By: Carolyn Farrell
Director, Awards and Honours, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering

Congratulations to Professors Francis Dawson, Brendan Frey, and Chair Jonathan Rose, all of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, for their recent appointment as Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE).

The rank of IEEE Fellow recognizes unusual distinction in the profession and is conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishment in any of the IEEE fields of interest.

"I am delighted that IEEE recognizes the leadership and exceptional contributions of Professors Francis, Frey and Rose, who have made a global impact in their respective fields," says Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

Professor Dawson was appointed IEEE Fellow “for contributions to modeling of excitation and detection of electrical arcs.” His contributions to this field go back two decades, when he participated in the development of practical models that could be used to design power sources for DC arcs, pulsed DC arcs and AC arcs. More recently, he participated in the development of the computational fluid flow (CFD) code for a high pressure DC arc lamp for the semiconductor industry, which shortened the lamp design cycle from one year to about a month. He has also worked on developing algorithms that can be used to detect faulting arcs in aircraft wiring harnesses, thus potentially averting airplane crashes.

Professor Frey is a Canada Research Chair in Information Processing and Machine Learning, and his work in this area has received international recognition. He is the author of the book Graphical Models for Machine Learning and Digital Communication and his article entitled “Factor Graphs and the Sum-Product Algorithm” is a key paper in the field. In 2007, he was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40. He was appointed IEEE Fellow “for contributions to information processing and machine learning”.

Professor Rose is a pioneer and world leader in the area of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). He has done seminal research in both FPGA architecture and the computer-aided design (CAD) tools needed to use and explore them, and has participated in the architectural development of the two key commercial FPGAs in the market today. His IEEE Fellowship is in recognition of his “contributions to field-programmable gate arrays.”

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