IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award | IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society

To recognize an outstanding young I&M member who has distinguished himself/herself through achievement(s), which may be technical (within the I&M filed of interest), may be exemplary service to the I&M Society, or may be a combination of both. What distinguishes this award from other I&M achievement-based awards is that by its title, this award’s focus is on a person, not an achievement, and the Society implicitly recognizes the person who was responsible for the success of the cited achievement(s) during his/her early career.

Prize:

$2,000, Plaque, and travel allowance of up to $1,000 is granted on a need basis for the recipient to attend the awards ceremony.

Funding:

Funded by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society.

Presentation:

Awarded annually at the discretion of the I&M Society Awards Committee at the following year’s I2MTC awards ceremony.

Basis for Judging:

Recognizes an outstanding young I&M member who has distinguished him/herself through achievements, which are technical, of exemplary service to the I&M Society, or a combination of both, early in their career. The nomination must clearly indicate the achievements that define the excellence of the candidate and must reference/provide relevant documentation that is in/or not in/ the public domain. At least 2, but no more than 4, endorsements must be provided by individuals with close knowledge of a candidate’s activities that led to the achievements cited.

Eligibility:

Nominee must be no more than 38 years of age (must not have reached the 39th birthday). Must be a member of IEEE and the Instrumentation and Measurement Society at the time of nomination and presentation. Nominator must certify the eligibility of the nominee at the time of nomination. Voting members of the Society Standing Awards Committee are not eligible. Nominees must exhibit actions that reflect positively on and enhance the reputation of the I&M Society. Eligibility and Selection process shall comply with procedures and regulation established in IEEE and Society/Council governing documents, particularly with IEEE Policy 4.4. on Awards Limitations (https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/ieee-policies.pdf). Previous award winners are not eligible.

Nomination Details:

Nomination Deadline: August 15

Note: In addition to the Nominator’s letter, at least one, but no more than three support letters may be submitted.

Nomination Form:

Nominate for this Award

Recipients

2023

Jay McDaniel

Biography

Jay W. McDaniel (S'12--M'18) received the B.S. degree in Electrical
Engineering from Kansas State University of Manhattan, KS, in 2013, the
M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas of
Lawrence, KS, in 2015, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering
from the University of Oklahoma of Norman, OK, in 2018. His research
interests include all-digital phased array radar system design for defense
and remote sensing applications; RF/microwave passive component
design and integration; radar cross section measurement techniques in
cluttered environments; multi-sensor fusion techniques for position,
navigation, and timing applications; and distributed coherent radar sensor
networks.
From 2015 to 2016, he was a Radar Systems Engineer with the
Department of Energy's Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC),
where he also served as an RF/Microwave expert for several plant-driven
research and development (PDRD) projects. In August 2018, he joined the
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of
Oklahoma (OU) as an Assistant Professor and conducts research out of
the Advanced Radar Research Center's (ARRC's) Radar Innovations
Laboratory (RIL). In 2023, Dr. McDaniel joined OU's Office of the Vice
President for Research and Partnerships as an Aerospace and Defense
Faculty Fellow. His research has been supported by Sandia National
Laboratories (SNL), the National Security Campus (NSC), Office of Naval
Research (ONR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and industry
partners.
Dr. McDaniel is currently the chair of the IEEE instrumentation and
measurement societies (IMS) graduate fellowship award committee, the

inaugural young affiliate member of the microwave theory and techniques
technical committee TC-4 on “Microwave Passive Components and
Transmission Line Structures” and TC-24 on “Microwave/mm-wave Radar,
Sensing, and Array Systems,” and an associate editor for the IEEE
Transactions on Radar Systems. He is a recipient of several awards,
including the meritorious Richard K. Moore Best Master's Thesis Award at
the University of Kansas in 2015, the Office of the Vice President for
Research and Partnerships Award for Excellence in Research Grants at
the University of Oklahoma in 2021 and 2023, the prestigious National
Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2022, and the IEEE IMS
Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 2023.

Affiliation(s)

University of Oklahoma

For outstanding contributions to the advancement of wideband radar cross section measurements in cluttered environments.

2022

Xingwu Zhang

For outstanding contributions to health monitoring and active vibration control for industrial applications in the field of mechanical equipment.

2021

Roberto Ferrero

For contributions to the advancement of I&M methods and algorithms for electrical and electrochemical power systems.

