IEEE Online Forum on Climate Change Technologies (OFCCT)

Keynotes

IEEE has over 40 Technical Societies and Councils, and over 100 conferences that cover Sustainability and Climate Change Technologies. This online forum will focus on four tracks: Green Energy, Climate Monitoring, Food Security, and IEEE Activities.

Saifur Rahman (Life Fellow, IEEE) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 1973, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the State University of New York, New York, NY, USA, in 1975, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 1978.,He is currently the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Institute, Virginia Tech, Arlington, VA, USA, where he is also the J. R. Loring Professor of electrical and computer engineering. He also directs the Center for Energy and the Global Environment, Virginia Tech. He has published over 140 journal articles and has over 400 conferences and invited presentations. He has lectured on renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grid, energy Internet, blockchain, and IoT sensor integration in over 30 countries. Prof. Rahman is an IEEE Millennium Medal Winner. He was the Founding Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Electrification Magazine and the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He has served as the Chair of the U.S. National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2013. He is the 2023 IEEE President and CEO. He was the President of the IEEE Power and Energy Society for 2018 and 2019. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer for PES.

Title: Sensing and Automation Technologies in Smart Buildings for a Sustainable Climate
Abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) deployments offer a much higher value proposition if these can function in the context of smart buildings. Such advanced information and communication technology (ICT) applications in commercial buildings, schools, libraries, shopping centers, etc. offer low cost but highly effective monitoring and control opportunities.  Sensors deployed in key locations can monitor the building environment in real-time, collect information for intelligent decision making, and facilitate various services. An IoT sensor platform has been developed that provides a unified communication platform which can integrate information from disparate sources and provide one control hierarchy. It is a powerful, low-cost, open-architecture software platform that can monitor and control major electrical loads (e.g., HVAC, lighting and plug loads), as well as solar PV systems, energy storage units and other IoT sensors in commercial buildings. This platform leverages machine learning algorithms to draw insights from a deployed building’s historical operating data and occupant preferences to save energy (kWh) while increasing occupant comfort. Such energy savings contribute to climate sustainability through the reduction of carbon emissions.

Chongqing Kang is now Professor and Dean of Department of Electrical Engineering in Tsinghua University, and President of Tsinghua Sichuan Energy Internet Research Institute. He is Fellow of IEEE, IET and CSEE. He served as Editor-in-Chief of International Transactions on Electrical Energy Systems (Wiley). He also serves as Strategic Advisory Group Member of Cigre SC C1, Convenor of Working Group of Cigre SC C1.39, Long-Range Planning Committee Member of IEEE PES, and Fellows Nomination Resource Committee Member of IEEE PES. He has more than 400 papers, including over 100 papers on IEEE Transactions. In Google Scholar his papers have been cited over 17,000 times. He was listed in Elsevier’s Chinese Most Cited Researchers in 2017-2021. He and his team were granted the Institute Prize in IEEE PES Global Energy Forecasting Competition in 2014. In 2018 he was awarded the “Outstanding Contribution Award to China Electric Power Science and Technology”. He won IEEE PES Roy Billinton Power System Reliability Award, and IET Achievement Medal, both in 2021.

Title: Power System Transition: A Carbon Perspective
Abstract: China has set up the country’s carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. Power system transition from fossil-energy-dominated to a low-carbon clean energy system is essential. This brings severe challenges for China’s power sector. This presentation plans to discuss the theory and method of low-carbon power systems from the perspective of carbon emission. From the view of carbon metering and tracing, based on the IPCC principles of measurable, reportable and verifiable, this presentation will discuss the carbon metering and tracing methods for power systems with the consideration of full carbon emission links and the spatial-temporal correlations of carbon flow. From the view of carbon planning and trajectory, the presentation will discuss the low carbon transition pathway of power system considering the source-grid-demand-storage coordination and the drive of carbon emission constraint. From the view of carbon reduction and optimizing, the presentation will discuss the carbon reduction benefit and coordination of different low-carbon electrical techniques. From the view of carbon market and trading, this presentation will discuss the correlation and coordination of electricity market and carbon market.

Brian Zahnstecher is a Sr. Member of IEEE, Chair (Emeritus) of IEEE SFBAC Power Electronics Society (PELS), IEEE PELS North America Regional (R1-3) Chair, sits on Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA) Board of Directors, is Co-founder & Chair (Emeritus) of PSMA Reliability Committee, Co-chair of PSMA Energy Harvesting Committee, Co-founder & Co-chair of the EnerHarv workshop, and is Principal of PowerRox.  He Co-chairs IEEE Future Directions (formerly 5G) Initiative webinar series and is the founding Co-chair of IEEE 5G Roadmap Energy Efficiency Working Group and has lectured on this topic at major industry conferences.  He previously held positions in power electronics with Emerson Network Power, Cisco, and Hewlett-Packard.

