SPS Announces 2018 Class of DLs and Creates New Distinguished Industry Speaker Program

2018 class of DLsThe IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) has announced the 2018 Class of Distinguished Lecturers (DLs) for the term of 1 January 2018 to 31 Decem- ber 2019. In addition, a special Signal Processing Data Science DL has also been named to explicitly address the areas of signal processing and data sci- ence for the same term. The IEEE SPS DL Program provides a means for Chap- ters to have access to well-known educa- tors and authors in the fields of signal processing to lecture at Chapter meetings. While many IEEE Societies have similar programs, the SPS provides a substantial amount of financial support for the Chap- ters to take advantage of this service.

For 2018, the Society approved the creation of the new Distinguished Indus- try Speaker (DIS) Program. The program provides means for Chapters to have access to individuals who are recognized experts with a background in industrial applications in the signal processing area and are well versed in the ongoing issues/activities in industry to lecture at Chapter meetings. DISs will supplement the regular DL Program and will closely mirror it. The main difference and goal of the DIS Program is to educate and interact with Society members about topics that are of primary importance to industry and the signal processing community at large. The speakers will focus their presenta- tions on industrial applications of interest to practicing engineers, stressing practical issues and/or activities in industry. The DISs will be available to all SPS Chapters as are DLs.

Five colleagues were honored with the appointment of DL: Rick Blum (Lehigh University), Kevin Bowyer (University of Notre Dame), Geert Leus (Delft University of Technology), Marco Lops (University of Cassino and Southern Lazio), and Wing-Kin (Ken) Ma (The Chinese University of Hong Kong). The Signal Processing Data Science DL position has been award- ed to Patrick Wolfe (Purdue University).

For the new DIS Program, the following individuals were honored as the first DISs: Alfonso Farina (Leonardo Company), Ton Kalker (Xperi Corporation), Thomas Marzetta (Nokia Bell Labs), Tao Mei (Microsoft Research Asia), and Michael Picheny (IBM).
Chapters interested in arranging lectures by a DL, Signal Processing Data Science DL, or DIS can visit the following websites:

• DL Program: http://signalprocessingsociety.org/professional-development/distinguishe...
• DIS Program: http://signalprocess ingsociety.org/professional-develop ment/distinguished-industry-speaker-program.

Lecturers can also be arranged by send- ing an e-mail to sp.info@ieee.org.