StFX computer science professor Dr. Taylor Smith has been elected a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Senior Member is the IEEE’s second highest professional grade, next to the prestigious Fellow grade. Election requires extensive experience and reflects professional accomplishment and maturity.
Only 10 per cent of the more than 500,000 members of the IEEE, widely regarded also as a professional organization for computer scientists, have been elected as Senior Members. There are 45 Senior Members across all of Atlantic Canada, and currently three at StFX—Dr. Smith and Dr. Man Lin in the Department of Computer Science and Dr. Frank Comeau in the Department of Engineering.
“Well, I was pretty elated,” Dr. Smith says on his reaction to the news.
“It's always a delight to be recognized for your work, especially when that recognition comes from an international professional organization like the IEEE. And on top of that, I received the news while I was visiting family recently, so being able to celebrate together made it that much more special.”
Dr. Smith has been a member of the IEEE ever since the first year of his master's degree, and not too long ago he was invited to give a talk for the IEEE Computer Society. In addition to his membership with the IEEE, Dr. Smith is a member of both the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Technical Committee on Mathematical Foundations of Computing.
“It's fulfilling to almost look back for a moment, see how much I've accomplished since my grad school days, and gain some motivation from this to help hit all those big goals I still have in mind for the future,” he notes.
At a high level, he says there are three requirements to become a Senior Member of the IEEE: you must be a scientist, educator, engineer, or generally somebody working in an IEEE-related field. You must have been in professional practice for at least 10 years. And you must have shown significant performance over at least five of those years.
The IEEE looks for members who have taken on substantial responsibilities and leadership roles in their position. Significant performance can mean anything from having a successful publication or patent record as a scientist to being chosen to direct or manage major projects as an engineer or, as in Dr. Smith’s case, leading a successful research program and contributing to the development of StFX’s computer science curriculum as a faculty member.
Along with teaching theoretical computer science at StFX, Dr. Smith is the director of the FLAReLab, the Formal Languages and Automata Research Lab at StFX. His research is supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant.
Dr. Smith has also authored an open-access textbook, "Theory of Computing: An Open Introduction," that's being adopted by an increasing number of universities across Canada.
He is chairing two major conferences in his research area this August: Conference on Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems (DCFS) and Conference on Implementation and Application of Automata (CIAA)
In reflecting on the honour, Dr. Smith says what comes to mind is learning so much from his colleagues through papers they’ve published, seeing the great students he’s supervised and taught go on to do amazing things, and the many service and leadership opportunities that have gotten him deeply involved in the Canadian and international research communities.
He also thanked “our fantastic department chair,” Dr. Man Lin, who is a Senior Member herself and who acted as one of his references. “I'm really grateful to work with such terrific colleagues in our department.”
Dr. Smith says he views recognition like this as a sign that he’s on the right track and he’s doing the right things in his career. “I'll continue to commit myself fully to my research program and to educating my students, but I also hope to leverage this position to deliver talks at more institutions, connect with more researchers from around the world, and generally get more people interested in theoretical computer science.”
One other nice thing about being a Senior Member, he says, is that he can now nominate others for the same honour, so he’s looking forward to helping recognize the achievements of his colleagues at StFX and elsewhere.