Title: The IEEE INGR Drives Carbon Footprints & Enables a Sustainable Future
Abstract: Sustainability is something we see getting increased attention these days and hopefully for motivation to drive actionable solutions toward more energy-efficient systems and reducing carbon footprints as opposed to simply paying lip service to the need to be more “green” or even mere carbon neutrality (a.k.a. – net zero). Most analyses of system energy consumption, whether it be systems physically constrained to a box or even widely distributed across geographies, tends to focus on the first-order energy footprint typically associated with the application lifetime, which is very closely related to the operational expenditures (OPEX) of the use case. Being green from an energy perspective is now becoming green economically, which is helping to drive massive investment and the switch to a net-zero mentality toward macro energy utilization. This keynote will first provide some terminology, metrics, and general assessment philosophies for defining the true energy footprint of a design and what aspects must be taken into account to fully and comprehensively articulate the complete embodied energy of a system from cradle to grave based on the most recent work of the IEEE International Network Generations Roadmap (INGR) Energy Efficiency Working Group.

Danilo Demarchi is Full Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications.
Micro&Nano Electronics, Smart System Integration and IoTs for the AgriFood Value Chain and for BioMedical Devices.

Visiting Professor at EPFL Lausanne (2019) and at Tel Aviv University (2018-2021). Visiting Scientist (2018) at MIT and Harvard Medical School for the project SISTER (Smart electronic IoT SysTEms for Rehabilitation sciences).

Author and co-author of 5 patents and more than 300 scientific publications in international journals and peer-reviewed conference proceedings. Leading the MiNES (Micro&Nano Electronic Systems) Laboratory of Politecnico di Torino and coordinating the Italian Institute of Technology Microelectronics group at Politecnico di Torino (IIT@DET).

Founder and Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics – TAFE. Founder and General-Co-Chair of the IEEE Conference on AgriFood Electronics – CAFE. Founder and Vice-Chair of the IEEE CAS Special Interest Group on AgriFood Electronics. 2023-2024 Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE CAS Society with the Lecture “Let the Plants Do the Talking: Smart Agriculture by the messages received from Plants and Soil”.

Member of the IEEE Sensors Council and the BioCAS Technical Committee. Associate Editor of the IEEE Open Journal on Engineering in Medicine and Biology (OJ-EMB).

General Chair of IEEE BioCAS (Biomedical Circuits and Systems) Conference in 2017 in Torino and founder of IEEE FoodCAS Workshop (Circuits and Systems for the FoodChain). TPC Co-Chair of IEEE ICECS 2019, IEEE BioCAS 2021 and IEEE BioCAS 2022 conferences. General Co-Chair of IEEE BioCAS 2023.

Organizer of the 3rd Seasonal School on AgriFood Electronics: Smart Technologies for a Sustainable Agriculture in Torino, September 2022.

Title: Climate-Smart Agriculture for Food Security
Abstract: As reported in the report recently issued by the United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – IPCC Report 2021), the benefits that technology provides to a green and sustainable economy are highly appreciated and under intense research and development globally. Actual technologies, applied in the domain of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), can bring the needed functionalities and performances for reaching eco-friendly, circular and practical solutions, having as one of the main targets the Food Security. By CSA is possible to obtain more controlled quality production, water use optimisation, and a lower spreading of pesticides and fertilisers, serving the improvement of food quality, but also helping the respect of agriculture for the environment.

For reaching these targets, electronics are the perfect tool for interfacing the data sources, extracting the data and processing them, and obtaining the needed information along the whole food chain: from the farmer, and the professional stakeholders to the consumers.

In the keynote talk, an overview of electronics for precision agriculture will be presented, analysing the possible solutions that can bring important innovations, advancing the actual strategies based on remote or indirect measurements, by instead in-place measuring the plant and soil parameters (a.k.a. Let the Plants do The Talking), associated with more standard information derived from environmental conditions. Application scenarios for crop monitoring, water control, information communication and decision support will be presented. In particular, will be analysed technologies for reaching the needed levels of low power and low cost, and the efficient ones to be applied to AgriFood at the global scale, supporting Food Security and Sustainability.

