The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has named Metin Akay, founding chair and John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of the Cullen College’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, to its inaugural group of IEEE Brand Ambassadors.
Founded in January of this year, the Brand Ambassador’s program is designed to communicate the importance of engineers and engineering to those outside the profession and promote IEEE within the engineering world. Out of the IEEE’s worldwide membership of 400,000, the organization selected just 30 members representing different engineering fields and geographies to be ambassadors.
“The idea behind the program is to have a handful of people to promote the IEEE, to inform the society’s membership and the public at large about the achievements of engineers,” said Akay. “The main mission of the ambassadors is to be representatives of the society, to advocate for and promote IEEE and its achievements globally.”
Additionally, Akay has received an invitation to join the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering, a member organization of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE). In conjunction with this invitation, Akay has been named a Fellow of the IFMBE. In informing Akay of this honor the IFMBE cited his, “distinguished contributions to the field of medical and biological engineering.”
As researcher, Akay has conducted extensive work in the fields of neural engineering and genomics and health informatics. He is also one of the biomedical engineering community most active members and staunchest advocates. He has given more than 100 plenary, keynote and invited presentations at national and international conferences and served as an editor for several engineering books and journals.
Akay will be officially installed as an IFMBE Fellow at the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, set for May 26 to 31 in Beijing.