John R. Pierce Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics

The John R. Pierce Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics (former IVEC Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics) was established in 2002 to recognize outstanding contributions to the field. Anyone or any group of persons working in the field of vacuum electronics is eligible for this award, which will be presented each year during the IVEC conference.

Anyone in the field may place a colleague in nomination. Selection of the winner will be made by a vote of the members of the Technical Committee. Members of the Technical Committee who are nominees may not vote. Only living persons are eligible for the award. The winner will receive a commemorative plaque and an award of $2000. If a group nomination is selected for the award they will each receive a plaque and share the $2000.

Anyone or any group of persons working in the field of vacuum electronics is eligible for this award, which is presented each year during the IVEC conference. Anyone in the field may serve as a Nominator.

A candidate may be placed in nomination by completing Nomination Form (A-1) or by preparing a statement no longer than two pages that contains much of the same material.

Nominations for the 2025 John R. Pierce Award for Excellence must be submitted via email to the Awards Chairman of the Technical Committee by January 30, 2025. Selection of the winner will be made by a vote of the members of the Vacuum Electronics Technical Committee. Members of the Technical Committee who are nominees may not vote. Names of nominees will be kept in confidence by the Technical Committee.

Letters of recommendation are encouraged, but not required. Authors of letters of recommendation may find the format of Reference Form (A-2) useful or they may use a format of their own choosing. Members of the Technical Committee may submit nominations for the award and can write letters of recommendation.

Only living persons are eligible for the award. The winner will receive a commemorative plaque and an award of $2000. If a group nomination is selected for the award they will each receive a plaque and share the $2000.

Submit your nomination for the 2025 John R. Pierce Award for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics by January 30, 2025 to the Awards Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Vacuum Devices, Dr. Dan M. Goebel, at: dan.m.goebel@jpl.nasa.gov

All the necessary material to assist you in the nomination process is available below. Again, nominators have the option to use a format of their own choosing as an alternate to the formal application posted below, on the condition that each nomination should continue much of the same information requested in the formal application and should not exceed two pages in length.
Unsuccessful nominations will automatically be re-submitted once the following year. Nominators are free to resubmit the nomination material ( Nomination Form (A-1) and Reference Form (A-2)) for unsuccessful candidates every two years.

General Information

Nominations should be made in electronic form utilizing Microsoft Word for ease of dissemination. Inclusion of graphics or photographs in the documents is not permitted. Font size should be no smaller than 10 point. Use of a smaller font, or reduction of copy to fit more words in the space provided, may affect scoring results. Proper and Accurate Description of Contributions. A concise and accurate description of the technical contributions of the Nominee is of paramount importance. Superfluous or exaggerated prose may detract from, rather than enhance, the nomination. Avoid undefined technical jargon. Use an acronym only if the full name has been spelled out previously.

IMPORTANT: A Nominator should not submit a nomination without first obtaining permission of the Nominee. The Nominator is the sole contact in the nomination process. Nominees should have no contact with Technical Committee regarding their own nominations.

Instructions For Completing a nomination for the 2023 John R. Pierce Award for excellence

Responsibilities of a Nominator:
Prepare the John R. Pierce Award Nomination Form (A-1) or its equivalent and submit it to the Awards Chairman of the IEEE Technical Committee by January 30, 2023.  If the Nominator chooses to ask for letters of reference, the Nominator must provide References with an John R. Pierce Award Reference Reference Form (A-2) and instruct them to submit it or an equivalent to the Awards Chairman of the IEEE Technical Committee by January 30, 2025.

COMPONENTS OF THE JOHN R. PIERCE AWARD NOMINATION FORM:

1. Name of Candidate
Please provide the following information: the complete name of the candidate (not just initials).

2. Address of Candidate
Please provide address data of individual or group leader: organization and home addresses, including postal codes (specify preferred mailing address), telephone, fax and email.

3. Professional History
In case of an individual nomination, please list employers and job positions in descending chronological order with the current position first. Provide a brief explanation of responsibilities in each position. If the major portion of the candidate’s career has been spent at one organization, it is not necessary to list every position held. In case of a group nomination, please describe group professional history.

4. Proposed Citation
The citation should be under 30 words. Avoid superfluous phrases. The citation should be complete, correct, and succinct. The citation may begin with the following words: For contributions to ….., For developments in….., For leadership of……, For discovery of…. Adding an adjective to the above words, such as “outstanding”, is superfluous since the member’s work must be outstanding to fulfill the requirements for Excellence in Vacuum Electronics. Use care when incorporating words like “discovery” and “invention”. Evidence of a discovery or invention must be evident in the information provided. Citations should be free of reference to gender (“his” and “her”).Only in exceptional cases should the citation include the name of a particular country where the candidate’s work is especially recognized. Avoid references to specific companies or organizations.

