Peter J. McLane

Candidate's Statement

Clearly, the collapse of the telecom bubble has impacted ComSoc with programs being cut back. Additionally, our way of servicing members with technical information has been dramatically altered with the emergence of IEEE Xplore ™. Membership can no longer be strongly based on receiving technical information in a bound magazine/journal format; and ComSoc needs to examine the ComSoc value proposition. Innovative programs like Voice-over-PowerPoint ™ must be devised. Technical committees and conferences should be reviewed for quality and relevancy in today's world. We must significantly increase registration at technical conferences. Collaboration with sister and related societies will be important to keep technical material leading edge and cost-effective. Education could be a key item in ComSoc's future.

Biography

Peter McLane received a B.A.Sc. from the University of British Columbia in 1965, an M.Sc. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966, and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1969, all in electrical engineering. He joined NRC Laboratories, Ottawa (1966–1967) and Queen's University Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in 1969, where he is a professor. An IEEE Fellow and member for 37 years, he has held editorial positions with IEEE Communications Magazine and IEEE Transactions on Communications, and has been a co-guest editor of JSAC. He chaired the Mini-Conference on Communication Theory (GLOBECOM '93) and Communication Theory Technical Committee. He is currently co-guest editor for a special issue of IEEE Wireless Communications. He jointly authored Trellis Coded Modulation, has three patents in telecommunication systems, and received the Stentor Telecommunications Research Award for design of a speech-coded modem.