Daniel Kammen is the James and Katherine Lau Distinguished Professor of Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley, with parallel appointments in the Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy, and the department of Nuclear Engineering. His work is focused on decarbonization, energy access, and climate justice. He has served as Senior Advisor for Energy and Innovation at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Kammen is a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC. He is the Co-Chair of the UC Berkeley Roundtable on Climate and Environmental Justice (ceej.berkeley.edu). Kammen was appointed the first Environment and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) Fellow by Secretary of State Hilary R. Clinton in April 2010 and served as Science Envoy for Secretary of State John Kerry (2016- 2017). His research is focused on the science and policy of decarbonized energy systems, energy access, and environmental justice. He has published more than 450 papers, which are available on his laboratory website, the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL, online at rael.berkeley.edu).  His research is currently focused on: decarbonization of power systems around the world; energy access and social justice; materials science for low-carbon economies; big-data approaches to clean transportation, and on the electrification of health facilities across Africa (HETA).

Title: Accelerating Climate Action through Science and Policy Partnerships
Abstract: The world is not on pace to meet both energy decarbonization targets by mid-century, nor Sustainable Development Goal targets in 2030.  This exposes the world to economically, socially, and ecologically crippling climate change damages that can be avoided, at least in part.  Significant disagreements between the world’s largest energy consumers and carbon emitters are real, and problematic, and difficult to resolve.  However, if the US and China do not put words into action to demonstrate that the ‘G2 of energy and pollution’ can’t collaborate we put everyone worldwide at great risk. In fact, the US and China need each other to meet their stated climate goals, for stationary power, clean transportation, and in the hard to decarbonize heavy industrial sectors. We examine opportunities in off-shore wind energy, Hydrogen as an energy carrier, industrial energy, urban transformation, and in energy for economic development where a US-China energy partnership can advance the global decarbonization process.

Dr. Matías Miguez (IEEE member) received his PhD in microelectronics from UNS, Argentina, in 2016, his MSc and Electrical Eng. degrees from UCU, Uruguay, in 2008 and 2005 respectively and his graduate degree in physics from UdelaR, Uruguay in 2007. He has participated since 2004 in several research and development projects in the field of microelectronics and electronics for the industry, and in the University.
Since 2005 he joined the Electrical Engineering Department at Universidad Católica del Uruguay, working in the uDIE research group (die.ucu.edu.uy). Dr. Miguez has published more than 50 papers in international journals and scientific meetings. He is the co-founder of two technology companies: Chipmate in 2009 (www.chipmateic.com) aimed at the design of application specific integrated circuits for medical devices and others, and ABM (www.abmsolutions.com.uy) in 2018 for electronic and hardware design. Dr. Miguez participated in design and consultancy in the field of electronics for companies in Uruguay, Brazil, Belgium and India including the development of embedded electronics medical devices. He is an IEEE Member, and a researcher of Uruguay National Research Council. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics

Title: Mitigating Livestock’s Climate Footprint: How Can Electronics Help?
Abstract: Livestock production faces a twofold challenge: is not only greatly affected by the effects of climate change, which can change the historical conditions and thus drastically reduce efficiency, but also a major driver in the generation of anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for more than 10% of total emissions. In this presentation, the application of electronics solutions are analyzed, first to mitigate the influence of climate change on production systems, and secondly their pivotal role in curbing overall emissions. Some already existing solutions will be presented as well as possible applications and trends in the near future.

Samsuzana Abd Aziz is an Associate Biological and Agricultural Engineering Professor at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She is currently the Head of the Agricultural Informatics Group and the founder of the Putra Makers Space and Masters in Digital Agriculture program at UPM. She received her PhD and MSc in Agricultural Engineering from Iowa State University USA in 2008 and 2005. In 2018 she was the first runner-up for ASEAN-US Science Prize for Women in Precision Agriculture research. Her current research focuses on instrumentations and artificial intelligence for AgriFood systems. She’s been occupying herself in Journal editorial work such as the IEEE Transactions on AgriFood Electronics, Transactions of ASABE, Computer and Electronics in Agriculture and Information Processing in Agriculture.

Title: Innovation of Agrifood Systems through Data-Driven Approaches
Abstract: Digitalisation and technological evolution in electronics play a significant role in sustainable global food security, tackling climate change and population growth. The fact that agrifood systems involve complex integrated biological, ecological and sociological processes; a deeper understanding of the problems and their solutions in agrifood systems requires exploration and integration of data. This talk covers the development and application of innovative data-driven approaches that provide insight into sustainable and smart agrifood systems. The challenges and opportunities are emphasized geographically, culturally and economically.

