List of Presidents of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

IEEE Presidents, 1963-present

• Ernst Weber, 1963, was a pioneer in microwave technologies and long-time leader of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (where he was President from 1957 to 1969). In 1945 he founded the Microwave Research Institute at the Polytechnic Institute (later renamed the Weber Research Institute in his honor).

• Clarence H. Linder, 1964, worked at General Electric from 1924 to 1963. He served as GE's Vice President of Engineering from 1953 to 1959.

• Bernard M. Oliver, 1965, served as the director of research for Hewlett-Packard, where he supervised the production of the first hand-held calculators at Hewlett-Packard in the early 1970s. His professional interests were in Information Theory and Coding Systems.

• William G. Shepherd, 1966, was Professor and Head at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Minnesota. He invented (with John Pierce) the Pierce-Shepherd tube, which improved radar capabilities during World War II.

• Walter K. MacAdam, 1967, was a communications engineer and manager at Western Electric Company, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and the New York Telephone Company.

• Seymour W. Herwald, 1968, worked as an engineer and manager at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, focusing on ordnance development and servomechanism development. His professional interests were in servomechanisms, feedback control systems, and analog computers.

• F. Karl Willenbrock, 1969, worked for the National Bureau of Standards, and served as the head of the Institute of Applied Technology.

• John V. N. Granger, 1970, founded the Airbone Systems Laboratory, which researched and developed antennas, microwave components and systems, and aircraft navigation among other things.

• James H. Mulligan, Jr., 1971, was a member of the Combined Research Group of the Naval Research Laboratory, which developed the Mark V radar IFF system.

• Robert H. Tanner, 1972, was a pioneer in the development of the world’s first high-definition television station while he worked at the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

• Harold Chestnut, 1973, worked in the control field at the General Electric Company, and he helped to form the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC).

• John J. Guarrera, 1974, owned his own business, which manufactured microwave components. He also taught at California State University – Northridge.

• Arthur P. Stern, 1975, pioneered color television while he worked at General Electric. He later became vice chairman of Magnavox, and he served as the president of Magnavox’s Advanced Products and Systems Company.

• Joseph K. Dillard, 1976, received a BSEE from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and he earned a MSEE from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Robert M. Saunders, 1977, researched the development and application of electromechanical devices.

• Ivan A. Getting, 1978, is credited (along with Roger L. Easton and Bradford Parkinson) with the development of the Global Positioning System (GPS). He worked at the MIT Radiation Laboratory (where his group developed the first automatic microwave tracking fire control radar, the SCR 584) and the Aerospace Corporation.

• Jerome J. Suran, 1979, worked for the General Electric Company for over thirty years. He also taught in the Graduate School of Management and the Department of Electrical Engineering.

• Leo Young, 1980, was an expert on microwave technology, and he held 20 patents.

• Richard W. Damon, 1981, directed the Applied Physics Laboratory at the Sperry Rand Research Center.

• Robert E. Larson, 1982, was the co-founder, president, and CEO of Systems Control before the company’s sale to British Petroleum.

• James B. Owens, 1983, worked as a military radar components designer during World War II for Westinghouse. He later became president of Gould-Brown Boveri, which designed and manufactured electrical transmission and distribution equipment.

• Richard Gowen, 1984, directed the joint NASA-Air Force space medical instrumentation program, and he supervised the design of medical experiments in the Apollo and Skylab space programs.

• Charles A. Eldon, 1985, worked for nearly forty years at Hewlett Packard Company, where he managed various operations for the company.

• Bruno O. Weinschel, 1986, founded Weinschel Engineering, which became an industry leader in precision measurement hardware and techniques.

• Henry L. Bachman, 1987, served in a number of technical and managerial positions at Wheeler Laboratories and Hazeltine Corporation.

• Russell C. Drew, 1988, co-founded and was president of Viking Instruments Company. He later supervised the development of an advanced spacecraft tandem mass spectrometer.

• Emerson W. Pugh, 1989, worked for IBM for twenty-five years in the following positions: research scientist, product development manager, and corporate executive.

• Carleton A. Bayless, 1990, was employed by Bell Systems from 1940 until his retirement in 1981 with positions at Southern California Telephone, AT&T, Western Electric, and Pacific Telephone and Telegraph.

• Eric E. Sumner, 1991, worked at Bell Labs from 1948 to 1989. He led the group that developed the pulse code modulation (PCM) transmission system (1955), and later director of transmission systems (1960) that developed the T1 carrier system (1962).

• Merrill W. Buckley, Jr., 1992, worked at RCA/GE, where he specialized in project management for complex electronic systems.

• Martha Sloan, 1993, worked at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. She is currently an electrical and computer engineering professor at Michigan Technological University.

