Benjamin W. WahNominee for President Elect
Position Statement. In my vision,
the Computer Society should provide our members easy access to current and concise
technical information, facilitate personal interactions among our members through
conferences and chapter activities, and bring new technologies to our members steps
ahead of other sources, using means like distance learning, lifelong education,
and self-advancement. My goal as president is to carry out this vision and help
our members maintain a competitive edge. The Society, as the major provider of
technical information in the computer profession, is in a pivotal position to lead
this effort. With your help, I will emphasize
Guiding the Society to make it a learning community by facilitating fast dissemination and sharing of knowledge through journals, conferences, tutorials, seminars, technical committees, and chapter activities. We must keep our members abreast of new advances and help them overcome obsolescence through reviews and surveys from well-known experts and visionaries so that they can meet their daily challenges of rapidly advancing computer and communication technologies. We would invest in new tools to send relevant and concise technical information and trends to our members through the Internet. Using interactive distance learning, we would constantly strive for new ways of delivering timely and easily understandable technical reviews, surveys, and tutorials to members.
Promoting publications, conferences, and services for our practitioner members who need to stay attuned to changing technologies and continuously expand their technical expertise. We must develop new publications and services in emerging areas and improve our current offerings to serve our members’ needs. I will work with Society program boards to help bridge the gap between theory and practice.
Developing plans to better serve our regular and student members worldwide. We need more effective and economical ways to deliver workshops, conferences, publications, digital libraries, and services to our worldwide members. We must bring all our members to closer collaboration.
I will achieve these goals through increased regular and student membership, reduced fees, and cost reduction. I will be honored to serve you as president and lead the Society into the next century. Please feel free to suggest to the Society how we can serve you better.
Biography. Wah has actively served the Computer Society since 1985. Currently the first vice president for publications, he oversees the activities of 22 journals and magazines. In the past two years, he has helped launch new journals in information technology and multimedia and started Curriculum 2001, a major educational activity.
An IEEE Fellow, Wah served previously as second vice president for publications, treasurer, chair of the Fellow Evaluation Committee, and three terms as a Board of Governors member. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, which he cofounded in 1988. Wah has chaired 18 conferences and guest edited 10 special issues.
Wah is the first Robert T. Chien Chair Professor of Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Previously, he was with Purdue University and the National Science Foundation. 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 six books in areas including parallel processing, computer networks, algorithms, software design, and artificial intelligence. He received the Society’s Technical Achievement Award in 1997. Wah received his university education from Columbia University (BSEE and MSEE) and the University of California, Berkeley (MS and PhD in computer science).
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