2017 Historical Information - IEEE Utah Section

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IEEE Utah Section Holiday Dinner (02 December 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be hosting a holiday dinner on Saturday, 02 December 2017.

When: Saturday, 02 December 2017, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Where: TBD
Cost: $15.00 per person
Due to seating restrictions, tickets are limited.

Please register via IEEE vTools:
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (28 November 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 28 November at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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Senior Member Grade Elevation Event (28 November 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be hosting a Senior Member (SM) Grade Elevation Event.

Candidates for Senior Member Grade must supply three references from current IEEE members holding the grade of Fellow, Senior Member, or Honorary Member. There will be three Senior Members in attendance at this event ready to review each senior member applicant’s application and CV/Résumé and help with the approval process by making the necessary referrals.

The grade of Senior Member is the highest for which application may be made and shall require experience reflecting professional maturity. For admission or transfer to the grade of Senior Member, a candidate shall be an engineer, scientist, educator, technical executive, or originator in IEEE-designated fields for a total of 10 years and have demonstrated five years of significant performance.

The ad hoc Admission & Advancement (A&A) Review Panels of IEEE meet periodically, six to twelve times annually, to review applications or nominations for election or elevation to Senior Member (SM) grade.

If you would like to have the Utah Section nominate you for SM elevation and/or provide you with the required Senior Member references at the event, please fill out the on-line form at the senior member site.

When: Tuesday, 28 November 2017, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM
Where: Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025
Cost: Free (food provided)
Who: Current IEEE members who may qualify for Senior Membership
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IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Fall Seminar (20 October 2017)

Dr. Pieter Harpe from TU Eindhoven will be the distinguished speaker who is an IEEE SSCS Distinguished Lecturer.

Dr. Harpe is an expert in data converters and will present two lectures on successive approximation analog-to-digital conversion circuits.

Lunch is free for SSCS members and there is a small fee for non-members.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/47233
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (26 September 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 26 September at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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Plain Talk About the Electric Power Industry (12-14 September 2017)

This event is for the Power Industry Professional which will help you to understand the technical aspects of the Electric Power System. You will gain insights into the concerns of engineers, the demands of regulators and consumer groups, and the factors and trends that impact the operation of today’s electric power systems.

The course curriculum includes:

Day 1: Power System Basics – Understanding How the Bulk Electric Power System Works
Day 2: Distribution System – Delivering Power to the Customer
Day 3: Transmission System – The Interconnected Bulk Electric System

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/46404
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Speaker Event (06 September 2017)

The Value of Coordinated Infrastructure Planning for Electric Power and Natural Gas Transmission by Dr. Seth Blumsack (Pennsylvania State University)

The recent and rapid shift towards the increased use of natural gas for power generation in North America has convinced both power grid operators and regulators that additional coordination between electric power and natural gas transmission is needed to ensure the reliable operation of both systems. This talk will report on a new public-domain modeling framework for joint gas-grid expansion planning and steady-state operations, the Combined Electric and Gas Expansion (CEGE) environment. The CEGE model incorporates recent advances in convex approximations for large-scale nonlinear systems; is able to capture then on linear behaviors of large-scale electric power and gas transmission, along with the couplings between the systems; and captures price formation processes in electricity and natural gas markets. Along with the optimization framework the CEGE environment also contains the first public-domain test system for joint electricity and gas transmission analysis, which is topologically similar to the electricity and gas infrastructure serving the Northeastern United States. The CEGE environment is computationally tractable, and has been used to illustrate economic cost reductions achievable through joint infrastructure planning and coordinated operations, as well as the costs associated with network expansions to avoid extreme events such as the unusual coincident gas-electric peaks experienced in North America during the winter of 2014. This modeling framework is flexible enough to admit other system performance objectives or design criteria, such as system security for both gas and electricity or environmental impacts of air emissions from the natural gas sector.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/46816
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (25 July 2017)