Dr. Ronny Hänsch received the Diploma in computer science and the Ph.D. degree from the TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in 2007 and 2014, respectively. He is a scientist at the Microwave and Radar Institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) where he leads the Machine Learning Team in the Signal Processing Group of the SAR Technology Department. He continues to lecture at the TU Berlin in the Computer Vision and Remote Sensing Group. His research interest is computer vision and machine learning with a focus on remote sensing (in particular SAR processing and analysis). He served as chair of the GRSS Image Analysis and Data Fusion (IADF) technical committee, serves as co-chair of the ISPRS working group on Image Orientation and Sensor Fusion, editor of the GRSS eNewsletter, associate editor of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters and the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, organizer of the CVPR Workshop EarthVision (2017-2023) and the IGARSS Tutorial on Machine Learning in Remote Sensing (2017-2023). He has extensive experience in organizing remote sensing community competitions, serves as the GRSS representative within SpaceNet and was the technical lead of the SpaceNet 8 Challenge.

Title: The IEEE GRSS Earth Observation Database – Application Ready Data at Your Fingertips
Abstract: Data-driven methods such as Deep Learning are the dominating approach in many scientific fields that require modeling a function mapping measurements to target variables. While by no means limited to it, this includes remote sensing and Earth observation with their applications to climate change, hazard management, monitoring and forecasting natural processes, and the sustainable development goals. However, learning-based systems can only be as good as the data they are trained on and thus require large datasets that provide both the actual measurements and values of the target variables. This presentation will discuss the current state and historical development of training datasets for machine learning in Earth observation and the role GRSS plays in their curation with a particular focus on how to find and access such datasets.

Professor Wei-Jen Lee received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan., and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas, Arlington, in 1978, 1980, and 1985, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering.
In 1986, he joined the University of Texas at Arlington, where he is currently a professor of the Electrical Engineering Department and the director of the Energy Systems Research Center.
He has been involved in the revision of IEEE Std. 141, 339, 551, 739, and 1584, and the development of 1584.1, 1584.2, 3002.8, and 3002.9. He is the past President of the IEEE Industry Application Society (IAS), the chair of IEEE TAB (Technical Activity Board) Climate Change Program, co-chair of IEEE Sustainable Development Ad Hoc Committee, member of IEEE Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate IEEE’s Response to Climate Change (CCIRCC), member of IEEE TAB Hall of Honor Committee, member of Pillar 4 of the Global Power Systems Transformation (G-PST), chair of IEEE Smart Grid Community, chair of IEEE Smart Cities Education Committee, member of IEEE Smart Grid Operation and Education Committees, and member of United Nations (UN) Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET).

Title: Participating in IEEE Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption Activities
Abstract: In the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, the 1.5oC goal would require the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050. COP26 concluded with nearly 200 countries agreeing to the Glasgow Climate Pact, which aims to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5oC and finalize the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement. This will have a revolutionized impact on the entire society!
In November 2019, IEEE Board of Directors precisely acknowledged this dilemma and issued an extraordinary Declaration. The resolution calls upon IEEE members and Operating Units to create frameworks to foster global cooperation within and across disciplines by developing and promoting, in IEEE’s fields of interest, technically feasible and economically viable solutions to sustainability.
Under the leadership of Bruno Meyer, 2922 IEEE Vice President Technical Activities, IEEE TAB Climate Change Program was established. This is a joint effort, we are inviting the leadership and experts of all major IEEE organizational units (both volunteers and professional staff) to coordinate and collaborate on this important and complex issue. The goal of this program is to create a platform for multi-societies collaboration on holistic climate change mitigation and adaptation programs.
In addition to IEEE TAB Climate Change Program, there are many related activities within IEEE. This presentation aims to bring together constituencies across IEEE Societies, Councils, Future Directions, and other TA units working together for this urgent and extremely challenging problem.

Dr. Paul Jaffe is an electronics engineer and researcher with nearly 30 years of experience at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). He has led or held major roles on dozens of space missions and on breakthrough technology development projects for civilian, defense, and intelligence community sponsors. He is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on power beaming and space solar. He has over 60 research and patent publications, frequent international speaking and media appearances, and is the recipient of numerous awards.

Title: Power Beaming and Space Solar
Abstract: Wireless power beaming is the transmission of electrical energy without a physical link. In a wireless power transmission system, a transmitter device, driven by electric power from a power source, transmits power across space to a receiver device, which extracts power from the field and supplies it to an electrical load. The technology of wireless power transmission can eliminate the use of wires and batteries, thus increasing the mobility, convenience, and safety of an electronic device for users. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has a strong heritage of turning visionary ideas into reality: nuclear submarines, space surveillance, and GPS are just a few examples that have roots at NRL. Today, a confluence of advances at NRL and elsewhere presents an opportunity for two potentially revolutionary energy technologies: Power Beaming & Space Solar. As recognized in NRL’s reports on these topics, delivering energy without moving or employing mass and the prospect of collecting clean, continuous, abundant sunlight in space and distributing it globally present compelling capabilities for remote installation energy resupply, disaster response, and power for the developing world. Dr. Jaffe has been conducting space-based solar energy research for more than a decade, focusing in part on transmitting solar energy from space to Earth; in this presentation, Dr. Jaffe will present the visions for power beaming and space solar, and delve into their technical, regulatory, and economic challenges and opportunities.

