IEEE Awards Booklet - 2009 - 6

I E E E

H O N O R A R Y

M E M B E R S H I P

I E E E

M E D A L S

2009 IEEE
James H. Mulligan, Jr. Education Medal

2009 IEEE
Honorary Membership

Sponsored by The Mathworks, Inc., Pearson
Prentice Hall, National Instruments Foundation
and IEEE Life Members Committee

Sponsored by IEEE

Gerald J. Posakony

Jose B. Cruz, Jr.

For pioneering contributions in ultrasonic techniques for
medical diagnosis and nondestructive evaluation

For excellence in engineering education through creative
leadership, innovative textbooks, inspirational mentoring
and research contributions to circuits, controls and systems

Gerald J. Posakony's contributions to ultrasonics enabled the
technology to move from curiosity to an important tool for
medical diagnosis and nondestructive evaluation. In the early
1950s he was the lead engineer on an ultrasonic diagnostic
imaging system for investigating disease processes in the human
body. The device was considered experimental at the time, but
the technology served as the basis for most of the ultrasonic
devices in use today.

Jose B. Cruz, Jr. has educated generations of undergraduate
and graduate students over his 45-year career, instilling the
qualities of technical excellence in research and teaching and
inspired professional service. Many of his graduates have
become academic leaders or hold prominent positions in
industry. Dr. Cruz has been readily accessible for advice and
mentoring to his former students and junior colleagues.
At the University of Illinois he developed a new organization and
presentation of material for a course on circuit theory leading to
a textbook published in 1967 with M.E. Van Valkenburg, and he
introduced, with W.R. Perkins, an undergraduate course on
dynamic systems that was control oriented and unique in that it
used a themed example (attitude control of a spacecraft)
throughout the course, also leading to a textbook (in 1969).
These textbooks contained pioneering methods for introducing
advanced concepts at an elementary level.

Mr. Posakony's expertise in transducer design, the "critical
component" of an ultrasound system, is highly sought after, as
he understands the materials, their limitations and capabilities
and the circuits and systems needed to excite the transducers
and measure and display the data. For nondestructive evaluation, he has found solutions to problems where there was no
standard test method available and developed the needed
ultrasonic technology.
He created a program for the Electric Power Research Institute
to conduct inspections of nuclear power plant components
using an ultrasonic phased array system. The system needed to
be built from scratch, and Posakony designed, fabricated and
tested the phased arrays. He also developed a transducer to
test for aging in the Sparrow solid rocket motor, enabling the
U.S national inventory to be screened and aged motors to be
identified and removed, avoiding possible failures and improving
overall safety.

While at the University of California, Irvine, from 1986 to 1992,
working with James H. Mulligan, Jr., Dr. Cruz established strong
ties with industry in developing manufacturing systems research
and jointly supervised Ph.D. students incorporating feedback
from industry. As a consultant on the Engineering and Science
Education Project of the Philippine Dept. of Science and
Technology from 1993-1998, he helped to establish a practiceoriented Master of Engineering Degree Program focused on an
industry-linked project in several Philippine universities. An IEEE
Life Fellow, Cruz is currently a Distinguished Professor of
Engineering at the Ohio State University, Columbus, where he
previously served as Dean of the College of Engineering.

Mr. Posakony is currently a senior research scientist in advanced
ultrasonic wave propagation and sonochemistry at Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, where he continues to work on
designing and testing novel methods for delivery of high-power
ultrasonic fields for treating cells and processing fluid streams.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2009