President’s End of Term Report to AP-S Members

Dear IEEE AP-S Members,

I am very close to the end of my term and would like to report to you on the entire 2024. What a busy year! We accomplished a lot together. This is thanks to incredible work, enthusiasm, and contributions by AP-S leaders, volunteers, and members, all of you.

AP-S is our professional family. Please be an active participant in everything we as Society do. A reminder to renew your membership right away if you haven’t already. And please bring your colleagues and friends to the family.

This year, we carried out a number of forward-looking Fundamental Changes of the IEEE AP-S Society aimed at establishing foundation for advancing the structure and operation of our Society in all areas.

We established 12 inaugural IEEE AP-S Technical Committees (TCs)  to guide our technical activities (note that AP-S didn’t have Technical Committees before).

We undertook concerted efforts and actions toward AP-S Membership Growth and Retention. We just reached 12,900 active members and will be topping the 13,000 mark in the next few days, an unprecedented 25% increase for just this year. 

The most important event of 2024 for the AP Society – IEEE APS/URSI 2024, held in July in Florence, Italy, was an astounding success.

This year, we conducted the 75th AP-S Anniversary Celebrations, as IEEE’s third society (AP-03), with many activities, events, and publications throughout the year.

The Main 75 Years of AP-S Celebration took place at our flagship conference in Florence, with truly historic events.

The inaugural edition of our Latin American Conference on Antennas & Propagation (LACAP), LACAP 2024, was a fantastic success, resulting in a dramatic increase of our membership in IEEE Region 9.

The second edition of the International Microwave & Antennas Symposium – IMAS 2024, jointly by AP-S and IEEE MTT-S, was an outstanding success too.

And so was the joint IEEE Microwave and Antennas Propagation Conference – MAPCON 2024. Before and after MAPCON, we had fantastic visits, workshops, and meetings with our chapters all across India.

Various AP-S Committees organized throughout the year a very large number of innovative and impactful international membership-oriented workshops and meetings in all IEEE regions.

Our Intersociety Collaboration included establishment of IEEE Journal of Selected Topics on Electromagnetics, Antennas and Propagation, Intersociety Joint Distinguished Lecturer Program, etc.

We made multifaceted efforts toward enhancing impactful industry involvement and presence within all AP-S activities, with several preliminary events aimed at learning of industry needs, desires, and ideas.

In closing, I was incredibly fortunate to have such fabulous AP-S AdCom at Large Members, and I am enormously grateful to them – see my personal acknowledgements.

What a year! For me personally, this was the busiest year of my life. It was also the most pleasurable, enriching, and rewarding year of my career. Serving you and serving with you as the President of this amazing organization was a privilege and opportunity of a lifetime.

With such an extraordinary colleague, friend, and leader as President Elect Christophe Fumeaux at the helm of the Society next year, I enthusiastically look forward to a fantastic 2025 for AP-S.

Congratulations to you All on our 2024 accomplishments together and thank you so much!

I wish you and your family and loved ones the most joyful, prosperous, healthy, and happy 2025!

Branislav

Branislav M. Notaroš

President, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society