As the new President of the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Society, I would take this opportunity to provide the present picture of the Society and to outline short term directions. I am proud and honored to serve the EMC Society and I look forward to facing this challenging experience.

My Personal EMC Experience
First of all, I would like to introduce myself to the members who have not had the chance to get to know me over the past few years. I am a professor at Sapienza University in Rome, Italy. When I first started my research activity in 1993 working with Professor Mauro Feliziani, I was mainly involved in the field of computational electromagnetics and numerical modeling. However, considering the time and place, it was natural to soon get involved in EMC! In the ’90s, EMC was getting very popular in Italy, and I had the honor of being in Marcello D’Amore’s very active EMC group. In 1994, the Sapienza University hosted the first edition of the International Symposium EMC’94 ROMA. It was followed by two more symposia, EMC ROMA in ’96 and ’98, before evolving into the successful EMC EUROPE conference series. Since then, my involvement with EMC has grown gradually over the years. I joined the EMC Society in 1994. I was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on EMC from 1999 to 2000. I had the privilege to start serving on the Board of Directors in 2005. Since then I have served as EMC Society Chapter Coordinator. Many new chapters were formed in recent years and I am glad to have contributed to their development and success. Working with the chapters has been a great experience. It has been very helpful to enlarge my vision, and it has significantly contributed to my personal growth.

The Second Woman President of the EMC Society
Contrary to the general opinion, I am not the first woman President of the EMC Society. The first one was “Jackie” Janoski and she served as President in 1978 and 1979. While writing this message I wanted to know more about my predecessor, and I thank Dan Hoolihan for allowing me to do so. I was really impressed by reading Jackie’s “Personality Profile” that appeared in the IEEE EMC Group Newsletter; Issue No. 90, Summer 1976. She was very active in different fields and served in positions of remarkable responsibility. Please, consider that all this was occurring in the ’70s, when being a woman in a male dominated working environment was much more difficult than nowadays. I am very honored in being the second woman President of the EMC Society and I will do my best to be worthy of being recognized as another link of the illustrious chain of excellent leaders who preceded me.

The Present EMC Society Picture
The EMC Society is active, productive and still growing. We have more than 4,000 members and 71 chapters, and we continue to expand globally. Despite the worldwide economic conditions with the consequent lack of corporate support and job/career changes, our membership has remained fairly stable. Over the last 10 years the EMC Society has achieved a remarkable growth at the international level that is verified by several crucial pieces of evidence - some 50% of our members and our chapters are currently outside the US, I am the second consecutive President from outside the US, and half of the newly elected members of the Board of Directors are from Europe. The IEEE EMC Society is now present and active in each of the five continents of the globe. I have been particularly glad to welcome the South Africa EMC chapter at the end of last year. The formation of our first chapter in Africa represented an important accomplishment in chapter development and global outreach.
     The EMC Society conferences, workshops, transactions, newsletters and educational programs enhance and disseminate the culture of traditional areas of EMC while keeping pace with new technological challenges.

Short Term Directions
Globalization and new technologies are the key-words associated to my term challenges. In my five years serving on the Board of Directors, the global reputation of the EMC Society has been a major issue and we have made great progress. However, we still have a long way to go. As President, the global outreach of the Society is one of my top priorities and I hope, during my term of office, to lead the Society in the path of further globalization. The key issue is to extend and strengthen our perception as a global Society, and to achieve this goal we need to:

• Better focus our services in order to account for different needs of members in different regions, and provide more tangible benefits to members at large.
• Continue the development of new chapters worldwide.
• Develop a strategy for global conferences.
• Improve the emergence of EMC technical and scientific aspects.
• Encourage and promote combined actions with other IEEE Societies on topics of common interest.
  
• Develop educational programs and promote actions for increasing the participation of young scientists and students.

     The ability of the EMC Society to look ahead and stay tuned with new, emerging technologies is of paramount importance to be abreast of the times. Recently, we have welcomed the new TC-11 on nanotechnology. At present, the EMC community is on the fringe of the fast evolving world of nanotechnology. It is necessary to bridge the gap between the results of advanced scientific and technological research and the industrial exploitation of these results: this will require the Society to focus on the EMC-related aspects of nano-materials, nano-components, and nano-systems.
     New initiatives are going to be taken in both technical and standard activities in order to adapt and remain relevant with emerging technologies. I will periodically report on these new ideas and programs in the coming months.
     Another important issue that I will support as President is the reorganization of Technical Committees (TCs) in order to improve their effectiveness and to keep up with the new technologies. The number of TCs has grown over the years, based on the development and needs of the fast evolving technological world. All our TCs have been providing remarkable accomplishments and significant contributions to their respective field of expertise; some of them have almost exhausted their mission; while areas of overlap have been revealed among different TCs. For all of these reasons, a modern and more effective organization of our TCs is required.

EMC Society Team
In this experience as President of the EMC Society, I am very pleased to be supported by a fine team of dedicated officers, Board members, standing committee appointees and chapter chairpersons. Without their dedication and support, it wouldn’t be possible to keep the Society at such levels of excellence.
     I want to take this opportunity to thank Elya Joffe, the immediate past-president of the IEEE EMC Society for his outstanding leadership, dedication and duty to the Society. Thanks largely to his efforts and to those of many other dedicated volunteers, the EMC Society is more global than ever. I would like to express my personal gratitude to Elya for the encouragement and support he has given me over the years of my service on the Board of Directors, and for being an excellent mentor in the general handling of EMC Society business.
     As of January 2010, the IEEE EMC Society Board of Directors has a new slate of members. I would like to welcome Dan Hoolihan and Larry Cohen, and, above all, the four new members Andy Marvin, Alistair Duffy, Vesna Roje and Mike Oliver who are serving for the first time on the Board.

Board of Directors Meetings
I want to remind all our members that all meetings of the EMC Society Board of Directors are open. Any members who want to attend will be most welcome. The schedule of the Board meetings is posted on the website at http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/conferences.html, and in the calendar section of the Newsletter.

Call for Volunteers
Our Society has had the fortune, over the years, to benefit from many fine volunteers who have contributed unselfishly of their time and talent. To keep up the pace, however, we need a continuous influx of new talent to carry on as vacancies occur and to support new areas of concern. Please, give serious consideration to becoming involved in our broad and challenging goals and objectives. If your interests and skills are focused on specific Society functions, please contact the appropriate Vice-President or Committee Chair. The full list of committees can be found on our website at http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/directors.html.                                                            EMC