IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2022 - 78

(MAL) for 2022 are female (the slate
of candidates included 5 women and 7
men). MAL are elected by popular
vote of the PELS membership. The
jump in representation of women
MAL is excellent for creating a diverse
governing body and important for setting
up women to continue on to
30
25%
Elevated IEEE Fellows
Elevated by PELS
20
11.8%
10 7.1% 9%
0%
2010
2012
2014
2016
Year
2018
2020
2022
FIG 4 Percentage of women Fellows per elected class elevated by PELS (red) compared
to all of IEEE (blue). Source: IEEE PELS.
20
15
10
5
2010
IEEE Members
PELS Members
PELS Awards
12.5%
11.1%
9.1%
9.1%
7% 6.4% 6.5%
0% 0% 0%
0%
8.7% 7.7%
0% 0%
9.4%
0%
13.1%13.8%
7.8%
0% 0%
0%
12.5%
senior leadership positions, including
vice-president and president. That
said, representation of women in
AdCom alone is not enough to ensure
women continue to senior leadership
positions, as PELS has never had a
female president or vice president. In
this year's election for vice president
positions (Membership, Global Relations,
and Standards), two women
were on the slate of nine nominees,
but none were elected.
While we undoubtedly want to
see women in senior leadership positions,
it is important that women 1)
assume leadership positions that
eventually lead to senior leadership
positions and 2) are being recognized
and advocated for by the current
senior leadership and AdCom.
Both of these factors have been
improving, particularly in the last
couple of years and we hope to see
women in senior leadership positions
soon.
The recognition of women mem0%
0% 0% 0% 0%
2012
2014
2016
Year
FIG 5 Percentage of women awarded PELS-sponsored awards (yellow). Source: IEEE PELS.
50
40
30
20
10
0%
2018
0%
2020
IEEE Members
PELS Members
PELS DLs
PELS RDLs
36.4%
35.7%
35.7%
20%
9.1%
0%
2017
0%
2018
0%
2019
Year
FIG 6 Percentage of women PELS Distinguished Lecturers (yellow) and PELS Regional
Distinguished Lecturers (green). Source: IEEE PELS.
78 IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE z June 2022
2020
2021
2022
10%
bers in PELS was previously identified
as an area in need of improvement,
particularly in Fellow elevations
and awards [3]. Although
elevation to Fellow is an IEEE-level
recognition decided upon by the
IEEE Fellow Committee, each nomination
first goes through a society- or
council-level evaluation. The number
of members elevated to Fellow
depends on the size of that specific
society. For 2022, among the eight
people elevated to Fellow through
PELS, Dr. Maryam Saeedifard was
recognized for her contributions to
modulation, control and protection of
multilevel converters for high-voltage
DC transmission. Figure 4 shows the
percentage of women Fellows elevated
by PELS compared to the total elevated
by IEEE (note that overall data
for 2022 was not yet available at the
time of publication). At least one
woman being elevated per year
would be a par with the representation
of women in PELS membership,
but this also means that more women
need to be recognized for their contributions
and consistently nominated
for Fellow through the PELS Technical
Committees.
As for awards, Figure 5 shows the
percentage of women receiving
PELS-sponsored awards since 2010.
In 2021, Rose Abramson, graduate
student at the University of California,
Berkeley, USA, was awarded the
IEEE Joseph John Suozzi INTELEC
Percentage Women
Percentage Women
Percentage Women
IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - June 2022
