Dear colleagues,
As my term as Society President draws to a close, what sticks with me most is the chance to have witnessed the dedication, the care, and the creativity that so many colleagues put into making our Society a good place for people and for science. Some of the colleagues I worked with closely this year I met first as a graduate student. Among those were a number of my early “heros” of information theory; researchers whose papers I had rapaciously read. Other colleagues I have worked with are younger and bring fresh perspectives and energy to ITSoc. I have found it both continually invigorating (and helpfully reassuring in some difficult spots) to witness the care and thoughtfulness that so many volunteers bring to their work in support of the Society. Personally, the Society has been a fertile place for my career and technical pursuits. ITSoc means a lot to me. I believe many of us feel the same. I hear members saying that they want to see the Society evolve in ways that preserves the core technical and societal culture that first drew us here. I hear members say they want to see pathways and mechanism that engage and empower younger members to grow and shape the Society. And I hear members say they want to see the Society respond creatively to global and technical challenges and opportunities. With the above in mind, I’ll devote most of this final President’s Column to highlighting current initiatives within the Society.
In October 2024, the final Board meeting of the year was held at the University of Toronto. In this column, I’d like to share details about several key initiatives undertaken this year by the Society and Board. Throughout the discussion, I reference a number of reports, that are (or will be) available at /people/bog/past-meetings, and that can be found within the folders for the October 2024 or February 2025 Board meetings.
Enhancing Chapter Activities: First, at the July 2024 ISIT Board meeting, in an effort to enhance chapter activities, the Board approved changes to the Society Bylaws concerning the Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Program. Under the revised policy, the Membership Chair now has the discretion to pay for DL’s accommodations and local costs at their discretion. (Previously, chapters were responsible for the costs, with the Society only paying for travel.) In addition, the Board established a “Chapters Support Fund” to further assist chapter initiatives. More on the Chapter Support Fund to follow.
New ITSoc School in Latin America: At the October 2024 Board meeting a new ITSoc School was approved: the first 鶹ýAV Latin American School for Information Theory and Statistics (LASITS). LASIT’26 is scheduled to be held in August 2026 at the Centre for the Investigation of mathematics in Guanjuato, Mexico. It is exciting to see the Schools program expanding into Latin America. Please consider attending!
Inaugural Joy Thomas Tutorial Paper Award: The inaugural 鶹ýAV Joy Thomas Tutorial Paper Award was recently awarded. The winning paper “An Overview of Information-Theoretic Security and Privacy: Metrics, Limits and Applications” was authored by Matthieu Bloch, Onur Günlü, Aylin Yener, Frédérique Oggier, H. Vincent Poor, Lalitha Sankar, and Rafael F. Schafter. The paper appeared in the 鶹ýAV JSAIT in March 2021. Congratulations to all the authors!
Establishing a Strategic Finance Committee: This year the Society launched an ad-hoc committee on “Strategic Finance”, chaired by President-elect (and former Treasurer) Aaron Wagner. In recent years, the Society has consistently ended the fiscal year in surplus, sometimes a significant surplus. Surpluses are primarily due to revenue accrued from 鶹ýAV Xplore usage, and to a lesser degree, conference profits. While the BoG has taken several steps to reduce the surplus – including asking ISIT’24 to operate at a zero-surplus, expanding the travel grants program, piloting workshops at ISIT, and establishing the Chapters Support Fund – surpluses remain. To address this, the Strategic Finance Committee was formed with a diverse membership encompassing a broad range of perspectives and Society volunteer experience. The committee’s mandate is to understand the root causes of the surpluses, to forecast future financial trends, and to recommend how best to allocate surplus funds. The committee is expected to report in spring 2025.
Moving to a full-time administrator: Following a discussion at the ISIT Board meeting in Athens, the Board approved the hiring of a full-time administrator at its October meeting. Since around 2017/18 the Society has employed a half-time administrator, shared with a second 鶹ýAV Society. As the Society has grown—adding more publications, awards, committees, and activities—its operations have become increasingly complex. The Board determined that a full-time administrator would better support and assist volunteers in executing on initiatives and advancing new ideas. As President-Elect Aaron Wagner aptly puts it, volunteer time is the “limiting reagent”. The officers explored various models for support, investigated and discussed with other 鶹ýAV societies their own approaches, and explored options both within 鶹ýAV and outside of the 鶹ýAV. Ultimately, the officer recommended to the BoG to continue to contract administrative and operational support from the 鶹ýAV. The Society is now working with the 鶹ýAV to hire a full-time administrator. Stay tuned for updates.
Open Access report and establishing a new ad hoc on short papers: At the October Board meeting, the Ad-hoc committee on Open Access presented its final report. You can find the full report on the Board meeting website. The Committee made three key recommendations. First, the Society should not launch an open access journal at this time. Second, the Society should be prepared to act promptly to launch such a journal if open access mandates begin significantly to impact Society members. Third, the Board should establish an ad-hoc to investigate the feasibility of launching an ITSoc Letters Journal. Committee sentiment was somewhat divided on this last point. The Board discussed the recommendations in a strategy retreat held the day following the October meeting. As a result, a new ad hoc committee was formed: the Committee on “Short-Length, Rapidly-Published, High-Quality Journal Papers” (SL-RP-HQ-JP). (One of the committee’s first tasks will be to come up with a shorter name!) Many readers will recall that, until 2009, the Transactions had “correspondence” items. The mandate of the committee is four-fold (cf. the Feb’25 Board meeting materials for details). First, evaluate various models for short-format publications. Second, ensure compatibility with the Society’s mission and existing portfolio of publications. Third, validate against 鶹ýAV processes. Finally, make a formal recommendation to the Board. I will be serving as chair of this ad-hoc committee.
