Computational Intelligence - February 2015 - 13

graduate and undergraduate students to
have a better understanding of the techniques of CI and their applications, build
social connections among CIS members,
and better understand their future careers.
For encouraging students to attend conferences, CIS provides travel grant support, which is managed by the Travel
Grants Administrator.
In addition, the "Members Activities" also includes a DLP sub-committee
and Webinar sub-committee, which are
responsible for knowledge dissemination. The DLP every year calls for DL
nominations and suggests five to seven
distinguished speakers to ADCOM for
final approval, to serve as Distinguished
Lecturers for three years. The selection
of DLs is based on the criteria of (a)
leadership & public speaking accomplishments in CIS related fields, and (b)
recently published breakthrough
advances. Geographical balance is also
considered in the DL's selection and the
nominees need to be committed to the
fulfillment of serving as the representatives of the CIS society. Usually only
Fellows or exceptionally outstanding
senior members are nominated. Recent
revisions to the DL selection process
make the nomination easier and selection process transparent for encouraging
the nomination of outstanding members. The Distinguished speakers and
their topics are published on the DLP
website http://cis.ieee.org/dlp. Chapter
Chairs are encouraged to invite DL
speakers to deliver speeches to their
local attendees to promote the activities
and research of CI. In contrast to the
DLP which provides local chapters face
to face speeches and interactions, the
talks on webinar are web-based and
recorded. Past webinars can also be
accessed from the web. Anyone who is
willing to offer a lecture for knowledge
sharing through the webinar, should
contact the Chair of the Webinar subcommittee, whose information can be
found on the CIS website under members activities.
In addition, The Women in Computational Intelligence (WCI) sub-committee
develops and organizes activities promoting equal opportunities and rights

for both genders. WCI also provides a
connection with IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), the largest association of
women in engineering. WCI often
organizes joint activities with the Students Activities sub-committee and Young
Professionals sub-committee and provides
mentoring to female students and young
professionals. The Industrial Liaison subcommittee develops activities for promoting the participation of industries and
professionals in CI. The Fellow committee
is responsible for publicizing the IEEE
Fellow program and for evaluating the
nominations, on behalf of CIS, in the
IEEE evaluation process. Fellow grade is
the highest membership level in the
IEEE Society. The candidates to be elevated to Fellow need to be in the senior
grade of membership. The Senior Members sub-committee under "members activities" exists to promote the elevation of
CIS members to senior grade. Promotion requires at least ten years of professional experience. If you are qualified for
elevation, I would encourage you to
find someone to nominate you. If you
need a nominator, please contact the
Chair of the Senior Members sub-committee, who can help you find a nominator.
For more details, please refer to the
IEEE Senior Membership website
http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/senior/.
Since its first establishment in 2002
(NNC became NNS in 2001 and
changes its name to CIS in 2005), IEEE
CIS has developed very well. My past
predecessor, Prof. Pablo Estevez has done
an excellent job, especially in the promotion of CIS in the developing countries
such as Latin America and the AsiaPacific region. As the Vice President for
Members Activities, I will take full
advantage of past Vice President Pablo's
achievements, following the membership
promotion directions, coordinating, and
encouraging the activities for inviting
more members to join CIS. I will in particularly encourage activities for achieving the following goals:
1) Facilitate the interactions and activities:
This includes not only consolidating
the existing activities of each sub-committee, but also facilitating the collabo-

rations across different sub-committees
and different local chapters to encourage active communications and interactions. Any activity organized must
provide the best benefits to the members for the whole society and therefore, I would like to also collaborate
with other Vice Presidents, such as
VP-TA and VP-Education, etc., taking
advantage of emerging research trends
for organizing technical and educational activities combined with membership development.
2) Consolidate local chapter relationships:
Chapters provide the first contact on
behalf of the society to members.
Some chapters are very active in organizing activities while others are quiet.
There are also areas having no local
chapters. I would like to promote and
facilitate collaborations between local
chapters for increasing member interactions across different regions.
3) Facilitate the progress of developing
regions: Recently, we have observed
impressive advances in some developing countries. Therefore, it is
important for CIS to closely interact
with these regions, provide them a
better understanding of CIS, and
guide them into the researches of CI.
I would like to solicit local leaders,
and work with these local leaders to
effectively promote CIS in the developing regions.
4) Cultivate CIS as a pleasant, welcoming and enthusiastic family environment: A fr iendly and pleasant
environment invites and retains people.Therefore, I would like, to the best
of my capability, to nurture a culture
within CIS that is inviting, pleasant
and friendly. Members will be given
opportunities to participate in all the
activities, and be accepted and recognized for their contributions. Any
ideas for getting members to collaborate together will be highly welcomed
and supported. Members are encouraged to team up at any level, seniors
with juniors, across chapters, across
sub-committees, or across regions.

(continued on page 15)

february 2015 | Ieee ComputatIonal IntellIgenCe magazIne

http://www.ieee.org/membership_ser http://cis.ieee.org/dlp

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Computational Intelligence - February 2015