New York City was the backdrop of this year’s IEEE Honors Ceremony, held on 24 April.
The event celebrates engineering pioneers who have developed technologies that have changed how people connect and learn about the world. This year’s celebrants included the engineers behind innovations such as text-to-donate technology, AI-powered diagnostic tools, and the graphics processing unit, among many others.
Prior to the Honors Ceremony, IEEE hosted a forum on 23 April for a select group of early-career achievers to exchange ideas and experiences with laureates and awardees, speakers, and IEEE leaders. Attendees from around the world, working in a variety of technical areas, shared their journeys and explored the intersections of technologies, disciplines, and missions.
The event culminated in Friday evening’s black tie Honors Ceremony, where IEEE celebrated medal laureates, including Jensen Huang, who received IEEE’s highest recognition, the IEEE Medal of Honor. Huang is a cofounder of Nvidia and its chief executive.
“IEEE has always been a home to those who see the future before others see it,” Mary Ellen Randall, IEEE president and CEO, said in her welcome speech.
Video highlights and photos from the event are available on the IEEE Awards website.
Exploring mission-driven tech and AI in art
Friday morning began with a conversation between Randall and Marian Croak, the recipient of this year’s IEEE Founders Medal. Croak was honored for “leadership in communication networks, including acceleration of digital equity, responsible artificial intelligence, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion.”
Croak, who serves as vice president of engineering at Google, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., pioneered Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies. When a person speaks into a telephone, VoIP converts their voice into digital signals that are transmitted over the Internet rather than traditional phone lines. Her work enabled audio and video conferencing. She also developed text-to-donate technology to raise money for those affected by Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. The technology enables customers to donate money to a charity via their mobile service provider, which then bills them.
“Empathy has always been a driving force in the engineering that I’ve done,” she said.
She shared advice on how to stay creative: “Get out of the office. Go to an art museum, exercise, or play with children.” Croak said her grandchildren inspire her.
The daytime program also spotlighted AI’s use in the visual arts. Kathleen Kramer, the 2025 IEEE president, interviewed artist Refik Anadol, who is scheduled to open an AI art museum on 20 June in Los Angeles. Dataland’s exhibits are powered by an open-access model developed by Anadol’s studio.
For the museum’s first exhibition, “Machine Dreams: Rainforest,” the model collected visual data about the natural world from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, London’s Natural History Museum, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, with their permission. The information, including up to a half billion images, will form the basis for a variety of AI-produced art, Anadol said.
Anadol said he was inspired to mix AI with art by the movie Blade Runner. He said he believes “machines can become collaborators,” as “data is a form of pigment.”
Data also plays an important role in the work of artist and author Giorgia Lupi. The artist is a partner at design firm Pentagram.
Lupi said she uses data to tell stories, including chronicling her struggles with a chronic illness.
“Data is an abstraction of our reality,” she said.
One of her recent projects, “A Data Love Letter to the Subway,” was shown last year in the Dey Street Passageway in New York City. The video was made using data from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority about each train line, including timetables, ridership, and people’s travel habits. Based on the information Lupi gathered, she documented how commuters traveling on different subway lines encountered one another without realizing it.
By exploring data on this year’s IEEE award recipients, she collaborated with IEEE to create an animated video illustrating the shared pathways and collaborations among the honorees. It debuted at the Honors Ceremony.
Honoring engineering giants
The Honors Ceremony, held at Cipriani 42nd Street, recognized more than 20 laureates and innovators.
More than 92 million selfies are taken worldwide every day, PhotoAiD estimates. A selfie wouldn’t be possible without Eric Fossum’s invention of the CMOS image sensor. Developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, Calif., the “camera on a chip” was intended for use in space, but it is now found in smartphones, medical devices, and vehicles. Fossum, an IEEE Life Fellow, received the IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal, which recognizes outstanding contributions to materials and device science and technology.
“Engineering is a pursuit of what must be possible. [IEEE is] the spirit, the conscience, of our profession.” —Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia
The medal, he said, “is at the top of the IEEE staircase of being recognized by your peers.”
The IEEE Holonyak Medal for Semiconductor Optoelectronic Technologies went to Steven P. DenBaars, a professor of materials and electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. DenBaars was honored for his work in semiconductors, which laid the foundation for high-resolution LED and laser displays, modern solid-state lighting, and more.
“This work has always been a team effort…I’m excited and curious about the role gallium nitride micro LEDs will play in optical communications,” he said in his acceptance speech.
The ceremony ended with the Medal of Honor presentation to Huang, who received a standing ovation. He was recognized for his “leadership in the development of graphics processing units and their application to scientific computing and artificial intelligence.”
The IEEE honorary member donated his cash prize to IEEE TryEngineering, which provides teachers with a library of lesson plans and offers educational summer camps. The Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation matched his gift, and the additional donation is destined to fund scholarships for new graduates.
“Engineering is a pursuit of what must be possible. [IEEE is] the spirit, the conscience, of our profession,” Huang said.
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