Happy new year! Hope you have wonderful 2016 with your family and friends.

I am honored to be elected as the Chairman of the IEEE Long Island Section for 2016. My colleagues that are joining me through the same election process are Marjaneh Issapour as the First Vice Chair, Louis D’Onofrio as the Second Vice Chair, Davor Dokonal as the Secretary, and Santo Mazzola as the Treasurer. In addition, I am privileged to have with us John Vodopia, the Junior Past Chair, and John Schmidt, the Senior Past Chair, who have been effective leaders in advancing the activities and accomplishments of this Section. I hope they will continue to be active in advising and supervising our performance this year. I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the members of the Section for your support in electing the new Committee and helping the Section run smoothly.

The Long Island Section is one of the most active bodies in the IEEE worldwide, having a significant number of society chapters, affinity groups and committees. Our mission will be to continue the current activities and also to expand the Section in terms of memberships, chapters, and accomplishments. The two major challenges that we will be addressing include new membership and membership retention, and chapter activities. We would invite more Engineers and Technologists to become IEEE members, encourage the current members to become active, and promote the current members to higher levels when appropriate. While some society chapters are performing excellent, a few chapters are struggling when arranging technical meetings and serving its members. Our job will be to help those chapters to perform effectively.

The Executive Committee cannot function properly without your support and participation. I would request you to be active by participating in the technical and social activities of the Section, providing your recommendations and comments, and encouraging your colleagues and friends to get involved in the Section. Please visit our website at http://ieee.li for information about the officers, activities, chapters and calendar of events. If you can spare some time, I would request you to be part of the Executive Committee by providing your service to one of our chapters or committees. Please feel free to send me your concerns and suggestions at chair@ieee.li.

The new Executive Committee has already started working on a plan for a number of activities this year. The first major event will be the Awards Banquet, which is scheduled for March 31, 2016, at Fox Hollow. Please join us to recognize the contribution of our distinguished members and volunteers. The Long Island Systems, Applications, and Technology (LISAT) conference is scheduled for April 29, which is expected to attract both academic researchers and industry experts to exchange research and development of technology. In addition, the Section is planning to offer a couple of workshops on different state-of-the-art technologies to the members as well as non-members. There are a couple of other conferences, seminars, and meetings in planning.

Looking forward to having an effective year in the Section with all of your participation and support.

Thanking you,

M. Nazrul Islam, PhD
Chair
IEEE Long Island Section