There will be a meeting on Tuesday, 25 July 2017 at Cucina Toscana (282 S 300 W, SLC) from 6:15 PM – 7:45 PM. It is about a 12 minute walk via 200 S from the Salt Lake Central FrontRunner Station. Parking is available on 307 W Pierpont Avenue, SLC (please park in spots labeled for the restaurant). Individuals attending the meeting will order from the menu.
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Speaker Event (14 July 2017)

Power and Energy Research at the Huazhong Dianzi University

The exploiting of potential energy storage behind high-rise buildings and sponge water tanks of large cities: Urbanization is a worldwide trend which causes serious negative impacts, e.g., heavy electrical load brings great difference between peak and off-peak power which causes the low utilization hour of bulk power system, land harden makes flood disaster in most large cities in China, etc. High-rise buildings embedded pumped storage (HBEPS), has been proposed including prospects and techno-economic analysis which will be talked; a huge investment will be spent for water detention pool to copy with short-term storm raining, thus, a propose of comprehensive utilization of those water pool for long term energy storage scheme for sponge city projects will also discussed. Short discuss on situation awareness visualization for large-scale active distribution network and cyber security issue of digital substation: The development of situation awareness visualization for large scale active distribution network and cyber security issue of digital substation, will be discussed based on two NSF projects and several research program supported by China State Grid Company.

Biography:

Jianmin Zhang received B.Sc., M.Sc. from Huazhong University of Sci.& Tech.(HUST), Wuhan, China, and M.Eng. from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, all in electrical engineering, in 1984, 1987, 1992 respectively. He joined Hangzhou Regional Center of Small Hydro Power (HRC) and National Institute of Rural Electrification, Hangzhou, China from 1987 to 1997, as a chief of power grid division, and electrical and mechanical department. He was also general manager of power system business department of Quare Ltd, and Hangzhou Guodian Information Technology Ltd from 1997-2007. He joined Hangzhou Dianzi University since 2001 as a full professor of Electrical Engineering and Automation, a R&D consultant of Zhejiang Province Government, chief engineer and director of institute of smart grid of Zhejiang Creaway Automation Ltd under Zhejiang Electrical Power Corporation. He is PI of China NSF program and PI of major program of Zhejiang provincial NSF in “Situation Awareness of Smart Grid”. As the first or corresponding author, he has published more than 80 journal papers including 40 SCI/EI index, and near 20 EI indexed conference paper, and two books. His research interests include electric power and energy system modeling, optimal operation and dispatching, intelligence engineering and automation, information system integration, cyber physical system, etc. He is member of IEEE, member of China Electrical Engineering Society, Society of Water Resources, and director of Zhejiang Electrical Engineering Society.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/46403
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2017 IEEE Utah Section Summer Activity – Lagoon Amusement Park (24 June 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be hosting a summer activity at Lagoon Amusement Park on Saturday, 24 June 2017. The fun will start at 10:00 AM and continue until 11:00 PM. The Section has rented the Aspen bowery (inside the park) and will have dinner catered by Lagoon from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. The dinner will include all you can eat hamburgers, hotdogs, salads, chips, ice cream, and drinks. Veggie burgers are available upon request (please note this during registration). The cost for a Single Day Pass with Dinner for IEEE Members and guests is $20.00. Each IEEE Member may purchase up to five tickets. The tickets are non-refundable. Tickets may be purchased starting Saturday, 27 May at 10:00 AM until Friday, 16 June 2017 at 7:00 PM. Tickets are limited.

When registering, please enter the name of each person. The tickets will be placed in Will Call under the IEEE member’s name. If a registrant is under age 3, please indicate so in the remarks during registration.

If there are any questions, please let me know.

Thanks, Jennifer, IEEE Utah Section Chair, jennifer.hershman@us.af.mil

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/45688
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Current Research in Energy Conversion at the LAPLACE Laboratory of Toulouse in France (05 June 2017)

The first part of the talk will describe the LAPLACE laboratory and collaborations between its researchers and various industrial partners in France. Next, the organization of the research labs and their current areas of focus will be discussed. The group investigating plasmas and energy conversion includes120 fulltime researchers organized in 12 tracks, together with nearly 140 PhD students researching a continuum of topics on the production, transport, management, conversion, and use of electricity. The second part of the talk will be devoted to specific research activities on the control of electric machines for the traction of electric vehicles, in particular the flux-weakening operation to achieve high speeds of rotation for salient pole permanent magnet synchronous machines. Subsequently, control algorithms for parallel active filters will be presented in order to improve power quality in distribution systems, particularly in the presence of unbalanced loads and high levels of harmonic disturbances.

