Young Professionals
IEEE Young Professionals (YP) is the group of IEEE members and volunteers who have graduated from their first professional degree within the past 15 years. It is an international community, whose members are interested in elevating their professional image, expanding their global network, connecting with peers locally and giving back to their community. Since it encompasses all members from recent university graduates to experienced professionals and entrepreneurs, the group is highly diverse in what it has to offer.
The Young Professionals committee proudly presents the Trail Blazers series of events, exclusive to SoutheastCon 2021. Each event is a unique opportunity for growth and networking, available for no registration fee. All conference participants are welcome! YP focuses on recent graduates but would like to encourage student conference participants at any stage of their degree program to join and develop new connections!
Networking Event
Our Conference theme this year is Engineers Connecting the World. But that works only if we connect individually and in our presentations. You will leave this session knowing how to do that! You will learn ways to successfully:
Connect with your audience * Heighten your authenticity * Structure your presentation
Your Next Presentation Will Be Better — Guaranteed! … Brian Woolf
Brian Woolf has had a lifetime in business — in his native New Zealand and in the US —from supermarket chains, locally, to loyalty marketing, globally – he’s written 7 books on business marketing and on presentation skills— and is a Toastmasters Global Top 10 Speaker. Earlier in life, he earned an M.Com. (in Economics) from the University of Auckland, NZ, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Greenville SC is his home.
He believes that “If you don’t connect, you have no effect.”
Social Event
Join us for our digital social event! Learn about your fellow conference participants in a handful of guided games and activities. A unique experience via Spatial Chat!
People Bingo
Players will be given a bingo square sheet and must then mingle and find people who satisfy the square. First player to Bingo in a row, column or diagonal wins!
Two Truths and a Lie
Players will group or pair up and tell each other two truths and one lie about themselves. Players must guess which item is a lie.
Describe Your Favorite Movie (In 4 GIFs or less!)
Using the pin feature of Spatial Chat, players will pin 4 GIFs or less to describe their favorite movie. Other players in the room will guess the film title.
Scattegories
A random letter will be chosen from the alphabet and players have to come up with one unique word for the different categories that will be given.
Professional Development Event
Riding on the shoulders of IEEE mentors: a look back at my career
Dr. Stephen E. Cross, Life Fellow, IEEE
An old African proverb says, “it takes a village to raise a child.” In the same vein, it could be said that “it takes mentors to build a career.” In the talk, I will briefly review my career and the four guiding principles I adopted from the IEEE members who influenced me. My first mentor was a young professor at the University of Cincinnati in the early 1970s who was the faculty advisor to our IEEE student chapter. As an active member of IEEE since that time, the experience and wisdom of more senior members was always available to me. My firm belief is that this is one of the primary benefits of a professional society like the IEEE. And before long, one finds themself a senior and a potential mentor too.
Town Hall Event
Kristen N. Parrish is a Power Systems Engineer at Cree | Wolfspeed in Durham, NC. She is also the Vice Chair for the Eastern North Carolina Section of IEEE. Kristen received her Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 2008, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Through her time in academia and industry she has worked in the fields of electromagnetics, solid-state physics, millimeter-wave circuit design, and autonomous vehicles, co-authoring over 10 publications and speaking at conferences including SXSW. She has worked in the field of power electronics since 2015, co-authoring 4 patents.
Kristen is passionate about mentorship and supporting women in engineering careers and has served as the Women in Engineering Chair for ENCS, as well as started a mentoring program for IEEE’s Region 3 Young Professionals (YP). She previously served on the board of High-Tech High Heels, a non-profit geared towards increasing the number of girls entering into a college-level degree program in Science, Technology, Engineering or Math (STEM) fields.
Dr. Bill Marshall is a retired research engineer from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). While employed there, he worked in various fields related to applied DoD research, cyber security and big data analytics. He has been a (mostly) active volunteer in IEEE since 2000, and the section, conference, region and society level. He is currently the Chair of the IEEE Region 3 Section Support Committee (R3-SSC) and is the Treasurer of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS).
Tom Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates is a digital storage analyst and business and technology consultant. He has over 40 years in the data storage industry with engineering and senior management positions at several companies. Coughlin Associates consults, publishes books and market and technology reports (including The Media and Entertainment Storage Report and an Emerging Memory Report), and puts on digital storage-oriented events. He is a regular storage and memory contributor for forbes.com and M&E organization websites. He is an IEEE Fellow, Past-President of IEEE-USA and is active with SNIA and SMPTE. For more information on Tom Coughlin and his publications and activities go to www.tomcoughlin.com