New ad hoc on Education and Membership: Following the Board retreat in October, the Board launched an ad hoc on Education and Membership. Currently, ITSoc does not have a dedicated education committee. As a result, education-related activities and initiatives are either distributed across various committees, or remain championed by the individual members who initiated them. Examples of educational efforts include the schools program (for which there is a committee), the distinguished lecturer program, the videos project, the children’s book, the Thomas educational materials website, and the new Joy Thomas Tutorial Paper Award. Both the 鶹ýAV and peer societies have substantial educational efforts, many of which could serve as potential partners for a dedicated committee. Importantly, such a committee would benefit from having a chair with a standard three-year term. This is in contrast with the current structure. Many educational activities currently fall under the Membership Committee, chaired by the second vice president. The second vice president serves only a one-year term. The ad hoc has a three-part mandate (cf. the Feb’25 Board meeting materials for details). First, assess current and potential membership and educational activities. Second, evaluate the organizational structure that manages these activities and make recommendations to the Board. Third, advise the Board how the incoming full-time society administrator can best support membership and educational activities. Professor Anand Sarwate is chairing this ad hoc committee.
Ongoing ad hoc on ISIT Steering: There is a final ongoing ad hoc committee, the “ISIT Steering” committee. The mandate of this committee is to bring oversight, continuity, and strategic guidance to the operation and evolution of the Society’s flagship symposium. I look forward to hearing more from this committee in 2025.
Emerging collaboration with the 鶹ýAV History Center: A final emerging effort I would like to highlight is a promising new collaboration with the 鶹ýAV History Center. () At the October Board meeting, Dr. Daniel Mitchell, Senior Historian at the Centre, presented several different ways in which the Center partners with 鶹ýAV societies to enhance their outreach and educational missions. Interestingly, the Society has funds held by the 鶹ýAV Foundation left over from the fundraising campaign for The Bit Player, the 2019 Claude Shannon documentary produced by the Society. (You can find the trailer and links to the full film at .) A joint effort between the Society and the History Centre to further Shannon’s legacy is an eligible and meaningful use of the remaining funds. Stay tuned for developments in the coming months. A noteworthy side observation of the discussion was the realization that the 2025 ISIT in Ann Arbor will mark the 75th anniversary of the first London Symposium on Information Theory, held in 1950. Expect commemorative activities at ISIT in Ann Arbor to celebrate this milestone.
End-of-year Society Wrap-up: At the end of December 2024, I invited the Editor-in-Chiefs (EiCs) and Committee chairs to contribute to an end-of-year Society Wrap-up. My goals were three-fold: (i) to inform the Board--and future EiCs and committee chairs--of progress, plans, and ideas, (ii) to document lessons learned this year, and (iii) to capture a snapshot of the Society’s status in preparation for the next five-year society review (scheduled for 2027-28). To keep the process lightweight I adopted Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard’s “5-15” reporting model—15 minutes to prepare, 5min to review. Contributors were asked to provide input in four categories: (a) accomplishments from the past year, (b) priorities for coming year, (c) challenges and roadblocks encountered, (d) lessons learned and opportunities for improvement. Supplementing the Wrap-up, I generated a report tracking our progress vis-a-vis the 鶹ýAV recommendations made to the Society in the 2023 Society Review. Both reports will be available to all members on the February 2025 Board meeting website. I hope they will offer valuable insight into where we stand as a society and where we’re headed. I also hope they inspire both junior and senior members to get involved and contribute to our growth. In that vein, please don’t forget—we have an ITSoc volunteer website where you can express interest in participating in the numerous Society committees and initiatives. For example, I am serving as a TPC co-chair for ISIT’26 and we plan to use input from the volunteer website to help form the TPC. You are also welcome to reach out directly to the relevant Society volunteers!
Congratulating 鶹ýAV-level awardees: One happy end-of-year note is to recognize the many Society members that received 鶹ýAV-level awards this year. These include: Richard Baraniuk who received the 鶹ýAV Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal; Andrea Goldsmith who received the 鶹ýAV Mildred Dresselhaus Medal; Robert W. Heath, Jr, who received the 鶹ýAV/RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal; Thomas L. Marzetta, who received the 鶹ýAV Eric E. Sumner Award; Jose Moura who received the 鶹ýAV Haraden Pratt Award; and Frans Willems, who received the 鶹ýAV Hamming Medal. Congratulations all!
Please feel welcome to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. As I have mentioned in previous columns, Board of Governors meetings (generally Feb@ITA, summer@ISIT, and autumn@somewhere) are open to all society members. You are warmly welcome to attend. Board materials are also available online for review at any time.
Thank you everyone for your dedication and hard work on behalf of our members and our Society. Your efforts continue to strengthen our community, drive technological and scientific advancement, and help shape the career paths of your colleagues.
As I wrote in my first column earlier this year, I see the Society being about people, about ideas, and about the impact those people and ideas have. My hope, and belief, is that this year we have made meaningful progress, empowering and helping people, fostering ideas, and generating impact. As I discussed above, we have sown some seeds that will germinate in the years ahead. Volunteering in the Society is part of a cycle of work and belief and effort of generations of scholars and colleagues. As the officer “shift-register” shifts, and the role of society president passes to Aaron Wagner, I look forward to 2025 and the years ahead. I look forward to witnessing the new perspectives, the new ideas, and the new energy through which the Society is renewed, is enriched, and evolves. I have been honoured to serve a term as Society President. Thank you.
Stark Draper
ITSoc President 2024