2020

Carlo Trigona

Biography

Carlo Trigona presently serves as an Associate Professor of Electronic Instrumentation and Measurements at the University of Catania, Italy, within the Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering (DIEEI). His academic journey began with the attainment of an M.S. degree (cum Laude) in Automation Engineering and Control of Complex Systems from the University of Catania in 2006. Continuing his pursuit, he embarked on his Ph.D. studies at the same university from 2006 to 2009, culminating in the achievement of a Ph.D. degree in Electronic, Automation, and Control of Complex Systems in 2010. His post-doctoral endeavors took him across Europe. From 2010 to 2011, he served as a post-doc and lecturer at the University Montpellier II – LIRMM (France). Subsequently, he continued his post-doc and lecturer roles at DIEEI, University of Catania, from 2011 to 2017. In 2017 to 2018, he furthered his research as a post-doc at the Chemnitz University of Technology (Germany). Returning to the University of Catania, he served as an Assistant Professor of Electronic Instrumentation and Measurements at DIEEI from 2018 to 2020. Continuing his academic progression, he held the position of tenure-track Professor of Electronic Instrumentation and Measurements at the same department from 2020 to 2023. He actively engages in numerous national and international academic and engineering projects, contributing as both coordinator and partner. Additionally, he significantly impacts the Instrumentation and Measurement community through various activities, including editorial roles and serving as a reviewer for esteemed journals from 2006 up to the present. Professor Trigona has received several awards for his research endeavors, notably the 2020 IEEE I&M Outstanding Young Engineer Award for his exceptional contributions to advancing I&M concepts in sensors and transducers for energy harvesting. Regarding his research profile, Prof. Trigona's first paper surfaced in 1997, and presently, he co-authors more than 250 scientific publications with over 2200 citations. These contributions span chapters in books, papers in international journals, proceedings of international conferences, trademarks and patents. His research interests encompass sensors, transducers, MEMS, NEMS, fluxgate magnetometers, energy harvesting, as well as innovative areas such as green and biodegradable sensors and transducers based on living organisms.

Affiliation(s)

University of Catania, DIEEI

For his outstanding contribution to the advancement of I&M concept in sensors and transducers for energy harvesting.

2019

Datong Liu

For intelligent system diagnostic, prognostic, and health management.

2018

José de Jesús Rangel-Magdaleno

For outstanding contributions in the development of FPGA-based digital systems and digital signal processing techniques for industrial and scientific applications in the field of electric rotating machinery.

2017

Mohamed Abou-Khousa

For outstanding contributions to the development of microwave/millimeter wave instruments and sensors for the industrial, scientific, and medical applications.

2016

Joseph Toby Case

For outstanding contributions in the development of microwave technology as a nondestructive evaluation method, and applications of advanced ultrasound, digital radiography and other methods for the space program.

2015

Lorenzo Ciani

For his contribution to the advancement of instrumentation and measurement in the field of reliability analysis.

2014

Melanie Ooi

Biography

Melanie Ooi is an emerging researcher and engineering specialist in Electrical and Electronic Engineering as well as Computer Engineering and Computational Intelligence. She is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Waikato, New Zealand. While working in close collaboration with several leading multinational electronics companies, she has developed new testing techniques and test data processing methodologies that have been adopted by the industry partners. In the recent years she has also successfully researched on new measurement uncertainty evaluation approaches and frameworks with application to a multitude of science and technology areas (medical research, structural design, mechanical systems modelling, etc.). Her research competence and capability are evident from the extensive and fast growing list of publications, research grants and projects, as well as successfully supervised postgraduate students.

In addition, Associate Professor Ooi was particularly successful in the area of undergraduate and postgraduate education. She introduced several innovations and a well-structured education program enhancing key professional skills and thus increasing work-readiness and employability of engineering graduates that were successfully adopted and implemented by Monash University and RMIT University in their Southeast Asian campuses. They have been strongly supported by multinational electronics companies such as Intel, Freescale Semiconductor and National Instruments.

Her high professional achievements have been acknowledged by several prestigious awards including the Outstanding Young Engineer Award of the Year 2014 from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, 2014 Excellence Award from the International Education Association of Australia, 2011 Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council to mention a few.

She is Senior Member of the IEEE, Member of the IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement Society (I&MS); I&M AdCom (2019-2022)|| Young Professional Program Representative (2018)|| Distinguished Lecturer (2016 - December 2017), Distinguished Lecturer and Secretary of the Technical Committee on Fault Tolerant Measurement Systems (TC-32) of the IEEE I&MS. She is also Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and UK Chartered Engineer.

Affiliation(s)

The University of Waikato

New Zealand

For leadership and innovation in industry-focused engineering education and research in electronic test technology.

2013

Mohammad Tayeb Ghasr

For outstanding contributions to real-time microwave imaging and nondestructive testing systems development.

2012

Kristen Donnell

For contribution to the development of dual-differential embedded modulated scatterer technique for microwave materials characterization.