Avik Bhattacharya received the integrated M.Sc. degree in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 2000 and the Ph.D. degree in remote sensing image processing and analysis from Telecom Paris-Tech, Paris, France, and the Ariana Research Group, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA), Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, in 2007.
He is a Professor at the Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (CSRE, IITB), Mumbai, India, where he heads the Microwave Remote Sensing Lab (MRSLab). Before joining IITB, he was a Canadian Government Research Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) in Ottawa, ON, Canada. He received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada visiting scientist fellowship at the Canadian national laboratories from 2008 to 2011. His current research interests include SAR polarimetry theory, statistical analysis of polarimetric SAR images, and applications of Radar Remote Sensing in Agriculture, the Cryosphere, Urban and Planetary studies.

Dr. Bhattacharya is currently the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (GRSL). He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Remote Sensing, A Science Partner Journal. In 2017, the IEEE GRSS chapter of the Bombay section was established under his leadership. He has been the Guest Editor of many IEEE GRSS journals. He has been the Publication Chair of several IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Conferences. He has been the keynote and guest speaker for several conferences and workshops across the globe. He serves as the scientific committee member of the European Space Agency’s POLINSAR workshop. He has been a member of the International Steering Committee and the International Advisory Committee Member of the Asia-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar (APSAR). He served as the General Chair for the International Conference on Machine Intelligence for GeoAnalytics and Remote Sensing (MIGARS) 2023 and is the General Chair of the IEEE India Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (InGARSS), 2023.

Title: Impact of Climate Change on Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Remote Sensing Perspective
Abstract: Climate change through global warming and sea level rise has adverse effects on the terrestrial ecosystem. In this decade, extreme events such as floods, droughts, and wildfires have increased drastically. Remote sensing has emerged as an invaluable tool in understanding and addressing these changes. Remote sensing-based satellite images can monitor and provide critical information in near-real time of extreme events. Some key drivers, such as precipitation, sea level rise, soil moisture, vegetation health, vegetation moisture content, and vegetation dry matter content, are crucial to monitoring and mitigating agricultural drought, flood, and forest fires. These key drivers can be easily estimated using remote sensing data sets and can be used to mitigate extreme events in real time.

Biqing Zhu is a Research Scholar at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), jointly associated with the Advancing Systems Analysis Program and the Energy, Climate, and Environment Group. She received her PhD in Environmental Systems Sciences from ETH Zurich and her MSc in from Wageningen university. Since the launch of the international initiative Carbon Monitor, she has been one of the core members and leads the development of CarbonMonitor-Power while actively contributing to CarbonMonitor-Europe and CarbonMonitor-Cities. Furthermore, she plays an active role in the advancement of the reduced complexity Earth System Model OSCAR for vulnerable systems including peatland, permafrost and boreal fire and studies the impact of emission scenarios, particularly dangerous overshoots on land surface carbon processes and its climate feedback.

Title: CarbonMonitor-Power: Near-Real-Time Monitoring of Global Power System and Its Applications at Local Levels
Abstract: The global power system has faced disruptions, undergoing significant changes post-COVID-19 and amidst emerging geopolitical challenges. This presentation highlights CarbonMonitor-Power, a novel method for real-time carbon emission tracking within global power systems. Accessing such data in a timely manner is crucial for understanding recent carbon emission dynamics influenced by human and natural factors.
This presentation will demonstrate practical local-level application of real-time carbon monitoring, with case studies focusing on energy security and climate extremes. Particularly, we’ll examine how CarbonMonitor-Power contributes to identifying solutions for the natural gas supply gap resulting from reduced Russian gas provision to the European Union (EU). Additionally, we’ll explore the impact of temperature extremes on the U.S. power system, utilizing CarbonMonitor-Power data and state-level climate reanalysis data. This comprehensive analysis will yield insights into the intricate interplay among carbon emissions, energy structures, and climate trends.

