IEEE Volunteers are dedicated to a variety of engineering outreach initiatives. Many participate in outreach programs specifically aimed at supporting STEM initiatives for pre-university students. Dr. Mark E. Davis was selected as a presenter during the 2022 IEEE Pre-University STEM Summit Societies’ Panel Discussion, where he and other IEEE society leaders spoke about their experiences and motivation for STEM outreach at the pre-university level. This discussion and all STEM summit presentations are all available on demand here.
Dr. Davis has over 45 years experience in government and industry in developing technology and systems for Radar and Electronic Systems. He is the current president of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics System Society (AESS). He and other members of the society are enthusiastically driving STEM outreach at the pre-university level.
During the panel discussion, Dr. Davis shared that one of the biggest capabilities he and the society has had with STEM outreach at the pre-university level has been through the AESS Aerospace Conference.
“We’ve had very active Junior Engineering and Science Conferences at the annual conference that we have in the United States,” he stated when asked about what activities his society has led for STEM outreach. “We’ve had students who have actually been participating from 5th grade all the way up through high school.”
He continued to explain that the conference allows the opportunity for some students to present on a topic to an audience that tangentially ties in to science, engineering, or math.
In addition to the conference, Dr. Davis highlighted drone programs that AESS has run in San Antonio, Syracuse, and Bogota.
“The outreach we’ve had recently is being able to give them some facilities and some funding to expand that for being to help our students go into college, and helping our students become young professionals,” he stated regarding the drone programs in Bogota.
Lorena Garcia, STEM Summit moderator, also validated the impact of the Bogota programs as Dr. Davis wrapped up this segment of his presentation.
“I’m from Colombia and I have seen the impact that this program is having with drone students so thank you so much for what [AESS] is doing to support these efforts.”
When the panel members were asked why they believe STEM outreach is important at the pre-university level, Dr. Davis discussed the importance of STEM in his field to help bring in new members and help support local and indigenous businesses in his field.
“One of the things that we’ve done is put together [approved by IEEE] a competitive area where we can get small student branch chapters,” he stated. “We can use our distinguished lectures and our short courses to take the beginning college students-the freshman and sophomores in college-to learn to do a system design. Hopefully they can follow through to be able to be a young professional in small business in places like Colombia or Brazil where you would like to be able to fly these small unmanned air vehicles or drones to do perimeter surveillance or measure the biosphere or the forests where you have a lot of problems with people poaching trees, people burning down areas that would have been part of our carbon footprint in the future. So I think this is very important that we get these capabilities out and the distinguished lectures that we’ve had within AESS at the undergraduate level and even at the high school level if we can get them to attend some of our meetings. So that’s why we think it’s important-you can take the classic aerospace capabilities that we have from AESS and move it out into other areas that can help the economy in many areas of the world that don’t have a large government or a large economic footprint that don’t have the ability to start new businesses.”
During this discussion, panel members also discussed how they measure success for STEM outreach at the pre-university level. Dr. Davis discussed that AESS had historically focused on the number of undergraduates that then progressed to graduates and eventually young professionals. But he is now interested in also following the numbers for membership of local student branches, particularly in underserved areas. He discussed an approach with Syracuse University as an example of how to track student activity and measure success.
“I found out that they have engineering ambassadors from Syracuse that go out to the high schools and they’ve been tracking the students that they work with as mentors/mentees and seeing which ones are going into engineering,” Dr. Davis stated. “How do we get the engineering students that can then move in and move up into areas that can help the economy in that area?”
When asked what advice he would give to other volunteers and societies looking to get involved in STEM outreach at the pre-university level, Dr. Davis recommended leveraging IEEE resources that are in place to help engage local students.
“One of the things I’ve been finding on the IEEE [Technical Activities Board] series is that we have resources that are for these new initiatives,” he explained. “I think what we should be doing is looking at how we can use these resources for fostering local high school participation with our student chapters in particular cities. I think that’s one of the areas I’ll be looking at next year as part of our strategy going forward.”
Mark E. Davis has received a PhD in Physics from The Ohio State University, and Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University. His interests are in Radar and microwave system design, phased array antennas and adaptive signal processing. In 2008 he established Medavis Consulting as a Sole Proprietorship, to assist in review and development of advanced sensor systems, with customers in Government, Industry and Small Businesses. He held senior management positions at DARPA as Deputy Director Information Exploitation Office (2006-08), Technical Director for Air Force Research Laboratory Space Based Radar Technology (1998-2006) and Program Manager in DARPA Information Systems Office for Counter CC&D technologies (1995-1998). Dr Davis also had senior Engineering and Program Management positions with General Electric Aerospace, and General Dynamics Missile Systems. Dr Davis is a Life Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Military Sensing Symposia, and Chair of the IEEE Radar Systems Panel. Within the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society, he has been a member of the Board of Governors (2008-2013) holding positions of VP of Conferences (2010-2012) and VP of Finance (2013). You can view his bio here.
Looking for inspiration in STEM outreach? Check out the TryEngineering Volunteer STEM portal. Find inspiration from what others are doing, and utilize resources from this portal to develop or enhance your own programs.