2011

Kurt Barbé

Biography

Kurt Barbé (S’05-M’09-SM’16) received the Master degree in Mathematics and the PhD degree in engineering from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Brussels, Belgium, in 2005 and 2009 respectively. Presently, he is a professor at the VUB at the faculty of Medicine. He is furthermore a co-founder of the research group Digital Mathematics (DIMA) holding a strong expertise in applied mathematics for engineering sciences and beyond. At VUB, he is the founder of the interfaculty centre for data-processing and statistics providing statistical and methodological support to the university community at large. Dr. Barbé is a former research fellow of the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO) and VUB-coordinator of FLAMES – the Flemish inter-university training network on research methodology and statistics. His current research interest is in the field of numerical methods and computational statistics applied to biomedicine.

Dr. Barbé has served as an Associate Editor since 2010 and Associate Editor in Chief in 2018-2019 for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. Since 2017 he has served as secretary of the royal Belgian statistical society. Finally, since 2019 he has joined the editorial board for the journal Fractal and Fractional as well as Sensors. He was a recipient of the Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society in 2011 and the Andi Chi Best Paper Award of the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement in 2013. Two PhD students received the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Graduate Fellowship award under his supervision in 2012 and 2017.

Affiliation(s)

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels

Belgium

For innovative application of statistical techniques and signal analysis for biomedical applications.

2010

Yan Zhai

For advancement in stochastic signal processing for real-time data acquisition and surveillance measurements.

2009

Jenny Wirandi

For outstanding contributions in applying uncertainty concepts to complex measurement processes that involve significant human factors.

2008

David Slepička

For contributions to the dynamic metrological characterization of ADCs.

2007

Sergio Rapuano

Biography

Sergio Rapuano achieved the MS degree in Electronic Engineering with honors in 1999 and the PhD degree in Computer Science, Applied Electromagnetism and Telecommunications in 2003 from University of Salerno, Italy.

In 2002 he joined the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Sannio, where he currently is Associate Professor of Electric and Electronic Measurement at the Department of Engineering.

He is senior member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society and member of the IEEE Standards Association. In particular, within the Instrumentation and Measurement Society he is: Chapter Chair liaison, member of the “Waveform Generation, Measurement and Analysis” Technical Committee (TC-10), chairing the Subcommittee on “Jitter Measurement”; member of the Technical Committee on “Education for Instrumentation and Measurement” (TC-23); vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Objective Blood Pressure Measurement formed within the Technical Committee on “Medical and Biological Measurements” (TC-25), secretary of the TC-25.

Since 2003 he participated in the organisation of several international scientific meetings in the field of Electronic Measurements: the IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technical Conferences, the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO) TC-4 Symposia, the IEEE International Workshops on Medical Measurements and Applications, the IMEKO International Workshops on Analog to Digital Converters Modelling and Testing, playing different roles: session chairman, member of the technical program committee, technical co-chairman, general co-chairman.

He published more than 150 papers in international journals and in national and international conference proceedings on the following subjects: ADC and DAC Modelling and Testing, Digital Signal Processing, Distributed Measurement Systems, Medical Measurement and has been guest editor of the following journals: IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Measurement, Computer Standards and Interfaces and International Journal of Advanced Media and Communications.

He received from the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society the Outstanding Young Engineer Award 2007.

Affiliation(s)

University of Sannio

Italy

For the development of a distributed measurement laboratory that can be remotely accessed by students over the Internet.

2006

Wendy Van Moer

For outstanding contributions to nonlinear circuit theory.

2005

Mark Yeary

Biography

Mark Yeary received the B.S. (honors), M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas A&M University (TAMU), College Station, in 1992, 1994 and 1999, respectively. Following his graduation in 1999, he continued his digital signal processing and practical instrumentation based research at Texas A&M and worked collaboratively with a variety of companies, including IBM, Raytheon, Cisco, Texas Instruments and Lockheed-Martin. Since fall 2002, he has been with the School of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman, where he is now a full Professor. He was named the endowed Hudson-Torchmark Presidential Professor in 2011. In addition to his role as a faculty member, beginning in the fall of 2013, he was appointed as the inaugural Distinguished Faculty Fellow in OU’s Office of the Vice-President for Research. Yeary was a founding member of OU’s Advanced Radar Research Center’s (ARRC’s) design facility known as the Radar Innovations Laboratory (RIL), and has served as an ARRC rotating Associate Director.

His research, teaching and consulting interests are in the areas of digital signal processing (DSP) as applied to customized DSP systems and instrumentation, primarily in the area of radar, with an emphasis on hardware prototype development and practical measurements. He has written approximately 180 conference papers, conference abstracts and journal papers in these areas. Yeary also has served as a PI or Co-PI on grants from NASA, NSF-ATM, NSF-DUE, NSF-ECCS, DoD-EPSCoR, NOAA-CSTAR, NOAA-NSSL, Raytheon, AFOSR, DARPA, Tinker AFB and CGI Federal. Since arriving to OU in 2002, he has supervised and supported 42 undergraduate and graduate students in the completion of research towards their degrees. In addition, he has provided support for eight post-doctoral researchers and has served on 32 other graduate student committees.