Maike Luiken, PhD, SMIEEE, IEEE-HKN, FEIC, is 2022 IEEE Past Vice President – Member & Geographic Activities. She served as President of IEEE Canada in 2018 – 2019. She is, and has been for more than 15 years, a very strong supporter of sustainable development. She is a managing director, R&D, at Carbovate Development Corp., a start-up company, and an Adjunct Research Professor at Western University, Canada. In Sarnia, Canada, she led the Bluewater Sustainability Initiative, 2006 – 2013, and was the founding Director of the Lambton Manufacturing Innovation Centre. For eight years, she served as a Dean at Lambton College with various portfolios: School of Technology, Sustainable Development, Applied Research. Her strategic leadership in the development of the applied research & innovation capacity and portfolio led to Lambton College becoming one of the top Research Colleges in Canada. Maike Luiken has more than 30 years of professional experience in teaching, applied research and educational administration, leadership and community building; especially in linking industry partners, government agencies and researchers in advanced technology initiatives. Her areas of interest and expertise span diverse technical areas from ICT, energy, and water to advanced manufacturing. She has particular interest in how progress and deployment of various technologies contributes – or not – to achieving sustainable development. She is currently serving/has been serving on numerous Boards of Directors and Committees, including IEEE, IEEE Canada, IEEE Canadian Foundation, Canadian Standards Council Steering Committee for the Canadian Data Governance Standardization Collaborative, Tech-Access Canada (founding member), Unmanned Systems Canada, Nano Ontario, Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (CONII), Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Advanced Manufacturing Sector Advisory Board, Sarnia/Lambton Workforce Development Board, Sarnia/Lambton Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club of Sarnia Foundation Board. Maike Luiken obtained her Staatsexamen in Mathematics and Physics from the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina in Braunschweig, Germany, and her Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Maike has experience in the public and private sectors in Canada and has worked in the USA and Germany.

Title: Building a Technology Path to Sustainability
Abstract: Showcasing some of many IEEE Initiatives: The FDC IEEE SusTech Initiative, the TAB Climate Change Program, and IEEE SA’s Planet Positive 2030 seek to contribute technical expertise and solutions to address sustainability challenges, including climate change.
This talk will review accomplishments to date, and future plans. For more information, please visit: IEEE SusTech – IEEE Future Directions, Planet Positive 2030, TAB Climate Change Program.
Please note: These initiatives are growing rapidly and new volunteers and contributors are always welcome. We need your technical insights and expertise to help identify pathways and solutions to achieve a long-term sustainable planetary biosphere.

Christine Miyachi has over 30 years of experience working for startups and large corporations. She writes a blog about software architecture: abstractsoftware.blogspot.com. She is currently a Software Development Manager at Microsoft + Nuance Communications leading a team of Full Stack Engineers working on the DAX (Dragon Ambient eXperience) using CICD deployed on Azure, holds several patents, and an IEEE Senior member. Christine graduated from the University of Rochester with a BS in electrical engineering. She holds two MIT degrees: an MS in technology and policy/electrical engineering and computer science and an MS in System Design and Management. Additionally, Christine is the Chair of the IEEE Future Directions Committee that anticipates and determines the direction of existing, new and emerging technologies, and related issues, and to spearhead their investigation and development by IEEE. See more about Christine at www.christinemiyachi.com.

Title: IEEE Future Directions Innovates for IEEE and Beyond
Abstract: IEEE leads the way on innovation on new and emerging technologies for the benefit of humanity. The IEEE Future Directions Committee chaired by Christine Miyachi encourages and fosters that innovation via collaboration both inside and external to IEEE globally through its initiatives, Industry Advisory Board, Future Technology Forums, Roadmaps, and more. Hear Christine share her overview of Future Directions and how you can become involved.

Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand, is the Bernard L. Schwartz chair for nano scale information technologies, Department of Electrical Engineering – Physical electronics and the department of Material science and technology, Faculty of engineering, Tel Aviv University. He is also an endowed chair professor at the Thapar institute for engineering and technology, Patiala, India and the director of the TAU/TIET Food Security center of excellence. D.Sc. EE 1983, M.Sc. EE 1980, and B.Sc. EE (Summa-cum Laude) 1978, all in the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel. 1983-post-doctorate at U.C. Berkeley, CA, USA. 1987- 1989 senior lecturer, the Technion, Israel. 1989-1996 assistant professor Cornell university, Ithaca NY, USA, 1997-2001 Associate professor and since 2001 a full professor at the school of electrical engineering, Physical Electronics department, Tel-Aviv University. Yosi has been also a Visiting professor, CNR-IMM, Rome, Italy, Visiting Professor, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan and a distinguished international chair professor, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan. Currently he is visiting professor at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, The Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy. He served in few academic positions including being the Academic Director, Micro Technologies Laboratory, Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv university (2000 –2001), the director of Tel-Aviv University research institute for Nano-Science and nano-technologies (2001–2004), Head of the department of Physical Electronics, faculty of Engineering (2007- 2011), the Vice-dean of the faculty of engineering for Industrial relations and with the friends of the faculty in Israel and abroad. He was on the university board of governors (2008-2012), University patent committee (2006-2010), head of the industrial affiliation program, Faculty of engineering (2012) and a member of the board of directors of “RAMOT” by Tel Aviv University (2008-2013). He was (2013-2018) a member of the MAGNET committee promoting basic and generic technologies in Israel, the innovation authority, Ministry of trade and Industry. Prof. Shacham-Diamand also served as consultant to numerous manufacturing companies such as: Zoran Inc. (1983-1986), Intel Inc. Applied Materials Inc., Nova Instruments Inc., and to numerous investments and holding companies in Israel and abroad. Prof. Shacham-Diamand served on the board of directors of PCB Ltd. (2001-2003), “RAMOT” by Tel Aviv University (2008-2013), TAUVentures Inc. (2018-Now) investment and currently serves on the advisory board of CartaSense Ltd. and SolChip Ltd. He published 262 journal papers, >400 conference papers in registered proceedings, 7 chapters in books, 30 patents, edited two conference proceedings books, and two books. His research is in the field of Micro and Nano electronics science and technology; specifically, electroless plating of metals and alloys, interconnect technology for ULSI circuits and flexible electronics, and electrochemical bio sensors the food, medical and agro applications.

