First and foremost, my colleagues from the Reliability Society leadership team and myself hope that you and your families, friends, coworkers - and lives, are doing well through these extraordinary times. Our Society is weathering the storm as best as possible, thanks to the dedication and skills of our volunteers and of our staff at IEEE. After holding our first ExCom and AdCom meetings in Palm Springs CA last January and attending the IEEE Meeting Series in Orlando FL in February, few of us have had any other opportunity to safely meet face-to-face to conduct our business. As you have experienced yourself, we have had to rapidly adapt to the challenges facing us due to the pandemic. Starting with our most recent ExCom and AdCom meetings held in early June, we are now meeting exclusively online, in smaller chunks of time, but more frequently.

So far this year, our Society has made progress in all areas of our business: conferences, publications, membership, technical activities and finance:

(1) 17 of our 22 annual conferences are still planned for 2020, albeit virtually, at least in part. The remainder are postponed to 2021. Our flagship conference, IRPS, was one of the first to go virtual, and has reported many benefits to this new format.

(2) Within our publications portfolio, the structure of our highly anticipated new Reliability Magazine has taken shape with calls for column editors in progress, but the launch of the magazine itself will be postponed to January 2022 to allow our volunteers to better prepare for a successful event.

(3) Our membership counts have started to return to slight growth, with an improvement of nearly 5%, a situation not seen since 1988!

(4) Our technical activities are plentiful and growing through new MOUs, including The Internet of Things, The Smart Village Initiative, and more to come. Check out our updated list of active technical communities on our web site – join them or form new ones!

(5) With the close of our 2019 fiscal year, our finances were strong. Our budget surplus is being reinvested primarily in new technical initiatives. We welcome suggestions from you, as our forecast for such investments will be solidified by mid-July.

Earlier this month, our Society also successfully underwent its 5-year review with IEEE. Our long-time approach of running our organization through strong technical contributions and diverse expertise, evolving according to the needs of technologies and systems, continues to make us one of the healthiest and most respected societies in IEEE. Yet, as we grow in many technical areas, our need for enthusiastic volunteers is greater than ever. Whether you aspire to learn skills in the publications or conference organizing areas, or would enjoy representing us within other IEEE organizations, there are plenty of ways to contribute and enjoy forging new professional relationships for years to come.

I hope you enjoy this edition of our newsletter, which gives me the opportunity to extend a warm welcome to our new editor, Dr. Ricky Gao. I also convey our team’s most sincere thanks to Lon Chase, who has held this responsibility with great professionalism for many years.

As always, please email me at c.d.graas@ieee.org with any questions or suggestions, and please, stay safe.

Kind Regards,
-Carole

Hopefully this newsletter issue finds you and your family, friends and colleges in good health and wellbeing during these trying times. Please read about our society activities completed, underway or planned. This issue also contains other exciting articles, news and chapter activities of interest. Please enjoy reading about and participating in society and chapter activity.

Sadly, this is my last issue as the RS Newsletter Editor-in-Chief. I have been EIC for the newsletter the last 4 years and another 6 years in the early 2000s. However, I leave the newsletter in the capable hands of Ricky Gao as the new EIC. It has been my pleasure to support the Reliability Society in this position and want to sincerely thank all the contributors and supporters of the newsletter over these years.

Members and organizations have much knowledge and information to share. This sharing strengthens our disciplines, members and the society. Technical bulletins in our field of interest, committee announcements, Chapter activities, conference call for papers, etc. are needed for the newsletter. Inputs for future newsletter issues are due in the following months.

• Issue #1, inputs due February
• Issue #2, inputs due May
• Issue #3, inputs due August
• Issue #4, inputs due November

The Newsletter is only as good as the inputs provided, so please help bring our members an outstanding Newsletter. As always, feedback and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Lon Chase
Newsletter Editor-in-Chief (Outgoing)
l.chase@ieee.org

Ruizhi Gao
Newsletter Editor-in-Chief (Incoming)
youtianzui.nju@gmail.com