To better serve our members, our products and services must be responsive to the diverse needs of its membership worldwide, the computing profession, and the computer industry. If elected, I will emphasize the following goals:
- Promote technology transfers to help members stay attuned to changing technology. Because most of our members are practitioners, it is important to develop products and services to serve their needs. To this end, I will provide leadership to develop programs, products, and services that focus on technology transfer and bridging the gap from theory to practice.
- Educate computer professionals to overcome obsolescence. With ever-changing computer technologies, it is important for computer professionals to keep abreast of new developments and knowledge in the field. To maintain the longevity of the computer profession and to help computer professionals move into the forefront of computer technologies, I will provide leadership to develop material for online learning using Web-based technologies and courses/professional development seminars.
- Develop strategies, products, and services to promote membership worldwide. With more than a third of our members residing outside the US and with economic and technical growth in Pacific Rim and East European countries, the Computer Society must increase its global impact as well as utilize opportunities in delivering new products and services. There are large international markets with growing needs for new technologies to be tapped. I will provide leadership to develop effective and economic ways to deliver workshops, conferences, electronic subscriptions, and membership services to these regions.
I will be honored to serve you as Second Vice President. If elected, I will set directions to lead the Computer Society into the 21st century. Please vote.
Biography. Wah has actively served the Computer Society in the last 12 years. He is currently serving in the society as Treasurer, Chair of the Fellow Evaluation Committee, a member of the Board of Governors (1996-1998), and an AdComm member of the IEEE Neural Network Council.
Previously, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (1993-1996), which he cofounded in 1988. A fellow of the IEEE, Wah had served previously as a member of the IEEE-CS Publications Board, Press Activities Board, and Governing Board (1989-1993). He chaired 16 conferences (10 with the IEEE-CS) and served as guest editor for 10 special issues (seven were with IEEE-CS).
Wah is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Previously, he was with Purdue University (1979-1985) and the National Science Foundation (1988-1989). He held the Fujitsu Visiting Chair Professorship at the University of Tokyo, Japan (1992) and the McKay Visiting Professorship at the University of California, Berkeley (1994). He has published more than 200 articles and has written or edited five books and has served as a consultant for industry. Wah received a BSEE and an MSEE from Columbia University, and an MS and a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.
