《How should we excite non-engineers about our professions as antenna engineers and researchers》.pdf

Feature Article How should we excite non-engineers about our professions as antenna engineers and researchers? Professor Yahya Rahmat-Samii UCLA In today’s society, we tend to size people up almost immediately. Among the most quintessential questions we ask in order to formulate our opinion is simply, “what do you do?” In our profession, this is a rather tough question to answer and several years ago, when I was the Department Chair at the Electrical Engineering Department at UCLA, I had to do just that. I was invited to give a luncheon talk at the Beverly Hills Rotary Club at the famous Beverly Hills Hotel. The luncheon guests were some of the top business professionals such as bank executives, hotel managers, doctors, lawyers, etc. After a delicious lunch in a beautiful setting, it was then my turn to talk for about forty five minutes about what I do as an electromagnetic/antenna scientist and engineer. You can probably imagine how unusual it is to excite this kind of audience about the nature of the work we do! The night before, I pondered as how I should start my talk to keep these sophisticated non-engineers and certainly non-antenna specialists excited and engaged. Expectedly, I prepared colorful and interesting material to be presented; however, the opening slide was the most difficult one! My opening remark was, “Like Van Gogh who used his brushes to create paintings, Electromagnetic Scientists are artists who are able to paint the radiation of electromagnetic waves with their antennas”. This analogy between a brush and an antenna, accompanied by some interesting graphics, put everyone at ease as who I am and what I do. Next I defined my version of electrical engineering, “Science and technology of phenomena, devices and algorithms resulting from the motion of and radiation by electrons and photons in