and Data Analytics Emeritus Center of Excellence.
Mariani is the Vice President of Industry Safety at NVIDIA and an IEEE Senior Member. He was awarded the 2020 IEEE CS Golden Core Member. He served as 2019 Vice President for Standards Activities and 2020 first vice president, chairing the IEEE CS Standards Activities Board. He is active in the IEEE Standards Association; he is a member of SASB (NesCom and ICCom) and the Corporate Advisory Group, and he chairs an industry connection activity on the assessment of standardization gaps for safe automated driving.
Candidates for 2021 second vice president candidates are Vladimir Getov and Fabrizio Lombardi. Getov is a professor of distributed and high-performance computing and a research group director at the University of Westminster, London. He has served on the IEEE CS Board of Governors (2016–2018) as well as on both the Publications Board and the Technical and Conference Activities Board. Getov has been Computer’s area editor for high-performance computing since 2008, and he received the IEEE CS Golden Core Award (2016). Lombardi is the International Test Conference Endowed Chair at Northeastern University. He is the Vice President for Publications and a member of the IEEE CS Executive Board and the Nanotechnology Council. He has served on the IEEE CS Board of Governors (2012-2017) and as the IEEE appointed member of the Future Directions Committee. Lombardi is a Fellow of the IEEE. He received the 2019 IEEE Nanotechnology Council Distinguished Service Award.
The first and second vice presidents serve as franchised members of the Executive Committee, Board of Governors, and Planning Committee. The vice presidents may execute a portfolio as assigned by the president, and provide counsel and assistance to the president and other volunteer leaders. In the event that the president and president-elect cannot serve, the line of succession falls to the first vice president, then to the second vice president.
Candidates for 2021–2023 terms for the IEEE CS Board of Governors:
Jyotika Athavale – Intel Corporation
Terry Benzel – University of Southern California
Lieven Eeckhout – Ghent University, Belgium
Takako Hashimoto – Chiba University of Commerce
Mike Hinchey – University of Limerick, Ireland
Harold Javid – Microsoft
John Johnson – Campbell Soup
Sy-Yen Kuo – National Taiwan University
Xiaowei Li – Chinese Academy of Sciences
David Lomet – Microsoft Research
San Murugesan – Western Sydney University, Australia
Erich Neuhold – University of Vienna
Irene Pazos Viana – Bank of Republic of Uruguay
Annette Reilly – Lockheed Martin (retired)
Dimitrios Serpanos – University of Patras
Deborah Silver – Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Adit Singh – Auburn University
Hironori Washizaki – Waseda University
All professional and graduate student IEEE CS members on record as of 28 May 2020 are eligible to vote in this year’s IEEE CS election. (Undergraduate student members do not hold voting rights.) Ballots must be returned no later than 5:00 p.m. EDT USA/21:00 UTC on Monday, 21 September 2020. Results will be announced in Computer’s December issue and online.
About the IEEE Computer Society
The IEEE Computer Society is the world’s home for computer science, engineering, and technology. A global leader in providing access to computer science research, analysis, and information, the IEEE Computer Society offers a comprehensive array of unmatched products, services, and opportunities for individuals at all stages of their professional career. Known as the premier organization that empowers the people who drive technology, the IEEE Computer Society offers international conferences, peer-reviewed publications, a unique digital library, and training programs. Visit www.computer.org for more information.
