Wichita State University IEEE Student Branch

Apply before April 28th to be part of the next executive committee.
Apply at https://edu.ieee.org/us-wichita/officer-nomination/

Last Friday, we visited the technology center and training substation as part of IEEE Education Week. Planning engineer Hermes Arevalo talked to the students about their grid planning and operation activities, and led a tour of the battery storage system. Protection engineer Ryan Einer gave the students a tour of their training substation explaining the components, their operations and safety measures. The students were also invited for lunch with the OG&E's recruiting team talking about their internship and job opportunities.

We continued the IEEE Education Week with a signal processing workshop on Tuesday, April 14th. Students participating learned how to build a frequency spectrum analyzer for audio input using Arduino and use it to control an actuator. For some students, it was their first introduction to working with Arduino. More workshops using micro-controllers have been planned for the future by the student branch.

Past week we celebrated the IEEE Education Week with a series of events organized for the WSU students. On April 13th, we invited Adam Pahls, senior engineer at Evergy, to speak to our students about the emerging trends in power systems. He shared the industry perspectives with the gathered audience, focusing on data centers and wildfire, while taking questions and answering the inquisitive minds.

On April 2nd, WSU students and working professionals came together for an evening of networking and relaxation at the Shocker Sports Grill & Lanes, organized by the IEEE Wichita Young Professionals and the WSU IEEE student branch. Attendees played bowling and billiards, while treating themselves to food and refreshments.

Ever wondered what happens behind voice activation, voice recognition and voice modulation? Find out the techniques that enable the revolutionary technology and implement them yourself. This hands-on workshop is open for all students and is funded by IEEE SPAx and IEEE Foundation

Join us next monday as we host Adam Pahls, senior manager at Evergy, for his talk about the current trends in the power industry including growth of datacenters and the vulnerabilities due to wildfires.

We have partnered with Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E) to provide you a valuable opportunity to see and understand power system operations up close. Transportation from and back to WSU will be provided, but seats are limited. To ensure your participation, please register before 14th of April

Registration link: https://edu.ieee.org/us-wichita/event/oge-site-visit-2026/

WSU keeps leaving its mark at the IEEE Region 5 student competitions for the third year running. 12 students participated at this year's event across 3MT, circuits, ethics and robotics compeititions. Anthony Lam and Viet Nguyen won the Ethics competition, repeating their feat from last year. Nirasha Bataduvaarachchi won the 3MT competition. Congratulations to all!

Congratulations to our faculty and chair of the 2025 GreenTech conference, Dr. John Watkins, for being honored with the Jim Leonard R5 outstanding member award!

Congratulations to our past chair and 2025 R5's circuits competition co-chair, Demy Alexander, who was honored with the outstanding young professional award for his services.