Yeary has spent twelve summers (2002-2014) at Raytheon near Dallas, where he is a Senior Engineer. He has made a variety of technical contributions which include several fielded systems, invention disclosures and proprietary reports. This work includes phased array radar design, tracking algorithm design, SAR/ISAR algorithm design and detection studies. In the fall of 2012 and Spring of 2013, Yeary joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Lincoln Laboratory on sabbatical to make technical contributions and anechoic chamber measurements (at nearby Hanscom, AFB) related to one of the preliminary radar panels associated with the national Multifunction Phased Array Radar (MPAR) effort. In addition, a variety of hard-target detection studies were prepared for the MPAR panels.

Yeary is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) and member of the Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu Honor Societies. Yeary received the 2005 Outstanding Young Engineer Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as given by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. He has served on numerous national and international review panels, and several are noted here. He was a Session Chairman of the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communication Systems. In 2001, he served on the steering committee of the U.S. Department on Energy’s 2001 Future Energy Challenge. He has served as a Session Chairman at the 2003 IEEE-IMTC and as a Technical Committee Member of the 2003 and 2004 IEEE-ICIP. He served as a Technical Committee Member for IMTC in 2006, 2007 and 2008; and I2MTC in 2013 and 2014. He served as a technical co-chair for this meeting in May of 2010 in Austin. He is an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation & Measurement and serves on the I&M Society’s Administrative Committee (AdCom). He also participates as this society’s Technical Committee chair for TC-26 Radar Cross Section. He is a member of the IEEE AES Radar Systems Panel (RSP) and chairs the RSP’s Civilian Radar Committee. Yeary was a member of the Technical Program Committee for the 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Phased Array Systems and Technology, Waltham, MA. He is a member of the Technical Program Committee for the 2014 IEEE Radar Conference, Cincinnati, OH.

In tandem with technical contributions, Yeary is interested in training the next generation of students – principally through hands-on experiments and deep theoretical understandings. He has many years of experience as a teaching assistant, lecturer and faculty member. Since January of 1993, he has taught many students in various laboratories and lecture courses, culminating in approximately 20 years of instructional experience. He was awarded as a 1998 NSF/FIE New Faculty Fellow. By invitation, he was selected to participate in the U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s Foundations of Engineering Education Symposium in 2010. While at OU, he has taught Digital Signals & Filters, Digital Radar Systems, Adaptive Digital Signal & Array Processing and Electronics II. I&M AdCom (2017-2020); (2013-2016); Fellows Coordination Committee Chair|| I2MTC Board of Directors (2016-2019)|| VP Publications (2018-2019); Publications Committee Chair (2018-2019)|| VP Conferences (2016)|| Conference Committee Chair (2016)|| VP Publications (2014-2015)|| Publications Committee Chair (2014-2015)|| I&M Magazine Editorial Board (2014, 2015, 2016)

Affiliation(s)

University of Oklahoma

United States

For contributions to radar systems measurements.

Tamás Dabóczi

For contributions to inverse filtering and to reconstruction of measured transient signals.

2004

Simona Salicone

Biography

Simona Salicone is an Associate Professor of electrical and electronic measurements at Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano.

Her principal research interests are concerned with the analysis of advanced mathematical methods for uncertainty representation and estimation. Her research activity is reflected in the over 100 papers published in international and national scientific journals, in the proceedings of national and international conferences in the field of instrumentation and measurements, and in two monographs, edited by Springer.

In 2004 she has received, by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, in recognition of contributions made to measurement uncertainty theory, the 2004 Outstanding Young Engineer Award. In 2007, Simona Salicone is elected, by the Officers and Board of Directors of the IEEE, to the grade of IEEE Senior Member. In years 2013 to 2017, Simona Salicone has been part of the Academic Board of the PhD in Electrical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. Since 2014 until the end of 2016, she has been part of the Editorial Board of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine, as the responsible of the column “Future Trends in Instrumentation & Measurements”. Since January 2016 until the end of 2017, Simona Salicone has been the Associate Editor in Chief of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Magazine. In 2016 Simona Salicone has received, in appreciation of outstanding service to IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurement, the recognition as one of the Transactions Outstanding Reviewers of 2015, by the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society. Simona Salicone is the winner of the 2016 IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society Faculty Course Development Award. I&M Magazine Editorial Board (2014, 2015), Recipient of 2004 Outstanding Young Engineer Award (IMS)

Affiliation(s)

Politecnico di Milano

For contributions to measurement uncertainty theory.

2003

Cesare Alippi

For leadership in the fields of digital architectural design and neural networks for industrial applications.