University News

College of Engineering Hosts Successful Virtual IEEE Conference Amid Pandemic

Published: September 01, 2020 | Categories: Alumni, Engineering
IEEE logo

This summer, the College of Engineering successfully hosted the 63rd Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems conference entirely online. Department Chair and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Neeraj Magotra, a Steering Committee Member of the IEEE, secured the bid in 2018 to bring the 2020 conference to the University’s Springfield campus. Due to COVID-19, the organizing committee decided to take the event online, which presented a host of challenges, but also plenty of opportunities. The end result was a live rollout of the conference on the preplanned dates (August 9-12), with the option to view the event on-demand on the virtual platform until the end of August.

The theme of the conference was “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT)”. The conference was attended by over 300 researchers, all offering positive feedback. The conference had three distinguished keynote speakers:

  • Pieter Mosterman, Chief Research Scientist and Director of the MathWorks Advanced Research & Technology Office;
  • Gene Frantz, Professor in the Practice at Rice University, a founder of Octavo Systems, and retired Principal Fellow of Texas instruments; and
  • Yasser Shoukry, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, and Director of the Resilient Cyber-Physical Systems Lab.

After a successful virtual event, the College of Engineering is planning to host the conference in 2024 in Springfield, this time as a live, in-person event.

This story was published in the December 2020 edition of the College of Engineering eNews. To subscribe, contact alumwne@wne.edu