USU Engineering Professor Returns from Middle East Tour

Reyhan Baktur, who was recently chosen as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the 2022-2024 term, returned from a lecture tour across the Middle East thanks to the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society.

Host chapters invited Baktur to speak on various topics within her field, including CubeSats development, transparent antennas, antenna design for CubeSats and electromagnetics education. She delivered lectures to three top universities in Turkey, eight online lectures to chapters in the United States, Canada, India and France, and universities in Egypt.

One of Baktur’s main goals during the trip was to encourage female participation in electrical engineering.

“I hoped that with my cultural background, students, especially female students, could find resemblance and would be inspired to engage in graduate studies in the antennas and propagation field,” she said.

Baktur noticed several large turnouts from female students, especially during her lectures at Higher Institute of Engineering and Technology in Dumyat, Egypt. The lecture focused on optically transparent antennas and had nearly 300 people in attendance, a large portion being female. Students showed off their innovation design laboratory and their projects, ranging from energy harvesting to AI-based sensing. Baktur also shared information about IEEE and was excited to see interest across the group.

Another important moment took place at Baktur’s lecture in Turkey at Mediterranean University. The lecture turned into an interactive “flipped-classroom” style activity, where students wrote down background equations and future project ideas. Baktur was also given a tour to see graduate research projects following the lecture.

“It was heart-warming to see many students at the last lecture even though their final exam was over by then,” she said.

In addition to the distinguished lectureship, Baktur is involved in many other aspects of IEEE.

She was selected to be a member of the AP-S Administrative Committee and is also the STEM task leader for Asia for IEEE’s newly established Committee on Promoting Equality.

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Writer: Sydney Dahle, Sydney.dahle@usu.edu, 435-797-7512

Contact: Reyhan Baktur, Reyhan.baktur@usu.edu