Stefano Maci
It is my deep honor and pleasure to serve as the 2023 president of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S). I would like to thank all IEEE AP-S members for their support for my election. After the difficult period of COVID-19, the situation is gradually returning to normality. We are again back to conferences in person and live meetings. This simplifies my job with respect to the one of my predecessors, Prof. Yahia Antar (president in 2021) and Gianluca Lazzi (president in 2022). They have done an incredible job in the past years leading the Society during an anomalous period. I thank Yahia for his encouragement and advice and for the work he is continuing to do in promoting the Society all over the world through new initiatives. A special thanks to Gianluca for his outstanding leadership, for his work and service, for the excellent ideas and initiatives he carried out during his term, and mostly for helping me in understanding the various aspects of the Society. I am very thankful for his support, suggestions, and friendship.
I have had the privilege to serve the AP-S in many roles over the past 30 years, and I have seen how significant the effort is to lead the Society operatively and effectively. This effort involves several committee chairs and committee members. They deserve acknowledgment for the continuous voluntary work they provide for the benefit of the Society. A particular devoted effort is required by the editors-in-chief, associate editors, and reviewers who are maintaining our publications at the top level among all IEEE journals and worldwide references for the antennas and propagation community. In the past year, four editors-in-chief concluded their terms: Prof. Danilo Erricolo, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (TAP); Prof. Christophe Fumeaux, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (AWPL); Prof. Konstantina Nikita, IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation (OJAP); and Prof. Kubilay Sertel, Electronic Publications. Our Society should be grateful to them for the remarkable work they have done. Warmest congratulations to the four new editors-in-chief: Prof. Konstantina Nikita, IEEE TAP; Prof. Steven Gao, IEEE AWPL; Prof. Zhongxiang Shen, IEEE OJAP; and Prof. Erdem Topsakal, Electronic Publications and to Prof. Francesco Andriulli, reappointed as editor-in-chief of IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine for the second term.
Antennas and propagation technologies are assuming ever more importance in the information and communication field, with increasing interconnections with communities in electronics, material sciences, and computer sciences. This is creating highly relevant new knowledge in the AP-S community and an increasing impact of the AP-S among all of the IEEE Societies. Our efforts in the incoming year will be focused on improving the AP-S impact along the following guidelines, not necessarily in order of priority: improving interdisciplinary and inter-Society relations both inside and outside IEEE; promoting large educational initiatives, with an emphasis on developing countries, to improve the continuous development of an exciting antennas and propagation community of young scholars; consolidating the culture of inclusion, diversity, equity, and equality through a broadening participation framework that is embedded in all aspects of activities; increasing the participation of industry in the AP-S; enhancing the contribution of early-stage researchers and young engineers and their participation in AP-S committees; and revitalizing new foundational and interdisciplinary research activities to reinforce the predominance of the AP-S as the leading community in electromagnetic research.
I would like to conclude this column by thanking our past presidents, Prof. Moghaddam, Prof. Ito, and Prof. Chew, for continuing to serve our Society as well as our outgoing AdCom members, Dr. Migliaccio, Dr. Chen, Dr. Fumeaux, and Dr. Vega, for serving our Society since 2020. My warmest welcome to the new president-elect, Prof. Branislav Notaros. I very much look forward to working with him, with the newly elected AdCom members (Dr. Albuquerque, Dr. Chen, Dr. Essaidi, Dr. Noghanian, and Dr. Reddy) as well as with the other AdCom members (Dr. Apte, Dr. Baktur, Dr. Iyer, Dr. Hirokawa, Dr. El-Shenawee, Dr. Luk, Dr. Sarabandi, and Dr. Stone). Particular thanks to our outgoing treasurer, Dr. Mike Shield, for the incredible work done in carrying on the finance of the Society and a warm welcome to the new treasurer, Dr. Nestor Lopez.
I will do my best to further strengthen our Society and provide timely coordination efforts for all of the AP-S initiatives carried out by our committees. Any personal input from all of you will be welcome.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MAP.2022.3229506