Biography:

Professor Maurice FADEL was born in Toulouse (France) and obtained his PhD from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse in 1988, specializing in the control of electrical engineering systems. He is currently a Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Electrotechnique, d’Electronique, d’Informatique, d’Hydraulique et de Télécommunications. In 1985, he joined the Laboratory of Electrotechnics and Industrial Electronics, and served as its director in 2005. From January 2007 to December 2015, he was Deputy Director of the LAPLACE (Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d’Energie). Professor FADEL’s current interests include the modeling and control of electric drives, the control of static converters, and the control of power systems integrating multiple energy sources.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/45698
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (23 May 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 23 May at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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Speaker Event (27 April 2017)

The Utah Power and Energy Forum is aimed at bringing together the experts from the power and energy industry, government and regulatory agencies, and the academic community in a common forum, for facilitating discussion and sharing of the latest power system and electric grid related research and trending issues. The forum will also provide a platform for attendees to network, initiate partnerships, advance the dialogue and breadth of power and energy knowledge, academic pursuit, and activity in the state of Utah, and advancing education and employment opportunities for the students.

Utah Governor’s Energy Policy Adviser, Executive Director, Governor’s Office of Energy Development – Impacts and Trends of Energy Storage and Distributed Energy Resources in Utah (Dr. Laura Nelson )

Chief Economic Adviser, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – Energy Storage and Distributed Energy Resources Market Integration (Dr. Richard O’Neill)

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/45174
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (25 April 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 25 April at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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Speaker Event (21 April 2017)

Talk 1: Biosensing: History and the Fundamentals

Talk 2: CMOS-Based Biosensors

The multibillion dollar semiconductor industry has faithfully upheld Moore’s Law for the past fifty years by continually shrinking device critical dimensions to increase density. This progress has led to integrated circuits with incredible functionality and complexity, but also opened the door for novel applications such as interfacing transistors with biology. In the first of this two part talk, I will describe the history and fundamentals needed to understand modern day biosensors in a tutorial-like format. Specific emphasis will be on in-vitro diagnostics and DNA sequencing in preparation for the second talk where I will describe my group’s research towards unlocking the potential of CMOS-based biosensors. Case studies will be given for proteomic, genomic, and biopotential sensors with a focus on the circuit and system-level challenges.

Biography:

Drew Hall is an assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of California, San Diego. He received a B.S. degree in computer engineering with honors from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2005 along with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2008 and 2012, respectively. From 2011 to 2013, he was a research scientist in the integrated biosensors laboratory at Intel Labs. Dr. Hall’s research interests include bioelectronics, biosensors, analog circuit design, medical devices, and sensor interfaces. Dr. Hall has won several awards including the 2011 Analog Devices Outstanding Designer Award and 1st place in both the inaugural international IEEE Change the World Competition and the BME-IDEA invention competition. He received the Hellman Fellowship award in 2014, an undergraduate teaching award in 2014, and the prestigious NSF CAREER award in 2015. He is also a Tau Beta Pi fellow. He currently serves as an associate editor of the IEEE Transaction on Biomedical Circuits and Systems journal.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44949
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Learning Sparsifying Transforms for Signal, Image, and Video Processing (20 April 2017)

The sparsity of signals and images in a certain transform domain or dictionary has been exploited in many applications in signal and image processing, including compression, denoising, and notably in compressed sensing, which enables accurate reconstruction from undersampled data. These various applications used sparsifying transforms such as DCT, wavelets, curvelets, and finite differences, all of which had a fixed, analytical data-independent form.

