IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2021 - 66

get involved with the technical committees of the two sponsoring Societies, Power Electronics Society (PELS) and
Industry Applications Society (IAS) [1]. Many of the women
on the ECCE 2021 team are the first in their positions,
including myself, as general chair and the finance chair, Dr.
Shanelle N. Foster an assistant professor of electrical and
computer engineering at Michigan State University. The networking opportunities facilitated by the WiE events at ECCE
2018 spurred her to volunteer her time and talent for future
conferences [2]. " The uncertainty of conference planning
during a pandemic presents financial budgeting challenges;
however, my life experiences have adequately prepared me
to observe these challenges as an opportunity to enhance
and expand my skill set, " Foster states.
The ECCE 2021WiE team includes Dr. Lijun He, senior
engineer at GE Global Research, and Dr. Mengqi Wang,
Assistant Professor of electrical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, women that I had the pleasure to meet in past ECCE editions, thanks to the WiE

FIG 2 Members of the ECCE 2021 organizing team. Top L - R;
Shanelle N. Foster, Giovanna Oriti, Grant Pitel, and Brian
Welchko. Middle L - R; Tom Kirk, Xiaonan Lu, Francisco Paz, and
Sara Roggia. Bottom L - R; Brian Zahnstecher, Sumit Chhabria,
Luca Zarri, and Franco Degioanni. Standalone Zheyu Zhang.

FIG 3 WiE event at the IEEE ECCE 2017 in Cincinnati, OH.

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

z March 2021

committee's activities. " At GE, my work is focused on diagnostics and prognostics of industrial assets, especially
for commercial onshore and offshore wind turbines to
enhance system reliability and reduce operation and maintenance cost. I really enjoy my work at GE, it has an open,
diverse, and inclusive environment, and is continuously
driving gender equality in STEM fields. For ECCE 2021, I'm
honored to serve as WiE cochair. I look forward to working
closely with the organizing committee to publicize ECCE
2021 especially among women engineering communities,
award and promote more female participation, and offer
more training and networking opportunities to female professionals across industry and academia in electric power
research field. " writes He.
Similarly, Dr. Xiu Yao, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, New York, and I worked together on the
ECCE 2018 WiE committee and I was so impressed by her
work that I quickly invited her to serve on the ECCE 2021
team as student activities chair. She writes " I still remember how much I enjoyed my very first ECCE as a graduate
student to present a paper. I appreciated the opportunities
to not just learn and share the latest research outcome, but
also to interact with both academia and industry, meet and
make new friends, participate in the conference organization, and become part of the community. As the student
activities chair, my goal is to engage student participants
and provide opportunities for professional growth. To this
end, social events will be organized for students to network
and connect with fellow young professionals. Students are
also invited to participate in the inaugural exhibit floor
competition. " Another remarkable woman, Dr. Christina
DiMarino, assistant professor at Virgina Tech, is the ECCE
2021 awards chair, an outstanding young researcher with an
impressive PELS service record including Administrative
Committee member-at-large, member of the PELS Students
and Young Professionals Committee, Mentorship Steering
Committee and WiE Committee. I invited her to serve in

IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - March 2021

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