News from the Outreach Ambassador

In early 2024, Dr. Koen W.A. van Dongen (TU Delft – the Netherlands) was appointed as an outreach ambassador for and by the IEEE-UFFC Society. So far, this appointment has been a great success, and it is the intention to continue this initiative after his term ends. 

In his role as ambassador, he visits low- or middle-income countries (LMICs) to provide lectures on acoustics and meet with students and PI’s. The aim of these meetings is to make them enthusiastic about our society and have (inspiring) discussions with students and staff members on career perspectives, networking, and education, and encouraging them to go abroad or get in touch with other groups working in the field of acoustics. To arrange visits abroad, he tries to link them directly to people within his own network in the US or Europe. Finally, he thinks along with them on how to get the LMICs more involved in our society. After all, one of the selling points for medical ultrasound is that it is cheap and ideal for LMICs!

To date, he visited two countries. He attended the 2024 IEEE UFFC South Asian Ultrasonics Symposium (SAUS 2024, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India) where he provided a great one-day lecture for over 25 students, and the 2024 IEEE UFFC Latin American Ultrasonics Symposium (LAUS 2024, Montevideo, Uruguay) with over 40 students attending his one-day lecture. His next visit will be to Colombia (February 2025) for a one-week course together with Himanshu Shekhar (IIT Gandhinagar, India) and Ana Ramirez (Industrial University of Santander, Colombia). This course will be attended both by local students as well as by PI’s and students from other universities in Latin America. 

In case you would like to know more about this outreach initiative, please feel free to contact Koen W.A. van Dongen ((Click to show email)).

Group photo after the tutorial at SAUS 2024, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.