Experience, Leadership, Vision: Supporting Your Professional Growth!

Your professional growth matters!  If elected to the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Board of Governors, my mission will be to support your professional growth and advancement via a diverse array of services, products, and events made available to all members of the IEEE VTS around the world!

Brief Biosketch

Alexander M. Wyglinski is a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering and Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at WPI, and Director of the Wireless Innovation Laboratory (WI Lab). He has published approximately 48 journal papers, over 121 conference papers, nine book chapters, and three textbooks. According to Google Scholar, Dr. Wyglinski’s citation count is equal to 4841 and possesses an h-index equal to 37 as well as an i10-index equal to 85. To ensure a sustainable research enterprise that can support his team, which has so far supported 11 graduated PhD students, Dr. Wyglinski has successfully secured career totals of $2,874,296USD in awards/grants/contracts and $1,408,056USD in gifts.  Current and past sponsors include organizations such as the National Science Foundation, Toyota InfoTechnology Center U.S.A., MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Verizon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Naval Research Laboratory, MITRE Corporation, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, and Mathworks. Dr. Wyglinski is a Senior Member of the IEEE, as well as a member of Sigma Xi, Eta Kappa Nu, and the ASEE.

Experience

I have had the distinct honor and pleasure of serving the IEEE VTS membership in many different roles over the past two decades.  From reviewing VTC paper submissions to serving as our society’s President, it has truly been an exciting experience working with numerous VTS volunteers and society staff on projects designed to enhance the professional development and growth of our membership. Here’s a short list of some of my qualifications for this position:

• President, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2018-2019)
• Executive Vice-President, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2016-2017)
• Vice-President Membership, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2015)
• Chapters Committee Chair, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2014)
• Board of Governors (Elected Member), IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2016-2020)
• Board Member, IEEE Technical Activities Board (2018-2019)
• Vice-Chair, IEEE VTS/Autonomous Vehicles Standards Committee (2020-Present)
• Junior Past President, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2020-Present)
• General Co-Chair, 82nd IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Boston, MA, USA (September 2015)
• Co-Chair, IEEE Future Networks Initiative – Community Development Committee (2017-Present)

Leadership

Throughout my professional career, I have demonstrated a “can-do” personality and the ability of getting things done!  During my service to the VTS membership in several leadership roles, it was exciting to work with other VTS volunteers and society staff on multiple projects designed to enhance our society’s offerings of products, services, and events.  From these leadership roles, I acquired an excellent understanding of our society’s governance structure and processes including its constitution, bylaws, and committees, how to start and lead new initiatives designed to contribute to the professional growth of our membership, and how to engage and connect with our VTS membership in general. As a result of my past leadership experiences, I was able to achieve the following for our membership around the world:

• Establish VTS as an international leader in autonomous vehicle technology via the organization and/or support of several major initiatives, including:
  • Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) Industry Summit in Santa Clara, California in 2018
  • Two editions of the IEEE Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Symposium (CAVS) in 2018 and 2019
  • New permanent section on connected and autonomous vehicles in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
  • IEEE eLearning Series entitled “IEEE Guide to Autonomous Vehicle Technology”
  • IEEE Autonomous Vehicles Standards Committee
• Invest resources and energy into the promotion and support of diversity within VTS, including the organization and/or support of several major initiatives, including:
  • The new IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Women’s Distinguished Career Award
  • The new IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Student Travel Grants
  • Formation of a standing VTS Diversity Committee
  • Hosting the first-ever VTS Diversity Workshop held at IEEE VTC2019-Fall in Honolulu, Hawaii
• Focus on reaching out to and engaging with potential VTS members via activities designed to support their professional development and growth, including:
  • The first-ever IEEE Wireless Africa conferences in 2018 and 2019
  • Organization of several VTS Young Professional Pizza Panel events at several VTC events
  • Formation of an additional 10 IEEE VTS chapters around the world during my tenure as VTS President

Vision

My vision as an elected member of the IEEE VTS Board of Governors is to support your professional growth and advancement via a diverse array of services, products, and events made available to all members of the IEEE VTS around the world! I will work hard to enhance existing membership benefits while also implementing new services, products, and services.

One activity I will actively pursue as an elected member of the VTS Board of Governors will be the development of a unified VTS framework for the large-scale production, collection, and dissemination of virtual technical content accessible by the VTS membership.  Working with the VTS Education, Conferences, and Chapters Committees, my goal will be significant growth of our VTS TA Resource Center into a massive virtual repository of high-quality content (Distinguished Lecture presentations, conference keynote talks, tutorial presentations, panel presentations, etc) to be distributed to all our VTS membership free of charge. Additionally, this virtual technical repository will be updated continuously such that the latest emerging topics are always available to all VTS members. It is my hope this repository will serve as an invaluable resource for the professional development and growth of all our membership.