IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2008 - 22

JAMIE HELLER

Jelena Popovic-Gerber, Karen Panetta, Maeve Duffy, and Keyana Tennant attend
the IEEE PELS Conference in Rhodes, Greece.

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

essential that engineers build a global
network to exchange experience and
learn how to accelerate energy savings.
We do not have much time left!" By
joining an international group like
PELS, engineers all over the world have
the opportunity to discuss and share
ideas that can lead to solutions to all
types of crises.

Women Wanted
Another special objective of the Membership Committee is to support a subbranch, Women in the Power Electronics

JAMIE HELLER

Finally, the committee members hope to
soon work out an arrangement to set up
a registration booth at IEEE meetings
and conferences so that interested parties may join instantly. This convenience
would provide an incentive for power
electronics professionals who attend
PELS events, but are not yet members of
the society, to officially join.
PELS Junior Past President Rik
De Doncker feels all interested parties should join PELS because the
need for cohesion in this broad and
rapidly-growing industry is great. De
Doncker, the director of the E.ON
Energy Research Center and director
of the Institute for Power Electronics
a n d E l e c t r i c a l D r i v e s a t RW T H
Aachen University in Germany, cites
the environment as one area where
working together on a new development could create a viable solution
to a problem.
"I am convinced that electric vehicles are the ultimate solution to mobility in large cities to prevent local
pollution," he asserts. "It is our duty to
make power electronic vehicles costeffective such that crucial energy savings and quality of life can be realized.
As energy is a global problem, it is

Society (WIPELS). While there are over
6,000 members in PELS, about 50% of
whom live outside the United States, less
than 4% of those 6,000 are women.
According to Akagi, this translates to
about three women attending a meeting
of the PELS administrative committee
(AdCom), compared with 30-40 men. He
hopes to see an increased presence of
women at meetings because of the benefits they would bring to the Society. "To
have a good meeting, we need a good discussion. Women have different insights
and add that to the discussion," he says.
Boroyevich agrees that the Society
would profit from a more female perspective. "Their knowledge-technical,
social, and organizational-is important
not just to other women, but to everyone," he says. "I don't think we have
enough women organizing activities and
we should. The quality of activities would
increase and we could provide some services that ... don't even cross our minds
to offer."
But to have more women in the Society, there must first be more women in
the field. And that is the goal of WIPELS.
This subbranch, formed in 2005 and currently chaired by Ferdinanda Ponci, is a
team of 32 women committed to making
an extra effort for women in power electronics by, among other things, promoting networking among women

Dushan
Boroyevich,
PELS vice
president of
membership,
and Hirofumi
Akagi, PELS
president,
agree that the
society would
benefit from
more women
members.

WINTER 2008/2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2008