Title: Synthetic Biology Functional Biosensing for Precision Agriculture
Abstract: First, we will review the use of functional biosensing, where the plant is the sensor for precision agriculture. Next, we will present new strategies, based on a novel synthetic biology approach, to introduce new genetic circuits in providing signal to noise, allowing sensing of multiple excitations and generating multiple outputs: optical or electrochemical.

John P. Verboncoeur received a Ph.D. (1992) in nuclear engineering from the University of California at Berkeley (UCB). After a postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and UCB, he was appointed Associate Research Engineer at UCB. He joined the UCB Nuclear Engineering faculty in 2001 (Full Professor in 2008), where he cofounded and chaired the Computational Engineering Science program (2001-2010). In 2011, he was appointed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Professor of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering (added in 2015) at Michigan State University (MSU), where he currently serves as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Engineering. His research interests are in theoretical and computational plasma physics, with a broad range of applications spanning low temperature plasmas for lighting, thrusters and materials processing to hot plasmas for fusion, from ultra-cold plasmas to particle accelerators, from beams to pulsed power, from intense kinetic nonequilibrium plasmas to high power microwaves. He is the author/coauthor of the MSU (formerly Berkeley) suite of particle-in-cell Monte Carlo (PIC-MC) codes, including XPDP1 and XOOPIC, used by over 1000 researchers worldwide with over 450 journal publications in the last decade. He has authored/coauthored over 400 journal articles and conference papers, with over 4500 citations, He is Past President of the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, an IEEE Director, Acting VP of IEEE Publications, Services, and Products Board, and serves on the Board of Directors for the American Center for Mobility national proving ground. He is Associate Editor of Physics of Plasmas, and serves on the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee as well as the Sandia National Laboratories Grand Challenge LDRD External Advisory Board. Starting in 2016, he chaired the IEEE SmartAg initiative (Smart Agrofood systems: technology applied to the food supply chain). He is the 2023 IEEE Vice-President of TAB.

Title: The Importance of Climate Change Technologies
Abstract: The IEEE Vice-President of TAB, John Verboncoeur will share his thoughts on why developing climate change technologies is so important.

Christopher Whitt (S’95, M’02, SM’15) is an electrical engineer specializing in signal processing and acoustics. Currently the Ship Signature Engineer Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, responsible for the noise, RF, IR, and EM signatures for the new Canadian frigate program. Previously a project engineer and project manager at JASCO Applied Sciences in Halifax, NS, Canada. In that role he was involved with many wide-scale ocean acoustic monitoring projects, particularly in the arctic.
Christopher is a registered professional engineer (P.Eng.) in Nova Scotia. He completed his undergraduate (B.Eng. 2000) and graduate degrees (M.Eng. 2010) at Memorial University in St. John’s, NL, Canada.
In addition to ocean engineering, Christopher has broad personal interests, including sustainability, music, aviation, and sports.

