Systems Council Newsletter: Q2 2023 President's Message
The first quarter of 2023 passed by quickly, and the IEEE Systems Council (SysC) has been busy! New and exciting things are happening in every aspect of our activities.
SysC is growing! We added two new member societies to SysC thus far in 2023. Welcome IEEE Reliability Society and IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society! SysC now has 20 member societies. Additional members provide broader coverage of our technical fields-of-interest and a larger group of potential individual participants. Systems Council Chapters also have experienced significant growth. We have added four chapters and eleven student branch chapters since Fall 2022. SysC now has 23 chapters and 17 student branch chapters. A new process has been established to provide funding to SysC chapters and student branch chapters based on their activities during the year.
On March 10th, we launched the Online Distinguished Lecturer Program (OLDP) to supplement the existing in-person program. We appreciate Dr. Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban for volunteering to organize and coordinate the OLDP and thank him for his leadership. The first OLDP talk was “The Application of Data Analytics to Assist Human Decision Making” by Dr. Paul Hershey. The second OLDP talk on April 18th was “Integrating Tensor Flows with Spectral Dimensions for Improving Earth Observations via Satellite Remote Sensing” by Dr. Ni-Bin Chang. In case you missed the live presentations, recordings are available through the OLDP website where you will also find the schedule for future talks.
The 2023 IEEE Systems Conference (SYSCON) was held on April 17th – 20th at the JW Marriott Parq Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. This was our first in-person conference since 2019 and everyone (over 141 attendees pre-registered) was excited to be back together again. 100 technical papers were presented by authors from around the world. The conference began with tutorials on autonomous systems, model-based systems engineering, and modeling and simulation. Dr. Dinesh Verma of the Systems Engineering Research Center gave a keynote speech on “Transitioning from Digital Engineering Strategy and Research into Implementation: Enablers and Challenges.” Special networking events for Young Professionals (YPs), Women in Systems Engineering (WiSE), and the Life Member Affinity Group (LMAG) reminded us of the intangible value of in-person interaction at meetings and conferences. If you missed SYSCON 2023 you should plan to attend the conference next year. Also make plans to attend the 2023 Conference on Recent Advances in Systems and Systems Engineering (RASSE) that will be held on November 8-11, 2023, in Kerala, India. Watch for the Call for Papers that will be coming out soon.
SysC leads the publication of three IEEE journals: Systems Journal, Journal on Miniaturization for Air and Space Systems (J-MASS), and Open Access Journal on Systems Engineering (OJSE). In 2022 the IEEE Systems Journal, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Dr. Amir Aghdam, published 407 papers with another 150 in process. The impact factor for the year 2021 was 4.802 and the CiteScore was above 85% in all categories. This year there have been 53 papers published to date and there are 153 papers in process. J-MASS, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Dr. Hanwen Yu, has published 29 papers so far in 2023. We are working with the IEEE indexing team to establish the J-MASS first impact factor. The OJSE, under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Dr. Dale Blair and Associate Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ljiljana Trajkovic, is projected to launch in the 4th Quarter of 2023. You are invited to submit articles to these journals and volunteers to serve as associate editors and reviewers are always welcome.
SysC has 13 Technical Committees that offer opportunities for participation in several technical fields-of-interest related to systems engineering. This quarter I would like to highlight the Systems Engineering Methods Technical Committee that is led by Dr. Stephanie White and Robert Lyons. This Technical Committee recently conducted an online meeting with over 100 participants interested in the topic. Plans to organize working groups are underway and we are exploring opportunities to expand collaboration throughout IEEE and with non-IEEE organizations like INCOSE and AIAA.
WiSE is also conducting a series of webinars. On March 22nd Dr. Ashley Zauderer-VanderLey spoke about Women in Science in a talk entitled “From Black Holes to Cable-stayed Bridges.” The next webinar on May 3rd features Maria Lorento Aguayo, RDML USN NAVFAC LANT NOR VA (USA) speaking on Women in Leadership in the Engineering and Construction Industry. More information about the WiSE webinar series, including the schedule of upcoming talks and recordings of past lectures, can be found on the WiSE website.
SysC activity in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is led by Dr. Bozenna Pasik-Duncan and Dr. Amir Aghdam. They are organizing a panel on DEI during the 2023 IEEE American Control Conference on June 1st at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel. SysC is seeking diversity throughout the organization.
Finally, representatives of the SysC member societies comprising the SysC Administrative Committee (AdCom) met in Vancouver after SYSCON. The AdCom approved several motions that will be implemented in 2023. Three new SysC Distinguished Lecturers were approved. Congratulations to Dr. Sambit Bakshi, Dr. Sanjeevikumar Padmanaban, and Dr. Houbing Herbert Song! The AdCom approved travel funding for in-person meetings of the Systems Journal Associate Editors-in-Chief in 2023 and 2024. SysC will provide a sponsorship to IEEE-HKN and participate in the 2023 Student Leadership Conference to promote our scholarships to this group of honors students. The AdCom also approved a motion to update the SySC website, which will provide a more stable platform, new features, and a modern look and feel. These are exciting times for SysC! Join in on the fun!