IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2023 - 78

FIG 2 From 2010 to 2022, (a) the number of women members in PELS according to membership grade and (b) the percentage of
women in each membership grade. Source: IEEE PELS.
baseline. Two new women membersat-large
elected for three-year terms
starting in 2023 were Mahshid Amirabadi
(Northeastern, USA) and Hong Li
(Beijing Jiaotong University, China).
Along with eight other women out of
35 voting members, this strong representation
of women in the AdCom is
vital for ensuring diverse perspectives
are being considered.
A woman has not yet been elected
for the PELS president or vice president
(VP) positions, but efforts have
been made to ensure women are
nominated for these leadership positions.
In 2022, two women were candidates
for two di fferent VP
positions, but neither was successfully
elected. Despite this, the stage is
set for women to take PELS leadership
positions in the near future,
mainly since the pool of candidates
for these positions is chosen from the
AdCom membership, which has the
highest percentage of women in PELS
history.
Recognition
One role of the IEEE Societies is recognizing
its members' contributions
through society awards. Figure 4
shows the percentage of women
awardees of PELS awards up to 2023.
In 2022, the percentage of women
awardees reached 14.3%, just exceeding
the PELS membership baseline
(13.6%). However, the recentlyannounced
PELS awards for 2023 had
zero women recipients; this is out of
twelve society awards, two technical
field awards, and one IEEE medal
FIG 3 Percentage of women voting members of PELS AdCom (yellow) from 2010 to
2023. Source: IEEE PELS.
sponsored by PELS. The disappointing
fact that no women were recognized
for their achievements through
PELS awards in 2023 is a sign that
there is still a gap in the recognition of
women PELS members for their
achievements, and PELS needs more
effort in this area.
It should be noted that the PELS
Ph.D. Thesis Talks (P3 Talks) were
not included in statistics for Figure
4 (the winners for 2023 were not yet
announced). The P3 Talks became
an official PELS society award in
2022, but there have been P3 Talk
winners since 2019. There have been
five winners per year, and so far,
one woman has been a recipient
each year (20% women awardees).
The P3 Talk Awards are aimed at
graduating Ph.D. students, so this is
good recognit ion for graduate
78 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z September 2023
student members, but a gap still
remains for recognition of highergrade
women PELS members.
Other important types of recognition
within PELS are distinguished
lecturers (DLs) and regional distinguished
lecturers (RDLs). The DLs
and RDLs serve as high-profile
speakers who can be invited by PELS
chapters to give talks on their
achievements in the field of power
electronics. DLs are nominated by
peers (or sel f-nominated) and
selected by the PELS DL selection
committee. RDLs are nominated by
the PELS Regional Liaisons and
approved by the PELS DL program
chair and VP of membership.
Figure 5 shows the percentage of
women in each of these roles up to
2023. For 2023, the percentage of
women DLs is 25.0%, and the

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