Title: Ocean Monitoring
Abstract: The ocean is crucial to sustainability. The ocean is a major source of food, energy, and the planet’s largest long-term carbon store. Many areas of technical innovation are needed to achieve sustainability. Some key areas are ocean observations, renewable energy, and carbon dioxide removal.
Ocean observations. Because of its vast volume, and because EM does not easily penetrate seawater, we will know less about the interior of the ocean than most other areas of scientific study. Models and digital twins help us estimate ocean processes, but revolutions are needed in remote sensing, robotic platforms, and low-cost sensors to truly understand the ocean to effectively measure, monitor and manage the ecosystem services the ocean provides to achieve sustainability.
Renewable Energy. In the past nearly one-third of non-renewable energy has come from the ocean. In the future a similar amount of renewable energy must be developed offshore. While the mix is not yet known, it is certain that wind energy and hydrogen will both play significant roles.
Carbon Dioxide Removal. All the IPCC pathways to limit warming to 2 C require significant amounts of carbon removal to compensate for industries that are difficult to decarbonize while still achieving net carbon neutrality. Several promising pathways to large-scale marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) include ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), electrochemical mCDR, and biological mCDR. Each pathway is unproven and currently the focus of many research and development efforts. All mCDR activities also require careful measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) to prove the effectiveness of the carbon removal. Effective MRV requires advances in standards, sensing techniques, robotic platforms, and models.
To achieve sustainability, we must simultaneously gather more resources from the ocean while also reducing the impact on biodiversity and environment. Interdisciplinary application of technology from many domains is key to meeting the opportunity of effectively managing ocean resources to achieve sustainability.

Dr. Luis Kun is the 2023 and 2024 IEEE President for the Society on Social Implications of Technology and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of National Security (CHDS/NDU). Born in Montevideo, he graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy in Uruguay and holds a BSEE, MSEE, and PhD degree in BME, all from UCLA. He is an IEEE Life Fellow, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, and the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine. He is the founding Editor in Chief of Springer’s Journal of Health and Technology 2010-2020. He spent 14 years at IBM and was the Director of Medical Systems Technology at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. As Senior IT Advisor to AHCPR, he formulated the IT vision and was the lead staff for High Performance Computers and Communications program and Telehealth. In July 1997, he was an invited speaker to the White House and was largely responsible for the first Telemedicine Homecare Legislation signed by President Clinton in August 1997. As a Distinguished Fellow at the CDC and an Acting Chief IT Officer for the National Immunization Program, he formulated their IT vision on 10/2000. Dr. Kun received many awards including: AIMBE’s first-ever Fellow Advocate Award in 2009; IEEE-USA Citation of Honor Award with a citation, “For exemplary contributions in the inception and implementation of a health care IT vision in the US.” In 2009, he was named “Profesor Honoris Causa” by Favaloro University, (Argentina) and “Distinguished Visitor” by City of Puebla, Mexico in 2013. For over 20 years he served as the IEEE Distinguished Visitor for the Computer Society and as a Distinguished Lecturer (DL) for the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) and SSIT where he chairs the DL Program since 2016. Since 2014, he serves as an Honorary Professor of the Electrical Engineering Department at the School of Engineering of the University (UDELAR) in Montevideo, Uruguay. He received the Medal of Merit on October, 2016 in Mexico by the National Unit of Engineering Associations and was named Visiting Professor by the National Technological University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 2017. While a Professor of Homeland Security at the i-College of the National Defense University, Dr. Kun developed and taught all the courses for the Homeland Security curricula including Protection of Critical Infrastructures. He was invited to lecture to the US Congressional Staffers on Public Health Threats and Vulnerabilities, Risk and Crisis Management during Disasters and Cybersecurity. He was a Subject Matter Expert to the Health, Medical and Responder Safety Subgroup of the Inter Agency Board for Emergency Preparedness and Response (dealing with CBRNE threats).

Title: The Global Citizen Safety and Security. From Pandemics to the Effects of Climate Change, Migration, and the Challenges of Multiple Complex Emergencies and Large-Scale Disasters.
Abstract: Thanks to many of the advancements in Science and Technology, life expectancy for the average person in the world has steadily increased from 2.5 billion in 1950 to over 8 billion by 2022. As individuals live longer, more chronic conditions manifest in their lifetimes, which translates in unsustainable increases in healthcare expenses, towards the end of life. Urban and suburban areas keep growing demographically and their population densities are becoming “hot spots” for the transmission of infectious diseases, that could decimate entire populations. Prevention is key to lowering the costs while improving quality of life. Urbanization and overpopulation have created huge amounts of garbage, not just plastics, but toxic waste, water, air, and soil. According to the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health most of the pollution deaths occur in poorer nations and in some, such as India, Chad, and Madagascar, pollution causes a quarter of all deaths. It kills at least nine million people and costs trillions of dollars every year and warns the crisis “threatens the continuing survival of human societies”. The effects of climate change create additional strains and challenges to our systems. Simultaneous droughts, fires, and floods worldwide, not only affect agriculture and food production but the accelerated melting of existing glaciers has an impact on the availability of drinking water in critical and overpopulated areas around the world. In addition, rising land temperatures and rising sea levels are producing major forced migration problems to many nations. Climate change and global warming are two factors that society cannot ignore since future conflicts will be caused by the availability of water, food, and energy, all required for human survival.