5. Nominator
Refer to previous page regarding nominator responsibilities.

6. Individual or Group Contributions
Since the Technical Committee must compare candidates in varied disciplines and situations, objective information on your candidate’s excellence is required. Contributions are not always theoretical in nature or new inventions; for instance, engineering efforts that bring a design or theory to fruition through economic, governmental, or other applications can also be important contributions to society. The Technical Committee recognizes that it may be more difficult to document the contributions of the practitioner engineer and technical leader because of proprietary constraints on publication. Part of the nominator’s job is to request the candidate’s organization to provide the information necessary to document the contributions of the candidate. It is important for the nominator to select a category that best defines the candidate’s significant contributions, and the Technical Committee will review the submission with an emphasis on the defined area. The Technical Committee recognizes that contributions may fall under one of the following disciplines within the engineering profession.

Engineer(s)/Scientist(s). What item or system design, construction, operation, evolution into practical use or manufacturing was a direct result of the candidate’s personal efforts? What invention, discovery, or advance in the state of the art was made by the candidate? Indicate innovation, originality, creativity, and importance of the work. Where a team effort was involved, identify and document the specific technical contribution of the candidate.

Technical Leader(s). What outstanding engineering or scientific accomplishments resulted from a managerial, team, or company-wide effort that was led by this candidate? Explain its importance. Consider the accomplishment from the point of view of benefit to society, technical innovation, risk involved, outstanding performance, achieving economic acceptability, or other advantages. What did this individual or group do that made the achievements possible? The candidate’s organizational position, while important, cannot be used as the sole evidence of achievements or technical contributions. Conversely, true technical leadership must be recognized as a contribution worthy of Excellence in Vacuum Electronics.

Educator(s). What impact has the candidate had on education in Vacuum Electronics? For example: What new curricula and/or courses has the candidate developed? In what way are they innovative and unique? Has the candidate written pioneering texts in the field? What has been the range of acceptance of this text: regional or worldwide? Has the text improved the understanding of the particular field? What contributions has the candidate made in engineering education as an administrator? What has been the success of these efforts, and how and to what extent have they changed engineering education?

PLEASE DO NOT PROVIDE COPIES OF ANY PUBLICATIONS, UNPUBLISHED SPEECHES, PATENTS, ACTUAL DOCUMENTS OR RESUMES.

7. Professional Activities – Awards, Professional Society Membership, Committee Memberships
In case of an individual nomination, please separately list awards and memberships/activities in chronological order by date. If possible, briefly define the scope of the awards listed. Society memberships: provide membership grade and note major volunteer service participation. Describe technical contributions to government, international and educational committee work, trade associations and those services of a professional or public nature having a technical content. Include college honor societies; please do not use acronyms. In case of group nomination, please list awards in chronological order by date. If possible, briefly define the scope of the awards listed.

8. Award References (Optional)
A nomination may be supported by no more than five references. The selection of References is very important. They must be qualified to judge the nominee’s work. That is, they must have personal knowledge of the candidate’s technical accomplishment(s) and have the ability to address the accomplishments in some detail. To ensure that the Reference is qualified, it is recommended that the Nominator personally ask the individual. Broad generalities may serve to weaken your candidate’s nomination.

The Nominator is encouraged to select References from outside the candidate’s own organization when possible, or to minimize the number from within. The impartiality of the references may be questioned if most are from the candidate’s organization. Also, the perception of the candidate’s distinction may be questioned. However, if the candidate’s contributions consist primarily of product advancements known only within his own organization, it is acceptable for many of the references to come from that source, so that the appropriate level of detail may be cited. For instance, the knowledge of an internal source might be especially important in the case of an individual’s particular contribution in a group effort.

 The Nominator is responsible for sending the original John R. Pierce Award Reference Form (A-2) and a copy of the John R. Pierce Award Nomination Form (A-1) or its equivalent to the references noted on the nomination form. The nominator is required to fill out the top three lines of the Reference Form (A-2) before forwarding it to the appropriate reference. References should be advised to supply their own description of the candidate’s accomplishment(s) on the reference form or its equivalent. Copying information from the nomination form may diminish the value of the reference’s evaluation and jeopardize the candidate’s ranking.

Acknowledgement

The John R. Pierce Award nomination and reference systems has drawn heavily from the IEEE Fellow application process.