From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 13:25:05 EST
November 27, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A Calvin College professor of engineering has earned one of the highest honors
available in his profession.
Paulo Ribeiro came to Calvin in 2000 after having studied in his native Brazil,
then England (where he earned a Ph.D.) and finally in the United States, where
he added an MBA.
This month he learned that he has been named a Fellow in the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a non-profit, technical professional
association of more than 377,000 individual members in 150 countries.
The honor is a rare one, conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with
an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of
interest. The total number selected in any one year does not exceed one-tenth
percent of the total voting Institute membership. So for 2003 just 260 Fellows
were named.
Only five of those honorees were from the state of Michigan. Joining Ribeiro
from the state are: Anthony M. Bloch, University of Michigan; Kenneth Earl Bow,
The Dow Chemical Company; Tomy Sebastian, Delphi Automotive Systems; and Satish
S. Udpa, Michigan State University.
Many of this year's honorees hail from a wide range of foreign countries,
including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India,
Iran, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey,
the United Kingdom and more.
Ribeiro says the international nature of the IEEE makes the honor of Fellow
particularly meaningful.
"I am delighted," he says of being an IEEE Fellow. "This is the greatest honor
bestowed to an (electrical/electronics) engineer. I hope and pray that my
contribution to the profession in terms of moral consistency and integrity has
been as effective as my technical ones. I am very thankful to God and hope to
continue giving Him the glory for this achievement."
Fellows are nominated by an IEEE member and then go through a vigorous
nomination process that looks at such things as individual contributions to the
field, technical accomplishments, IEEE and non-IEEE activities and more.
Ribeiro's honor as a Fellow will be accompanied by the citation: "For
contributions to the understanding of harmonic penetration in transmission
systems, and advancement of superconducting magnetic energy storage system
applications."
The second part of that citation recognizes his work on the application of
superconductivity for energy storage utility systems that can be used to
minimize power quality deviations and reduce probability of power blackouts.
This work, notes Ribeiro, has been funded in part by the US Department of
Energy and has a potential to become a major technology to strengthen the
security of electrical systems.
Through its members, the IEEE is a leading authority in technical areas ranging
from computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications, to
electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics, among others.
Through its technical publishing, conferences and consensus-based standards
activities, the IEEE produces 30 percent of the world's published literature in
electrical engineering, computers and control technology; holds annually more
than 300 major conferences; and
has nearly 900 active standards with 700 under development.
Ribeiro chairs the IEEE International Conference on Harmonics and Quality of
Power, the Task Force on Probabilistic Aspects of Harmonics, has edited an IEEE
CD-ROM for the Harmonics Modeling, and is a member of several technical
standards committees.
Ribeiro plans to continue involved with the technical side of engineering, but
hopes now to spend more time reflecting on ethical issues and get his next
degree in Philosophical Theology.
The ceremony honoring the 2003 Fellows will take place next year in New York
during the IEEE Conference.
Contact Paulo Ribeiro at 616-957-6407 or see
http://engr.calvin.edu/PRibeiro_WEBPAGE/
NOTE: That page includes a downloadable pic of Dr. Ribeiro
-end-
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