Supavadee Aramvith received her B.S. (first class honors) degree in Computer Science from Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand, in 1993. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, in 1996 and 2001, respectively. She joined Chulalongkorn University in June 2001. Currently, she is an Associate Professor at Department of Electrical Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Past experience include Associate Head in International Affairs (2007-2016), Head, Communication Engineering Division (2013-2016), Head, Digital Signal Processing Laboratory (2017-2018).

Her research specialization is in video coding and processing, specifically error resilience for wireless video transmission, video analytics for surveillance applications, and embedded computer vision system. She has successfully advised 9 Ph.D., 27 Master’s, and 32 Bachelor’s degree graduates.

A prolific researcher, she published over 130 papers in international conference proceedings and journals along with four chapters in internationally published books. She has also a rich experience in project management, having served as project leader and former technical committee chair to the NBTC and the former MICT of Thailand. In addition, she is very active in the international arena with leadership positions in international networks such as the JICA Project for AUN/SEED-Net, and professional organizations such as IEEE, IEICE, APSIPA, and ITU. At present, she is a member of the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) and chair of the IEEE EAB Pre-University Education Coordination Committee. She is also communication chairs, IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, IEEE new initiative committee member, and Board of Governors member, IEEE Consumer Electronics Society. She is also Thailand Chapter Chair of IEEE Signal Processing Society and Region 10 representative of its chapters committee. She was IEICE Bangkok Section Chair. She led the Educational Activities and Women in Engineering committees for IEEE Asia Pacific (Region 10) from 2011-2016.

Q: When did you know you wanted to become an Engineer or what lead you to becoming an engineer?

I still remember the science projects during my high school time and my first personal computer based on Intel 80486 that my dad bought for me during my university study.  I love the challenge to design and solve the problems.  These led me to choose Computer Science as my major in undergraduate study and Electrical Engineering as my major in graduate study.

Q: What was your university experience like? Did you have an internship experience while in school?

Unlike my high school time where I participated in volunteer work as President of Rotary Interact club of my school, I fully concentrated most of my time for study and did my best to achieve as higher GPA as possible.  As a result, I graduated with Bachelor’s degree with the first class honors.  I continued my graduate study in the USA for both Master’s and Ph.D. programs.  Studying in the USA was a bit tougher as I had to adapt to a new environment and language.  The experiences in studying abroad is very rewarding and partly it groomed me to be who I am today.

I had internship during my undergraduate study at my university. It was exciting to be a part of big team to digitize and build information retrieval system for Buddhist Scriptures in Thailand.

Q: How did you get your first job?

After I finished my undergraduate study, I decided to look for a job.  My first job, as a System Analyst, was at prominent Telecommunication company in Thailand, TelecomAsia  I worked there for 8 months and realized that working in a company does not serve my passion. Luckily, I was selected by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Royal Thai Government for a Master’s and Ph.D. scholarship and was later accepted by University of Washington for my graduate study. After 7 years in the USA, I came back to work at Department of Electrical Engineering, Chulalongkorn University for over 18 years now.

Q: What’s the most rewarding thing about being an Engineer?

From my experiences, the most rewarding thing about being an Engineer is the ability to make an impact. We can build a technological solution to solve problem addressing UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to benefit community that needs it.  We can utilize lesson plans in TryEngineering.org to train high school teachers to integrate hands-on activities in the classroom.  No matter what specific expertise we are in, as an Engineer, we definitely can make an impact to ourselves, community, and world if we have a strong will to make it happen.

Q: What other advice do you have for students?

These are from my direct experiences – key messages to success.

1. Follow your passion.
2. Equip yourself with the right skill sets.
3. Continuously building yourself, value-added. Never stop improving your potential. That’s why the organizations and people would want you.
4. Expand the network and connection.
5. Goal settings.