The IEEE Basis this 12 months established the EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Initiatives fund to assist tasks “designed to encourage multidisciplinary groups of engineering college students to collaborate and engineer options to handle area people wants.”
The EPICS (Engineering Initiatives in Group Service) in IEEE initiative supplies alternatives for college students to interact in service studying and collaborate proactively with engineering professionals and neighborhood organizations to develop options that tackle native challenges.
The brand new fund was created by the household of IEEE Life Fellow Swarn S. Kalsi to honor his legacy as a pioneer of temperature-superconducting magnet know-how. Kalsi died on 2 March on the age of 85.
He was a faithful IEEE volunteer, passionate in regards to the significance of hands-on training and supporting up-and-coming engineers.
“Dad believed that training, particularly an engineering diploma, had the facility to vary lives,” Kalsi’s son, Sonny, says. “He was a lifelong trainer who cared deeply about throughout him and wished to share his information.”
To additional lengthen his legacy, Kalsi’s household labored with the IEEE Basis to determine the brand new memorial fund.
“Dad’s want was for every particular person to succeed in their full potential, and he usually mentioned that ‘engineers construct the longer term,’” says Kalsi’s daughter, Kiran. “In that means, the EPICS in IEEE program appeared like a pure strategy to honor him whereas supporting the following era of engineers.”
An skilled on superconducting magnet know-how
Kalsi grew up in Kanpur, India, and earned his bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1962 from the Indian Institute of Expertise in Kharagpur. He continued his training by incomes a grasp’s diploma in EE in 1963 from Benaras Hindu College, in Varanasi, India. He then moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a doctoral diploma in EE at Imperial School London. After incomes his Ph.D. in 1970, he moved to the United States together with his spouse, Kuldeep.
All through his 50-year profession, Kalsi labored at industry-leading firms together with AMSC (American Superconductor), Normal Electrical, and Northrop Grumman. His work targeted on designing and constructing superconducting magnets for motors and turbines, energy cables, and fault present limiters.
At AMSC, he labored to boost the corporate’s growth course of for energy gear utilizing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) know-how.
“One in all his main contributions was HTS rotating machines together with motors, turbines, and synchronous condensers,” says IEEE Life Fellow Alex J. Malozemoff, who labored with Kalsi at AMSC. “He contributed to the design of the industry-leading 36.5-megawatt ship propulsion motor for the U.S. Navy and the event and profitable check of an HTS dynamic synchronous condenser.
“The creation of the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Initiatives fund is a gorgeous instance of how an IEEE member’s affect can lengthen properly past their lifetime.” — Karen Galuchie
“I think about him one of the insightful and broadly skilled engineers within the HTS energy engineering subject.”
Kalsi was granted greater than 30 U.S. patents.
After retiring in 2007, he based Kalsi Inexperienced Energy Programs, a consulting firm in Princeton, N.J. As a advisor, he helped authorities and personal purchasers design massive superconducting turbines and motors for wind generators, ship propulsion, transformers, fault present limiters, and magnet methods.
Kalsi authored the e book Functions of Excessive Temperature Superconductors to Electrical Energy Gear, launched in 2011.
He was lively with the IEEE Princeton Central Jersey Part for a few years and was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2013 for “the event and software of high-temperature superconductor electrical energy gear.”
Protecting the legacy alive
Since IEEE Academic Actions launched EPICS in IEEE in 2009, greater than 12,000 college students from 39 nations have participated in service-learning tasks. EPICS supplies scholar groups with as much as US $10,000 in funding, together with assets and mentorship, for tasks targeted on 4 key areas of neighborhood enchancment: training and outreach; the atmosphere; entry and skills; and human companies.
The Kalsi household made the only largest pledge within the EPICS program’s historical past, in keeping with Karen Galuchie, the IEEE Basis’s government director.
The IEEE Basis “couldn’t be prouder or extra excited to determine the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Initiatives fund,” says Marko Delimar, 2025 president of the Basis. “It would acknowledge each Kalsi’s excellent and indelible contributions to our {industry} all through his famend profession, in addition to encourage and assist ongoing innovation by future generations.”
Jamie Moesch, managing director of IEEE Academic Actions, is grateful as properly, saying, “Due to the Kalsi household’s unbelievable generosity, we are able to present long-term assist for service-learning tasks for years to return, additional empowering the following era of engineers to advance know-how for humanity.”
Former Kalsi colleagues and mentees have contributed to the fund. James Storey, a senior scientist on the Robinson Analysis Institute in Decrease Hutt, New Zealand, helps the fund, for instance. He labored with Kalsi on a superconducting undertaking.
“Swarn was the workforce’s most dear collaborator, informing our superconducting motor analysis applications for greater than a decade,” Storey says. “I knew him as—in addition to being extremely educated—a really type, beneficiant, and hospitable individual. It was a real privilege to have the ability to be taught from him.”
Set up a memorial fund
The IEEE Basis companions with IEEE teams and the households of IEEE members to create memorial funds, which pay tribute to members of the family, buddies, colleagues, lecturers, professors, college students, and others. This kind of tribute honors somebody whereas supporting future generations of engineers and celebrating innovation.
“The creation of the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Initiatives fund is a gorgeous instance of how an IEEE member’s affect can lengthen properly past their lifetime,” Galuchie says. “On this case, Kalsi’s household memorialized and supported his deep connection to IEEE and to the worth of training by persevering with his legacy by his skilled dwelling.
“Via the worldwide, hands-on, academic alternatives this program gives to assist advance know-how for the good thing about humanity, EPICS in IEEE was an ideal match for Kalsi’s ardour, and we’re so grateful to the Kalsi household for his or her beneficiant and enduring present.”
For extra info on the fund or to donate to the initiative, go to its web page on the IEEE Basis web site. To be taught extra about memorial and tribute funds, go to this web page.
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