The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has elected three members of the faculty at the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside to its its Class of 2007 Fellows. The IEEE is the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

Professors Jie Chen and Ilya Dumer, from the Department of Electrical Engineering; and Walid Najjar, from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering were elected to IEEE Fellowships in November. Their fellowships will take effect Jan. 1, 2007. The three join five other professors in the college who have achieved the designation of IEEE fellow.

The IEEE cited Chen for his contributions to fundamental design limitations of feedback control in electrical and electronics systems. Dumer was cited for his contributions to error-correcting codes. Najjar’s citation focuses on his contributions to data flow and reconfigurable computing architectures.

IEEE Fellows are a select group with 268 individuals elected for 2007. Institute policy dictates that any single year’s elected fellows cannot exceed one-tenth of 1 percent of the voting membership, which currently numbers more than 350,000 professionals in more than 160 countries. IEEE Fellow is the highest grade of membership, which the technical community recognizes as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.

“Obviously, three awards in one year bring great recognition to the Bourns College of Engineering and reflects positively on the high quality of the work of our faculty,� said engineering Dean Reza Abbaschian.

The IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional society. The society is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics. Dedicated to the advancement of technology, the IEEE publishes 30 percent of the world’s literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, and has developed more than 900 active industry standards. The organization also sponsors or co-sponsors nearly 400 international technical conferences each year.