• H. Troy Nagle, 1994, is a professor of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University, and he also serves as the head of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the university.

• J. Thomas Cain, 1995, worked with many different companies such as GE, Westinghouse, and Bell Telephone Company. He later became a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

• Wallace S. Read, 1996, was president of the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA), and also worked in the pulp and paper and hydro-electric power industries in Newfoundland, Canada.

• Charles K. Alexander, 1997, is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cleveland State University. He served earlier as the Dean of the Fenn College of Engineering at Cleveland State University, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University at Northridge, and Acting Dean of the College of Engineering at Temple University.

• Joseph Bordogna, 1998, was the deputy director and Chief Operating Officer of the National Science Foundation (1999-2005). In addition, he was the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served formerly as Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

• Kenneth R. Laker, 1999, is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also served as department chair. He is a co-founder of DFT Microsystems in Norristown, PA. He held positions with the Air Force Cambridge Research Labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts and AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey.

• Bruce A. Eisenstein, 2000, is the Arthur J. Rowland Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Vice Dean of Engineering at Drexel University.

• Joel B. Snyder, 2001, has worked on a number of projects including removable media disk memories, voice-over-data modems, and nonlinear sampling techniques. He also has a patent for his research regarding video piracy prevention techniques.

• Raymond D. Findlay, 2002, is a professor at McMaster University. He also serves as vice president of JDRF Electromag Engineering Research, Inc.

• Michael S. Adler, 2003, contributed to the invention and development of new power semiconductors (the IGBT, the power MOSFET, and the power IC) when he worked at GE.

• Arthur W. Winston, 2004, was one of the founders of the Tufts Gordon Institute, and a professor at Tufts University.

• W. Cleon Anderson, 2005, has worked in the electronic industry for a number of companies including Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, and Sperry. He also holds three patents.

• Michael R. Lightner, 2006, is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Colorado – Boulder. His research interests center around the development and application of technology in order to improve learning.

• Leah H. Jamieson, 2007, is the Ransburg Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dean of Engineering at Purdue University. She co-founded Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS), which links engineering students and local community service programs to serve societal needs.

• Lewis M. Terman, 2008, worked for IBM for forty-five years, and retired from the company’s research division in 2006. His research interests included solid-state circuits, semiconductor technology, and memory design and technology among other topics.

• John R. Vig, 2009, led research and development programs focused on developing precision clocks, sensors, and low-noise oscillators in the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

• Pedro A. Ray, 2010, is President of Ray Engineers, a professional services corporation. He served on the Boards of Directors of the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB), the Puerto Rico Housing Financing Administration and the Puerto Rico Infrastructure Financing Authority.

• Moshe Kam, 2011, was the Robert Quinn Professor and Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel University. His research interests include robotics and navigation, detection and estimation, wireless communications, and engineering education. In 2014, he became Dean of the Newark College of Engineering, a unit of the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey.

• Gordon Day, 2012, spent most of his career in research and management at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he founded and led the NIST Optoelectronics Division.

• Peter Staecker, 2013, Spent the first part of his career at MIT's Lincoln Laboratories before moving into the private sector at MA/COM.

• J. Roberto de Marca, 2014, founding President of the Brazilian Telecommunications Society and faculty of the Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro (PUC/Rio) since 1978

• Howard Michel, 2015, faculty of the University of Dayton and is currently at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where he has graduated three Ph.D. and thirty-five M.S. students.

• Barry L. Shoop, 2016, Dean of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering at Cooper Union, former Professor and Department Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York.

• Karen Bartleson, 2017, Senior Director of Corporate Programs and Initiatives at Synopsys and past president of IEEE Standards Association

• James Jefferies, 2018, Held engineering and executive positions including fiber optic cable development and manufacturing for 33 years at AT&T

• José M. F. Moura, 2019, President and cofounder of Spiralgen, a company that specializes in super-fast software components for cutting-edge parallel platforms

• Toshio Fukuda, 2020, professor emeritus in the Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering at Nagoya University, Japan.

• Susan K. (Kathy) Land, 2021, Program Manager for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Missile Defense Agency

• K.J. Ray Liu, 2022, retired as the Distinguished University Professor and Christine Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology of the University of Maryland, College Park. He was the 2019 IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities, a member of the IEEE Board of Directors as Division IX Director in 2016–2017, and the 2012–2013 President of IEEE Signal Processing Society.

• Saifur Rahman, 2023, IEEE Life Fellow, IEEE Millennium Medal recipient, and president of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) for 2018 and 2019. He is Rahman the founding director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech, USA, where he is the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Further Reading

See also Presidents of the AIEE and Presidents of the IRE.