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It’s been a busy three years since IEEE Women in Engineering celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2022.WIE facilitates the recruitment and retention of women in technical disciplines around the world. It also works to inspire girls to pursue an engineering career. There are student chapters at universities around the globe. Men may join the affinity group as well.Women make up less than a third of the world’s workforce in technology-related fields, according to a repo

I’m fascinated with the early 20th-century zeal for electrifying everyday things. Hand tools, toasters, hot combs—they all obviously benefited from the jolt of electrification. But the eraser? What was so problematic about the humble eraser that it needed electrifying? A number of things, it turned out. According to Hermann Lukowski in his 1935 patent application for an apparatus for erasing, “Hand held rubbers are clumsy and cover a greater area than may be required.” Aye, there’s the rub, as it were. Lukowski’s

Cheryl Conrad no longer seethes with the frustration that threatened to overwhelm her in 2006. As described in IEEE Spectrum, Cheryl’s husband, Tom, has a rare genetic disease that causes ammonia to accumulate in his blood. At an emergency room visit two decades ago, Cheryl told the doctors Tom needed an immediate dose of lactulose to avoid going into a coma, but they refused to medicate him until his primary doctor confirmed his medical condition hours later. Making the situation more vexing was that Tom had been treated at that facility for the same problem a few months earlier, and no one could l

In Mira Daher’s home country of Lebanon, the national grid provides power for only a few hours a day. The country’s state-owned energy provider, Electricity of Lebanon (EDL), has long struggled to meet demand, and a crippling economic crisis that began in 2019 has worsened the situation. Most residents now rely on privately owned diesel-powered generators for the bulk of their energy needs. But in recent years, the rapidly falling cost of solar panels has given Lebanese businesses and families a compelling alternative, and the country has seen a b

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videosVideo Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLANDICUAS 2025: 14–17 May 2025, CHARLOTTE, NCICRA 2025: 19–23 May 2025, ATLANTA, GALondon Hum

The U.S. government recommends that everyone have a disaster kit that includes a weather radio. These radios tune to a nationwide network run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Communications Commission that provides alerts about hazardous weather and other major emergencies. Such broadcasts can be a lifeline when other communication systems go out. But what i

Marko Delimar has been a proponent of empowering the next generation of engineers, scientists, and technologists since he was an undergraduate engineering student at the University of Zagreb, in Croatia. The IEEE senior member now mentors undergraduate and graduate students at his alma mater, where he is a professor of electrical engineering and computing.IEEE has played a key role in his quest to provide students with the support they need, he says.Marko DelimarEmployer: University of Zagreb, in

IEEE Spectrum is rebooting our careers newsletter! In partnership with tech career development company Taro, every issue will be bringing you deeper insight into how to pursue your goals and navigate professional challenges. Sign up now to get insider tips, expert advice, and practical strategies delivered to your inbox for free. One of my close friends is a hiring manager at Google. She recently posted about an open position on her team and was immediately overwhelmed with applications. We’re talking about thousands of applicants within days. What surprised me most, however, was the horrendous quality of the av

In my career, I’ve often been the only woman in a room full of men, a situation all too common in tech-related fields. From the start of my engineering journey, I was among a handful of women in my graduate program. This trend continued when I began my first software engineering job as the only woman on my team, and eight years later, I remain a minority in the tech world. Women currently constitute about 35 percent of the technical workforce. This statistic highlights the ongoing challenge of gender disparity in tech, where women have historically been underrepresented. And the gap be

EPICS in IEEE, an Educational Activities program, celebrated its 15th anniversary last year. The Engineering Projects in Community Service initiative provides nonprofit organizations with technology to improve and deliver services to their community while broadening undergraduate EE students’ hands-on experience with engineering-related topics.The program reached new heights last year by distributing more than US $226,000 to 39 projects, e