Election of President-Elect, Regional Directors-at-Large and Members-at-Large

Rabab K. Ward

SPS Past President and Chair, Nominations and Appointments Committee

It is my pleasure to announce that the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) annual election will commence on 15 August, and your vote is more important than ever! Beginning this year, all eligible SPS Members will now vote for the next President-Elect (term 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2021), in addition to the Regional Directors-at-Large for Regions 7 & 9 and 10 (term 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2021), and Members-at-Large (term 1 January 2020 through 31 December 2022) of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Board of Governors (BoG).

Ballots will be mailed to SPS members. The ballot includes a diverse slate of candidates for all elections, which were vetted by the SPS Nominations and Appointments Committee, as well as a space for write-in candidates. This year’s election offers SPS members the opportunity to cast their votes via the web at https://eballot4.votenet.com/IEEE for up to one President-Elect, one Regional Director-at-Large for your corresponding Region: Regions 7 & 9 (Canada and Latin America) and Region 10 (Asia and Pacific), and three Member-at-Large candidates. Ballots must be received at the IEEE no later than 1 October 2019 to be counted. Members must meet the eligibility requirements at the time the ballot data is generated to be eligible to vote. To be eligible to vote in this year’s Society election, you had to have been an active SPS Member, Affiliate, or Graduate Student Member as of 30 June 2019. This is the date when the list of eligible Society voting members was compiled.

The candidates for President-Elect are (alpha order):

V. John Mathews

Athina P. Petropulu

The candidates for Regional Director-at-Large are (alpha order):

Region 7 & 9:

Charles Casimiro Cavalcante

Timothy Norman Davidson

Region 10:

Kin-Man Lam

Wing-Kin (Ken) Ma

The candidates for Member-at-Large are:

Eric Fosler-Lussier

Pascale Fung

Fa-Long Luo

Marc Moonen

Patrick A. Naylor

Roxana Saint-Nom

Bjoern W. Schuller

Gaurav Sharma

The BoG is the governing body that oversees the activities of the SPS. The SPS BoG has the responsibility of establishing and implementing policy and receiving reports from its standing boards and committees and comprises 22 Society members: the President and President-Elect who are elected by the voting members of the Society, five Vice-President officers of the Society who are elected by the BoG, nine Members-at-Large elected by the voting members of the Society, four Regional Directors-at-Large elected locally by Society voting members of the corresponding region, as well as the Awards Board Chair. The seven officers are the President, President-Elect, the Vice President-Conferences, Vice President-Education, Vice President-Membership, Vice President-Publications, and Vice President-Technical Directions. The Executive Director of the Society shall serve ex-officio, without vote.

The President-Elect is an IEEE Signal Processing Society member elected by the Society’s membership via the annual election, to serve as an officer and as a voting member on the Society’s Board of Governors, Executive Committee, Conferences Board, Education Board, Membership Board, and Publications Board. The President-Elect position automatically succeeds to President. Regional Directors-at-Large are SPS members who are elected locally by Society voting members of the corresponding Region via the annual election to serve on the Society’s BoG as nonvoting members and voting members of the Society’s Membership Board.

Members-at-Large represent the member viewpoint in the Board decision making. They typically review, discuss, and act upon a wide range of items affecting the actions, activities, and health of the Society.

More information on the IEEE SPS can be found on Signal Processing Society website.