Nuno Borges Carvalho
IMAGE LICENSED BY INGRAM PUBLISHING
IEEE is divided into 10 Regions. One of them, Region 9 (R9), comprises Central and South America. The presence of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) in R9 is modest (less than 1% of our membership), which has plenty of room to increase. That is the reason why this year, significant effort has been put into understanding the Region and facilitating an exchange of experiences with the Chapters in R9 so that we can better serve those countries and bring bright minds to our field by advancing microwaves, radio, and wireless technologies that contribute to human development. In March 2023, the R9 meeting was held in Panama City; this was one of the best IEEE events, with a perfect atmosphere, showing us that in-presence meetings create an ambiance that provides for colorful discussion.
During the R9 meetings, there was a panel with Society presidents where ways to interact with the Region were discussed. This meeting allowed members, Sections, and Chapters to interact with the various Societies and brainstorm ways to collaborate among the various Societies’ Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) committees and Society technical activities. Figure 1 provides some photos of this meeting.
Figure 1. The R9 Society panel meeting.
Some of the topics included discussions on the main benefits the Societies can bring to R9 members, with a focus on industry members, the various Societies’ requirements for selecting distinguished lecturers, the main conditions for a Society to bring international conferences to R9, and ways to provide financial support for R9 Members for awards, scholarships, or grants. There was also discussion on ways to improve diversity and inclusion of young professionals, women, industry practitioners, and other groups into various Society activities.
Nuno Borges Carvalho (nbcarvalho@ua.pt), 2023 MTT-S president, is with the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications, and Informatics, University of Aveiro, Aveiro 3810-193 Portugal.
We also discussed a vital project topic: translating papers into Spanish and Portuguese to help ease the technical language barrier, increase interest in our Societies, and bring critical international conferences to R9. MTT-S already has a strong presence in R9, with our Latin America Microwave Conference (LAMC) and International Microwave and Optoelectronics Conference focused on research, and held, in the Region.
Due to this interaction with R9, the MTT-S MGA decided to make a separate trip to present our Society to several regional universities and companies. This 2023 May trip had an MTT-S delegation focused on a membership drive in South America, with the overall purpose of highlighting our MTT-S educational and research offerings. The objectives of our visit included the following:
The MTT-S delegation included Nuno Borges Carvalho (MTT-S president) and Goutam Chattopadhyay (MTT-S MGA committee chair), as well as José Rayas-Sánchez and Glauco Fontgalland (MTT-S R9 coordinators) (Figure 2). We visited prominent companies and universities in four South American cities: Campinas and Brasilia, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Santiago, Chile.
Figure 2. José Rayas-Sánchez and Glauco Fontgalland (MTT-S R9 coordinators).
One important topic addressed during this visit was the next edition of the IEEE MTT-S LAMC-2023, planned for 6–8 December 2023, in San Jose, Costa Rica (https://lamc-ieee.org/) (Figure 3).
Figure 3. The LAMC 2023 logo.
A broad-based paper to highlight microwave representation in R9 appeared in the May 2023 IEEE Microwave Magazine International Microwave Symposium Special Issue and is titled “An overview on RF and microwave research in Latin America†[1]. This article, coauthored by José Rayas-Sánchez and Apolinar Reynoso-Hernández, describes the most recent and representative research work developed in our field’s most active Latin American countries and includes contributions from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Puerto Rico.
I encourage you to visit our website (https://www.mtt.org) for more information about the MTT-S and volunteer opportunities.
[1] J. E. Rayas-Sánchez and J. A. Reynoso-Hernández, “An overview of RF and microwave research in Latin America: Scanning Latin American research on microwaves,†IEEE Microw. Mag., vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 45–57, May 2023, doi: 10.1109/MMM.2023.3242559.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MMM.2023.3264342
