Frequency Control Standing Committee Meeting, July 2017
The Standing Committee Meeting of Frequency Control took place on the first day (July 9th) of 2017 EFTF-IFCS in Besançon, France. Besançon is a lovely small town located in the east of France with a beautiful river view (the Doubs River). It is also famous for its micro-technology and watch industries. With its reputed timing tradition, the conference has been hosted here for its second time (first time in 2009). The meeting was held in the Micropolis Conference Center in the evening right after the conference reception. There were 15 Standing Committee members attending this meeting with Dr. Clark T.-C. Nguyen (UFFC President) and Dr. Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb (UFFC President-Elect).
The meeting was opened by Dr. Aaron Partridge’s (Vice President for Frequency Control) welcome speech followed by a round table instruction. First, the minutes of the Standing Committee Meeting on January 26th, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada was approved with some extended discussions on taking other conferences into IEEE-UFFC. Next, Dr. Liz Donley presented the current status of EFTF-IFCS’17. The Proceedings policy of the IFCS was finalized at the previous meeting after a long debate and was re-stated in this meeting. Full-paper submissions are due two weeks after the conference.
Finally, Dr. Partridge brought out a few important topics for a general discussion. The focused topics of discussion included (1) how to bring the current six groups in IFCS closer, (2) how to bring other MEMS/Transducers relevant conferences into UFFC since there is a significant research overlap, (3) how to encourage young generations (scholars and students) to join UFFC. All of us shared our own experiences related to these points while Dr. Bassiri-Gharb also shared her point-of-view in terms of her ISAF as well as UFFC positions. She urged us to encourage our students to participate in the UFFC Society and do volunteer work since they are our future!