From the Chair

By Yaobin Chen

As newly elected Chair of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Community (TEC), I am very pleased to write this inaugural message to share with you a few of my thoughts on the current state of TEC and plans for 2017. 

Let me first introduce myself briefly. I have been involved in TEC from the very beginning by serving on the Steering Committee of the IEEE Transportation Electrification Initiative (TEI) as a representative from the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society. My research interests are modeling, control and optimization of hybrid electric vehicles and distributed energy systems, intelligent and connected vehicles, and advanced vehicle and transportation safety. During my 28-year academic career, I have gained a wealth of experience as an accomplished scholar, and effective administrator by serving as department chair, associate dean and research center director. All of these will prepare me well to serve effectively as the Chair of TEC. 

 

I would like to welcome our newly elected Secretary (Burak Ozpineci) and Treasurer (Bulent Sarlioglu), as well as new members in the Steering Committee and other operating committees. In particular, I would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to Prof. Philip Krein, the founding Chair of TEC for his outstanding leadership and service for the past several years. Under Prof. Krein’s leadership, TEC successfully “graduated” from a status as an IEEE future directions program initiative and has transitioned smoothly to a permanent technical entity of the IEEE as one of the first such technical communities. I also want to thank members of the TEC Steering Committee for their confidence in me serving in this important position for the next two years.

TEC was established as a true partnership among our seven core sponsors (six societies and the Standards Board) and affiliate societies/councils through a signed MOU. By partnering with these entities TEC takes a leadership role in V2G and grid interaction technologies, electric and hybrid vehicles, vehicle intelligence, IEEE Standards in transportation and vehicles, and student electric vehicle competitions. For the past two years, we have accomplished significantly in several important areas with a focus on serving our members by providing high quality programs and services, ranging from sponsoring and hosting Webinars to technical co-sponsorship of conferences. To better facilitate these efforts, we have formed nine (9) operating committees including a new Student Activities Committee led by our volunteer members from our partnering societies.  We have also developed and approved our operating document, “IEEE Transportation Electrification Community Charter” which will serve as a guiding document for TEC to conduct its core business.

While celebrating our accomplishments in a short history of TEC’s existence, we recognize the challenges and opportunities ahead of us. 2017 marks the third year of TEC operation, a critical time for our sustained operation and growth. In addition to continued and improved programs and activities led by the operating committees, our main effort in 2017 will focus on TEC strategic planning led by the TEC Steering Committee assisted by the TEC Strategy and Planning Committee. This process will involve all members of the Steering Committee and other standing (operating) committees. Through the strategic planning process, we will develop a strategic plan document that contains goals, priorities, and implementation plans with action items to achieve these goals with measurable outcomes. All partnering entities will have opportunities to provide feedback and suggestions to this document through their representatives in the TEC Steering Committee during the process. I will make sure you are all communicated about the progress made during the strategic planning process.  I invite all of you to participate in this exercise. I am confident that we will make this strategic planning process a success by leveraging your tremendous experience and collective wisdoms.

Please feel free to contact me at tec@ieee.org or any member of the Steering Committee (your representative) if you have any questions or need further information about TEC.   To see who represents your Society/Council/Board, visit http://tec.ieee.org/about/tec-steering-committee.

Thank you for your support.


Yaobin Chen, Ph.D.
Chancellor’s Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Transportation Active Safety Institute (TASI)
Purdue School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI
723 West Michigan Street, SL 160
Indianapolis, IN 46202

 

 

 


About the Newsletter

Editors-in-Chief

Jin-Woo Ahn
Co-Editor-in-Chief

 

Sheldon Williamson
Co-Editor-in-Chief

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