Prof. Saeid Nahavandi is the Alfred Deakin Professor, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Defence Technology), Chair of Engineering, and Director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation at Deakin University, Australia. He also serves as Chair of the IEEE SMCS TC on Robotics and Intelligent Sensing and has held membership on several SMCS standing committees. His research interests include modeling of complex systems, robotics, and haptics and he has published over 600 papers in various international journals and conferences. Prof. Nahavandi is a Fellow of Engineers Australia (FIEAust), FIET, and Senior Member of IEEE. He also serves as Co-EiC of the IEEE Systems Journal, AE for the IEEE/ASME Trans. on Mechatronics, and Editorial Board Member for the IEEE Access journal.
Role Description
This volunteer role focuses strategically on the IEEE SMC Society (SMCS) image as seen through its forms of electronic communications (website content quality, professional image on social media channels, etc.) and on chairing a supporting subcommittee including a Web Editor and a Social Media Editor (who perform more tactical duties) and other members supporting subcommittee plans, decisions, and operations. The role involves liaising with a 3rd party contractor to SMCS, D2 Creative, responsible for website architecture, design, and major maintenance or changes. (SMCS volunteers perform routine updates to certain web pages.)
Characteristics and duties of this role include:
- attention to detail and responsible stewardship needed to function as caretaker of the SMCS electronic image as represented by its forms of electronic communications
- new idea generation and content quality review responsibility
- working with the SMCS President and committees to enable EC Subcommittee support, as needed, with electronic communications of any important SMCS announcements
- populating good news and stories about SMCS for the slide show feature on the main page of the SMCS website, which calls for
- working closely with SMCS VPs, TCs, Membership, and other committees to solicit and receive slide show content submissions and performing content review and quality assurance to select the best content (e.g., designating slides for various aspects such as featured TC, Chapter, and/or article of the month, and featured conferences/workshops, etc.)
- posting selected slide show content monthly to the web site, or leveraging the Web Editor’s support with this task
- working closely with the Social Media Editor to ensure substantial traffic on our social media channels
- serving as SMCS point of contact for D2 Creative, including negotiating the SMCS service contract once per year and price(s) for any further SMCS-proposed improvements or major changes to the website during the contract period
- managing any SMCS funds allocated or approved for use in a given budget year to support special subcommittee operations.
