Karen Rudie, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and cross-appointed to the School of Computing at Queen's, has been named as a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for her “contributions to the supervisory control theory of discrete event systems.”

As a result, Dr. Rudie joins a very small group of women to receive the honour. As of 2017, there were fewer than 400 women listed among some 10,000 IEEE fellows worldwide. 

“I’m a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society,” says Dr. Rudie. “There are only 26 IEEE Control Systems Society fellows in the world who are women and I’m the only one from Canada.”

New fellows are nominated by their professional peers. IEEE fellowship signifies collegial approval and validation of a researcher’s complete body of work.

“Professor Rudie is the world’s authority on decentralized control of discrete-event systems," writes IEEE Control Systems Society President Edwin Chong. “The IEEE Control Systems Society is proud of her contributions and happily celebrates her elevation to the rank of IEEE fellow. The number of IEEE members being elevated to the rank of fellow is fewer than one in a thousand.”

Dr. Rudie will be recognized at an awards ceremony in Miami in December.

The IEEE is a professional association for advancing technology for humanity. Through its 400,000-plus members in 160 countries, the association is an authority on a wide variety of areas including aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications, biomedical engineering, electric power, and consumer electronics.

Dedicated to the advancement of technology, the IEEE publishes about 30 per cent of the world’s literature in the electrical and electronics engineering and computer science fields, and has developed more than 1,300 active industry standards.