IEEE Members elect Gordon W. Day as 2012 president

PISCATAWAY, USA: Gordon W. Day, of Boulder, Colorado, has been elected president of IEEE for 2012. IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional association, supports the technical and professional interests of over 400,000 members in 160 countries.

It publishes a third of the world’s literature in the electrical engineering and computer science fields, sponsors over 1100 conferences each year, and has an active portfolio of nearly 1,300 industry standards and projects under development.

Day, an electrical engineer with experience in research, management, and public policy, will become the 50th President of IEEE on January 1, 2012 and will also serve as CEO. He will succeed 2011 IEEE President Moshe Kam, Department Head and Robert Quinn Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa. Day will serve on the Board of Directors as IEEE President-elect for 2011.

“Over the past century or so, most advances in quality-of-life have been achieved through technology. Our members were responsible for many of those gains,” Day commented upon assuming his new role. “Today, IEEE’s job is to help technologists continue that history of achievement, in a world where technology is advancing ever more rapidly and innovation is the key to prosperity around the globe.”

Day’s technical specialty is the combination of optics and electronics. He spent most of his career in research and management at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, where he founded and led the NIST Optoelectronics Division. His personal research ranged from fundamental optical measurements to the development of standards for optical communication and new concepts in optical and electronic instrumentation.

More recently, he has served as science advisor to U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller and Director of Government Relations for the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association. He has been a professor adjoint at the University of Colorado and a visiting Fellow at the University of Southampton (UK), and has served on many industry, government, and academic advisory groups. He is a Fellow of IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Optical Society of America, and the Institute of Physics, and holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Day has served IEEE previously in many leadership capacities, including president of the IEEE Photonics Society and of IEEE-USA, which supports the career and public policy interests of IEEE members in the US.