THE INSTITUTE is the newspaper of the IEEE. Available monthly as a Web publication, it is mailed quarterly to all members of IEEE.

IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): The world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society, serving members in computing, electrical engineering and electronics. Comprised of 37 societies and councils, IEEE publishes technical journals, magazines, proceedings, and more than 800 standards.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-e) is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. It has the most members of any technical professional organization in the world, with more than 360,000 members in around 175 countries.

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Cover Story: Meet Chic
Meet Professor Karen Panetta, an IEEE Fellow who’s breaking the stereotype of the nerdy female engineer. P.18

Download The Institute, December 2008

PDF version, 7.3mb, 24pages

INSIDE
3 IEEE Around the World / 5 Calendar / 6 Technology / 7 Volunteers / 8 Education / 9 Fellows / 10 Public Visibility / 12 Marketplace of Ideas / 13 President’s Column 14 Products & Services / 15 Books / 16 Standards
16 Continuing Education / 17 Conferences / 18 Profi le / 19 Students’ Corner / 20 Part-time Passions / 21 Recognitions / 21 In Memoriam / 23 Deadlines & Reminders

TECHNOLOGY
IEEE members are applying robots to help stroke patients during rehabilitation. P. 6

VOLUNTEERS
What’s the secret behind recruiting IEEE members? A group of dedicated volunteers has the answer. P. 7

PART-TIME PASSIONS
A senior member in Indiana is a cowboy. In California, a member takes her stunts up, up, and away. P. 20

Visit the Institute Official Website

Karen Panetta
Bringing Geek Chic Into Style
Dispelling the myth of the nerdy female engineer
By Susan Karlin

When IEEE Fellow Karen Panetta and a group of her engineer ing students, dubbed the Nerd Girls, appeared on NBC’s “The Today Show” in July, the idea was to promote the fact that female engineers can be attractive and hip.

So what viewer feedback does Panetta remember reading on the network’s Web site? “You only picked the pretty girls!” viewers chastised. Panet ta—who chose the young women for the segment to represent the varied careers and successes of her Nerd Girl alumni—was more amused by the students’ reaction.

“They wondered, ‘People think we’re pretty?’” she says with a laugh.

“The stereotype of what people think female engineers should look like always stuck with me,” says Panetta, a professor of electrical engineering at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. “The girls I knew who were studying engineering didn’t just sit in a basement with pizza boxes focusing on work, work, work. They were also musicians, ballet dancers, and cheerleaders.” To help dispel the myth of the geeky “engineeress,” Panetta began working on the Nerd Girls program in 1996. ...

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