Recently, sparse representations that are directly adapted to the data have become popular, especially in applications such as image and video denoising and inpainting. While synthesis dictionary learning has enjoyed great popularity and analysis dictionary learning too has been explored, these methods involve a repeated step of sparse coding, which is NP hard, and heuristics for its approximation are computationally expensive. In this talk we describe our work on an alternative approach: sparsifying transform learning, in which a sparsifying transform is learned from data. The method provides efficient computational algorithms with exact closed-form solutions for the alternating optimization steps, and with theoretical convergence guarantees. The method scales better than dictionary learning with problem size and dimension, and in practice provides orders of magnitude speed improvements and better image quality in image processing applications. Variations on the method include the learning of a union of transforms, online versions, and a filterbank structure.

We describe applications to image representation, image and video de-noising, and inverse problems in imaging, demonstrating improvements in performance and computation over state of the art methods.

Biography:

YoramBresler received the B.Sc. (cum laude) and M.Sc. degrees from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and the Ph.D degree from Stanford University, all in Electrical Engineering. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he is the GEBI Founder Professor of Engineering at the Departments of ECE and Bioengineering. He is also President and Chief Technology Oﬃcer at InstaRecon, Inc., a startup he co-founded to commercialize tomographic reconstruction. His current research interests include statistical signal processing and machine learning for signal processing, and their applications to inverse problems in imaging, and in particular compressed sensing, computed tomography, and MRI.

Dr. Bresler has served on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, the IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Machine Vision and Applications, and the SIAM Journal on Imaging Science. Dr. Bresler is a fellow of the IEEE and of the AIMBE. He received two Best Journal Paper Awards from the IEEE Signal Processing society, and two papers he coauthored with his students received the Young Author Best Journal Paper Award from the same society. He is the recipient of a 1991 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Technion (Israel Inst. of Technology) Fellowship in 1995, and the Xerox Senior Award for Faculty Research in 1998. He was named a University of Illinois Scholar in 1999, appointed as an Associate at the Center for Advanced Study of the University in 2001-2, and Faculty Fellow at the National Cener for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 2006.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44796
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Open House – Optisys and Qualified Rapid Products (06 April 2017)

Companies: Optisys (www.optisys.tech) and Qualified Rapid Products (www.qualifiedrapidproducts.com)

What to see:
3D printing in metal – aluminum, titanium, steel, stainless steel
2 printers (ConceptLaser MLab and EOS M280)
3D printed RF feeds and waveguide networks
3D printed surgical implants
3D printed tooling

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44609
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Speaker Event – On Being A Practical Engineer (29 March 2017)

Guru Madhavan is a biomedical engineer and senior policy adviser. He conducts research at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC. He has served two terms as a vice-president of IEEE-USA. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, and an M.B.A. from the State University of New York. He has been named as a distinguished young scientist by the World Economic Forum. He has co-edited six books, and is author of Applied Minds: How Engineers Think that has been translated into many languages.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44397
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Student Professional Awareness Conference (SPA-X) (27 March 2017)

Student Professional Awareness Conference (SPAC) is an opportunity for students to develop professional and engineering skills that may not be covered in school. High School and College students will be able to participate in hands on activities depending on the workshop. Workshop paths are arranged according to level of education. This year, the workshops are: Signal Processing, Entrepreneurship, “Changing the Conversation”, Soldering, Git, Raspberry Pi, Arduino.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44161
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Seminar – Grounding, Bonding, Lightning Protection & Surge Protection Certification Training (16 March 2017)

The purpose of ERICO’s Electrical Grounding Certification Training is to provide electrical engineers and contractors with the training necessary to understand the fundamentals of facility electrical protection related to Utility Grounding, Commercial & Industrial / Residential Grounding and Telecommunications Grounding applications. Course Content: This 1-day seminar provides an overview of electrical grounding, bonding, lightning protection, and surge protection. Electrical engineering principles, relevant Utility and Commercial & Industrial grounding designs and the incorporation of lightning protection and surge protection devices will be discussed.

Meals, parking, and the education is free.

