IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2020 - 7

the amount of acknowledgment [it] has
for the equality of the membership and
the resources they put into that goal."
Ooi admits to her fair share of gender bias throughout her career and
points out one of the ways that IEEE
provides support: blind peer review.
"IEEE gives you such a huge network

to provide feedback, and for me that
has been life changing," she says, sharing that one of her papers was rejected
10 times before being accepted to a top
journal, thanks to the comments she
was able to incorporate from IEEE consultation each time. "Here, I have top
experts in my field from all over the

Ooi receiving the 2017 IET Mike
Sargeant Career Achievement Medal.

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DECEMBER 2020

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

19-FA-032 01/20

To that end, having technology that
can help identify exactly what is needed-treating only the specific plants in
a field that are diseased, for example-
enables work that can make as minimal an impact on the environment as
possible, called precision agriculture.
The application may be different than
Ooi's previous research in semiconductor manufacturing, but the fundamental
theory is very much the same. "We still
have to apply machine learning and do
data processing," says Ooi. "We're still
using sensors, just a different type."
A project she is currently working on
deals with medicinal cannabis, which is
seen as an industry that could build up
quickly in New Zealand given that it is a
good environment for growing cannabis
plants. However, "the instruments to
monitor the plants meaningfully are a
big challenge right now," explains Ooi.
"We want to make sure the instruments
can detect consistent quality of cannabidiol as it synthesizes."
Through the career and location
changes, one thing that has remained
constant for Ooi is her participation
in engineering organizations. She is a
fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, a U.K. Chartered
Engineer, a Senior Member of IEEE,
an Administrative Committee member
of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, and currently the
Technical Committee-32 secretary on
Fault Tolerant Measurement Systems. "I
highly encourage women and all young
engineers to take part in networking
groups," she advises. "In particular,
IEEE is important for women because of

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IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2020
