Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding and Advancement of the Engineering Profession

Purpose

To recognize outstanding journalistic or other efforts that contribute to the enhancement and expansion of the public understanding and/or the advancement of the engineering profession in the United States.

Form of Recognition

Specially engraved award.

Frequency

Up to one award annually. Award will not be made in any year that no qualified nominations are received.

Basis

Submissions will be judged on their quality in portraying subjects, themes, incidents or editorial content, and may include an individual presentation or a series of presentations that lead to a better public understanding of the role that engineering professionals contribute to the enhancement and expansion of social, economic and cultural components of life. Consideration will be given to the quality of the piece and the contributions made by the author as a result of a singular important literary effort, or as the result of contributions over a period of time or a career that has included numerous contributions which, taken as a whole, reflect effort to communicate successfully and enhance engineering professionalism in appropriate areas of concern such as economics, ethics, legislation, and social and technology policy. Submissions will be limited to those appearing in the public press, visual and aural media, and periodicals produced by groups other than professional engineering organizations in the United States.

Criteria

Submissions will (a) lead to a better public understanding of the role that engineering professionals contribute to the enhancement and expansion of social, economic and cultural components of life and/or (b) the advancement of the United States professional activities of the IEEE.

Judging

The IEEE-USA Awards and Recognition Committee will judge the nominations or if they deem appropriate, a special panel appointed by the Chair of the IEEE-USA Awards and Recognition Committee will judge. If a special panel is used it shall consist of five persons respected in the field of engineering professionalism, one of whom shall also be experienced in journalism. This panel shall select the submission that, in their judgment, best fulfills the objective, as well as one or two alternates. It shall include justification for its selections. The submissions will then be reviewed and approved by the IEEE-USA Awards and Recognition Committee and recommended to the IEEE-USA Board of Directors for final approval.

Eligibility

Regional Professional Leadership Award – Any IEEE member residing in a U.S. Region (Regions 1-6).

Divisional Professional Leadership Award – Any IEEE member of any IEEE
Society for activities germane to IEEE-USA objectives.

No current member of the IEEE Board of Directors, the IEEE-USA Board of Directors, the IEEE-USA Awards and Recognition Committee, or IEEE staff may be candidates, or nominate candidates, for this IEEE-USA award.

Nominations

Nominations may be submitted by any IEEE U.S. member or by the publisher, author, radio, or television station, responsible for the effort. The nomination must include complete identification and a copy of the article; or complete identification of the visual or aural media piece, with location and time presented, as well as a summary of what the basic subject is and why the piece meets the objectives in an outstanding way; or complete identification of the media piece and submission of tapes, transcripts or other reasonable evidence that may be used by the panel in judging accompanied by a summary. The article or presentation must have been published, aired or heard in the calendar year within a couple of years preceding the submission of the nomination submission. If the nomination is for multiple pieces or work through a span of time, samples or citations of the literary efforts and a background narrative supporting the rationale for the nomination must be submitted to awards@ieeeusa.org or d.iams@ieee.org.

No current member of the IEEE Board of Directors, the IEEE-USA Board of Directors, IEEE-USA Awards and Recognition Committee, or IEEE staff may be candidates, or nominate or endorse candidates for this award.

Nominations may be submitted any time prior to the nomination deadline by completing the form on the online nomination portal.

Presentation

Presentation of the awards to the recipients will be made by the IEEE-USA President at an appropriate major IEEE-USA conference or at another venue which will be mutually agreed upon.

Citation

A citation will be developed by the Awards and Recognition Committee based upon their evaluation of the submission and its subject content. The citation shall briefly describe the subject in addition to such attributes as may be considered relevant.