WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE 2007 CAS SOCIETY PRESIDENT*
It is a great honor and privilege to serve as the 2007 President of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS). I would like to thank the members and volunteers for their continuous support, service, and dedication to the CAS Society. The currently elected CASS Board of Governors and the Executive Committee members are here to serve the current and future CASS members and work for the benefit of the Society. Numerous CASS volunteers already serve as editors and reviewers of our CAS transactions and magazines, members of the Society technical committees, organizers of CASS-sponsored conferences and scientific meetings, and Chairs of our local chapters.
During the term of my appointment, I plan to work on improving the CAS Society leadership, enhancing services to CASS members, emphasizing technical excellence, and establishing closer collaborations with other IEEE Societies.
 
  1. • Leadership: I plan to promote a friendly and congenial Society that is open, equitable, and accountable to all members. My predecessors Ellen Yoffa, Georges Gielen, and Nanni de Micheli have earnestly contributed to these goals. I plan to work closely with the CASS Board of Governors and the members of our Executive Committee to enlist new leaders from the ranks of all members, including graduates of the last decade, young faculty members employed in academia, upcoming practicing engineers employed in industry, and prominent and already established researchers. We are expected and obliged to govern the Society in a financially responsible manner. Nevertheless, there are growing expectations within IEEE that volunteers need to generate financial gains from various IEEE membership activities such as conferences, symposia, workshops, and local technical meetings. Members and volunteers are often expected to serve the IEEE, rather than IEEE serving its members. I plan to strongly advocate the goals of the CAS Society within the constraints imposed by the IEEE at IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) and various administrative meetings.
  2. • Membership services: Our membership is declining and we need to provide incentives for new members to join the Society and retain our continuing members. The CAS Society needs to establish long-term programs to address the needs of its diverse membership across regions. There are IEEE members who cannot afford rising conference registration fees to have their papers published at IEEE-sponsored conferences or the cost of expenses to attend IEEE technical meetings. The CAS Society is addressing this problem by establishing long-term strategies for its conferences and workshops that will generate revenues so that we could offer financial support to members from less advantaged regions. I plan to encourage CASS regional activities by spanning our Distinguished Lecturers Program across the boundaries of our Society, by providing incentives to active CASS Chapters through additional funding, and by providing Web access to resources, mailing lists, and membership databases so that CASS members may be served more effectively. The CAS Society has also initiated establishing grants and incentives for students to attend professional conferences, awards for best student conference papers, and online forums to help new members learn about resume writing, new job opportunities, available postdoctoral positions, new academic positions, and calls for grant proposals.
  3. •  Technical excellence: The CAS Society is already attracting researchers from the new and emerging areas, such as biotechnology and the life sciences. I will also encourage technical excellence by improving the quality of CASS-sponsored publications through a rigorous peer review process, enhancing the online resources for our editorial boards, improving the electronic review system, and enhancing the reviewer s database by recognizing diligent reviewers. In addition, I plan to develop a corporate memory of our sponsored and co-sponsored conferences (acceptance rates, number of papers, number of attendees).
  4. •  Collaboration with other IEEE Societies and Councils: The CAS Society Field of Interest is broad and thus our Society is often seen as too  academic  with little relevance to industry. New research topics (bio-engineering, life sciences, medical applications, and wireless communications) are often addressed by other IEEE Societies before they are included in technical events sponsored by the CAS Society. We need to support and encourage new initiatives by providing financial support to workshops and symposia sponsored by the Society. Our Society will also benefit by fostering strategic relationships with other Societies, especially those that were originally incubated by the CAS Society. This may be achieved through co-sponsored technical meetings and publications and by encouraging collaboration among Chapters within local IEEE Sections.
 
I look forward to working with you and I encourage you to take a pro-active role in getting involved in the Society by submitting your research contributions to our journals and magazines, by participating in our technical conferences, symposia, and workshops, and serving on our Technical Committees. I also encourage you to take interest in the governance of the Society by providing your feedback and suggestions for the betterment of the Society. Our Executive Director, Heidi Zazza (h.zazza@ieee.org), heads the Society’s Executive Office, oversees the daily operation of the Society, and serves as a liaison with the IEEE offices in Piscataway. The names of CAS Society volunteers and their contact information are located on the Circuits and Systems Society website (http://www.ieee-cas.org). I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2007.
 
 
Ljiljana Trajkovic
President, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
 
*This article will also appear in CAS Magazine vol. 7, no. 1.
 
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, FEBRUARY 2007