Distinguished Lecturer Program Handbook

The IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP) provides experts, the Distinguished Lecturers (DLs), who are financially supported to visit active AP-S Chapters around the world and give lectures on topics of interest and importance to the AP community.

Each active Chapter can request a maximum of two DL visits per year. One of the two visits may be from a former DL. A third DL per year may be obtained when a Chapter organizes a workshop and requests a DL for it. If a DL visits a particular Chapter, and then also visits one or more nearby chapters as part of the same trip, the visit will normally count towards the DL allotment of the Chapter that originally invited the DL, and not towards the other nearby Chapters.

A visit request by a Chapter must be approved by the Chair of the Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP) prior to the Chapter making an official commitment to a DL. Permission for additional DL visits to a Chapter is contingent on funds, and needs approval by the DLP Chair and the AP-S Treasurer.

Normally DLs visit AP-S Chapters, but Sections or Councils may also be visited with permission of the DLP Chair, who should receive some assurance that a reasonable number of AP-S members will be present at the meeting. A DL visit to a Student Branch Chapter of AP-S requires special approval by the DLP Chair. Such visits will be allowed if there is evidence of significant potential attendance, as well as approval of the local AP-S Chapter, if one exists in the local area.

Distinguished Lecturer (DL) travel funding scheme was significantly changed in 2018 to make it farer for all chapters, chapter members and distinguished lecturers from all parts of the world, including remote parts in large IEEE Regions such as Region 8, 9 and 10. In the new scheme, the AP-S Society will normally reimburse travel expenses incurred by a Distinguished Lecturer up to $1,250 (USD) for each chapter visited and lectured. One exception is when travel from the lecturer’s home location to the first lecture venue, or between two consequent lecture venues, exceeds 7 hours of flying time in the fastest route available. In that case, expenses for travelling to the chapter(s) that require such long-distance travel are reimbursable up to $2,500. Note that, as before, the amount is per chapter visited and not per lecture given. There is no limit on the number of chapters that may be visited during each trip, but approval from the DL Program Committee (DLPC) Chair must be obtained (prior to travel) for each chapter to be visited. In fact, multi-chapter tours are strongly encouraged for better use of society funds.

It is allowed for a DL to combine a Chapter visit with a visit to another organization or event (such as a company, a conference, etc.), but only the part of the trip that relates to the Chapter visit will be funded by the Distinguished Lecturer Program.

The Chair appoints DLs upon advice from the Distinguished Lecturer Committee that selects the DLs among the candidates, who may be invited by the Committee, nominated by someone, or self-nominated. The Chapters are strongly encouraged to use this program as a means to make their local AP community aware of the most recent scientific and technological trends.

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Every year The Chair announces a call for nomination of candidates to be considered as Distinguished Lecturers, and the selection process.

 Requesting A Distinguished Lecture.

The AP Society DL Program, commended by the IEEE Society Review Panel in 2018, is one of the most flexible in IEEE and it gives the freedom for chapter executives to request a DL at any time in the year. Each AP chapter is eligible to request up to two lectures each year as the primary inviter. All distinguished lectures should be free of charge to all members of the Society, and preferably to all IEEE members. The process is to request a lecture is outlined below:

1. Chapter executives discuss the possibility of hosting a lecture with a DL and agree on tentative dates.
2. Either the Chapter Chair/delegate or the DL requests the lecture tour by filing out the cells in Columns A to L in the spreadsheet (entitled “DL Program Request Form and Report”) that can be downloaded from the AP Society website Distinguished Lecture Program Section and emailing it to the DL Program Committee (DLPC) Chair. Status Code in Column A should be 1. Date and Venue can be tentative and Time and Venue Details can be left blank.
3. The DLPC Chair approves the request by email and cc the Society Treasurer or decline the request with reasons.
4. As soon as approved, the requester shall share the DLPC Cahir’s approval email with all other parties involved
5. The Chapter Chair/delegate shall create a vTools event in the web for the lecture, and send at least one IEEE eNotice to all chapter members to announce the lecture. All eNotices, flyers and webpages should clearly indicate that the lecture is sponsored by IEEE AP Society Distinguished Lecturer Program. Then, the Chapter Chair/delegate emails the DL the URL of the vTools event.
6. Where possible, the DL attempts to give multiple lectures in different chapters in the same tour, especially when international travel is involved, for best use of society funds.
7. Within two weeks from the lecture, the Chapter Chair/delegate shall complete the Blue columns (O to AA) of the spreadsheet and email it to the DLPC Chair and to the DL. The DL updates the Green columns (A to N) and email the spreadsheet to the DLPC Chair, and cc the Chapter Chair/delegate. All cells from A to AA should be complete to meet the reporting requirement.
8. Future lecture approvals to the same chapter are subject to receiving the completed spreadsheet by the DL Program Chair in time.
9. The DL shall submit an Expense Report to the Society Treasurer within 60 days from travel, to claim the expenses, following guidelines in the DL Program Handbook and IEEE Travel Policy.

 Tips for Distinguished Lecturer Nomination.

New DLs are selected in accordance with very specific selection criteria. Each member of the selection panel provides numerical marks for each applicant for each criterion and the final selection is based entirely on merit. Please note that the criteria here are significantly different to many other awards, including IEEE Fellow recognition and AP-S Field Awards, thus the nominators should pay careful attention to the criteria in the Call for IEEE AP-S Distinguished Lecturers.

Some applicants have informed me that preparing a 10-minute video clip for submission is the most challenging part of the application preparation and, having done it myself previously, I agree. Allow time for this and start preparing well before the deadline. The objective here is to impress the selection panel with your communication and presentation skills. You can also make use of this video to prove that your lecture is interesting and relevant to the wider AP community. Avoid focusing on yourself for extended periods when making the video, rather focus on your content as much as possible. I have seen video clips that do not contain the face of the lecturer at all but are still very strong in proving the point and getting the message across to the audience. Use an appropriate pointing device when required. A recording of a lecture given to an audience is often not suitable for this purpose. It is advisable to make a clip solely for this purpose, using whatever hardware you have access to. Expensive hardware is not required.

As always, your feedback on the Distinguished Lecturer Program is welcome by me and the Committee.

Kwai Man Luk
Distinguished Lecturer Program Chair
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Distinguished Lecturer Program Chair

Professor Kwai Man Luk,
FREng, FIEEE Department of Electrical Engineering City University of Hong Kong

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Past Chairs:

Peter de Maagt
Danilo Erricolo
David Jackson
Dan Schaubert
Prabhakar Pathak
Karu Esselle

Past Distinguished Lecturer Appointments