PDH Credit:

Individuals who successfully complete this seminar will receive 7 PDH credits submitted to RCEP on their behalf. Attendees will receive their certificate from the RCEP web site.

Location: Hilton Salt Lake City Center
255 South West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101

Please register at: https://slc_erico.eventbrite.com
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100 Year Anniversary & Awards/Recognition Banquet (11 March 2017)

Utah Section invites you to join us in honoring our Section and its Members!

The venue hosting the event is the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Jade Room in Salt Lake City, Utah.

If you have special dietary needs, please send the request to (jennifer.hershman@ieee.org)

Admission Cost:

IEEE Member & Guest(s): $10.00/person
Non-IEEE Member: $15.00/person

**Please RSVP by Friday, 03 March 2017**

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/43438

Please join us in recognizing the achievements and contributions of IEEE Utah Section Members!
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Northeast Area Operational Committee Meeting (11 March 2017)

The Northeast Area Operational Committee Meeting is being held on Saturday, 11 March 2017, from 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM. The meeting is being held at the Hilton Hotel located near the airport. If you are interested in attending, please email me at jennifer.hershman@ieee.org.

An optional ski day is taking place on Sunday, 12 March 2017 in Utah. Come and experience the Greatest Snow on Earth! if you are interested in participating, please let me know.
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Limited-Communication Control of Large-Scale, Networked Dynamic Systems (06 March 2017)

Carrying out certain tasks such as resource allocation in spatially distributed, large-scale systems involve coordination and significant communication. The complex nature of energy systems and power networks particularly present interesting challenges. For example, due to storage challenges, electricity is a commodity that, in most cases, needs to be consumed when generated; and the question becomes how to match demand to supply. Balancing demand with supply in real-time is communication intensive; for instance, each time an operator in the system transmits coordination signals to users, precious bandwidth is consumed. With the emergence of smart and connected cities, and given constraints on computation and communication resources, there is an imperative need for communication-efficient computation techniques. In this talk, I will introduce some challenges in the operation of power systems, and techniques we are developing to address them. I will specifically show how to coordinate distributed allocation of electric power to users in a system i) without overloading the system capacity, which could trigger a black out, and ii) with limited communication. I will also characterize the trade-off between our communication-efficient techniques and desired solution accuracy.

Biography:

Chinwendu Enyioha received the B.Sc. degree in Mathematics from Gardner-Webb University (GWU), Boiling Springs, NC, and PhD degree in Electrical and Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, in 2014. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard. Prior to arriving Harvard, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Enyioha is a Fellow of the Ford Foundation, was named a William Fontaine Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and has received the Mathematical Association of America Patterson award. His research lies in the areas of design, optimization and limited-communication control of distributed networked systems, with applications to future energy and cyber-physical systems.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44438
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (28 February 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 28 February at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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Speaker Event (28 February 2017)

Rocky Mountain Power – A Grid In Transition (Joshua Jones )

Find your Future Career in Rocky Mountain Power (Douglas Marx)

Location:
University of Utah
The Sorenson Molecular Bio-Technology Building Auditorium
36 South Wasatch Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah, 84112

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44039
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Utah Engineers Council Awards Banquet (25 February 2017)

The Utah Engineers Council (UEC) Awards Banquet is being held on Saturday, 25 February 2017.

Marc Bodson (Utah University) is Utah Section’s nominee for Engineer of the Year. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Engineer Award at the Section and Area level in IEEE. Congratulations Marc!

Forrest Brown (Hill Air Force Base) is Utah Section’s nominee for Educator of the Year. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award at the Section and Area level in IEEE. Congratulations Forrest!

The IEEE Utah Section is offering a discounted price for tickets to attend the banquet. The cost for IEEE Members & their guests is $25.00. Tickets are limited.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/43434

Thanks,
Jennifer
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Mixed Centralized/Decentralized Decision Protocols in Multi-Agent Systems (24 February 2017)

Multi-agent systems arise in diverse fields, including power systems, robotics, cyber-physical systems, and the Internet of Things. Coordinating these systems is often done using decentralized interactions, in which each agent only communicates with a small number of others. Decentralized algorithms offer several benefits, though they may have difficulty accommodating some performance demands, such as user privacy requirements. Toward addressing such challenges, I will present recent work on mixed centralized/decentralized decision protocols for multi-agent systems. Motivated by the availability of cloud computing, a centralized cloud computer is added to networks of agents in order to gather global information, perform centralized computations, and broadcast the results. As this happens, the agents continue to execute a decentralized behavior. The centralized nature of the cloud means it will be slower than the agents, though its slow, occasional transmissions do indeed enable multi-agent systems to handle various practical challenges. To this end, I will present mixed centralized/decentralized coordination algorithms that tolerate asynchronous information sharing and user privacy requirements, while still enabling strong theoretical guarantees of performance. In the asynchronous case, I will present an algorithm that allows each agent to perform useful work even if the agents have conflicting information about the network. For privacy, the framework of differential privacy is used, giving rise to a novel stochastic optimization algorithm. These algorithms draw from primal-dual optimization techniques and the theory of stochastic variational inequalities, and solve coordination tasks that are stated as convex optimization problems. The end result is a flexible coordination framework that tolerates an array of practical -challenges, all while solving constrained coordination problems for teams of agents, regardless of whether an agent is a robot, a self-driving car, or any other physical entity. In addition to theoretical results, I will present robotic implementations of this work to demonstrate its applicability in practice.

Biography:

Matthew Hale is a Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2012, he received his B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the GRASP Lab. He received his M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2015, and was awarded the Colonel Oscar P. Cleaver Outstanding Graduate Student Award by the same department in 2013. His research interests include optimization and control for multi-agent systems, differential privacy, and hybrid systems. His work applies methods from these areas to cyber-physical systems and teams of robots.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/44130
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High Tech Merit Badge POW-WOW (18 & 25 February 2017)

Dates: Saturdays, February 18 and 25, 2017

Schedule:

8:00 Arrive/Locate Classes
8:10 First Class
9:50 Second Class
11:30 Third Class

Location: SL Community College, 4600 South Redwood Road
Science and Industry Building
(Taylorsville Redwood Campus)
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When Machine Learning Takes over Audio Signal Processing (13 February 2017)

During the last few years, machine learning has started to permeate the world of audio processing and has produced results that drastically improve over the state of the art. In this talk I’ll touch on some recent approaches taking advantage of a machine learning perspective for approaching audio problems. I will show how traditional signal processing approaches can be reimagined using machine learning tools such as mixture models, matrix factorizations, deep learning regressions, and more, and how such approaches can lead to better, faster, and more efficient processing.

Biography:

Paris Smaragdis is an associate professor at the Computer Science and the Electrical and Computer Engineering departments of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as well as a senior research scientist at Adobe Research. He completed his masters, PhD, and postdoctoral studies at MIT, performing research on computational audition. In 2006 he was selected by MIT’s Technology Review as one of the year’s top young technology innovators for his work on machine listening, in 2015 he was elevated to an IEEE Fellow for contributions in audio source separation and audio processing, and during 2016-2017 he is an IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer. He has authored more than 100 papers on various aspects of audio signal processing, holds more than 40 patents worldwide, and his research has been productized by multiple companies.

Please register via IEEE vTools: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/43517
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Monthly Executive Committee Meeting (24 January 2017)

The IEEE Utah Section will be holding a monthly meeting on Tuesday, 24 January at 6:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Weber State University Farmington Station Park. The address is 240 North Promontory, Suite 3000, Building C, 3rd Floor, Farmington, UT 84025. Dinner will be provided.
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IEEE Rising Stars Conference (06-08 January 2017)

As the premier student event within IEEE Region 6, the Rising Stars conference brings together the most promising students and young professionals from within the region to network and be inspired by each other. The conference is being held in Las Vegas on 06-08 January. If you are an active IEEE Student within the Utah Section and are interested in attending this conference, please contact me at jennifer.hershman@ieee.org.