The IEEE Basis this 12 months established the EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Tasks fund to assist initiatives “designed to encourage multidisciplinary groups of engineering college students to collaborate and engineer options to handle local people wants.”
The EPICS (Engineering Tasks in Group Service) in IEEE initiative gives alternatives for college kids to have interaction in service studying and collaborate proactively with engineering professionals and neighborhood organizations to develop options that deal with 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 expertise. 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 ascertain the brand new memorial fund.
“Dad’s want was for every particular person to succeed in their full potential, and he typically stated that ‘engineers construct the longer term,’” says Kalsi’s daughter, Kiran. “In that method, the EPICS in IEEE program appeared like a pure technique to honor him whereas supporting the subsequent technology of engineers.”
An skilled on superconducting magnet expertise
Kalsi grew up in Kanpur, India, and earned his bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering in 1962 from the Indian Institute of Know-how 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 corporations together with AMSC (American Superconductor), Normal Electrical, and Northrop Grumman. His work centered on designing and constructing superconducting magnets for motors and mills, energy cables, and fault present limiters.
At AMSC, he labored to reinforce the corporate’s improvement course of for energy gear utilizing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) expertise.
“One in every of his main contributions was HTS rotating machines together with motors, mills, 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 Tasks fund is an exquisite instance of how an IEEE member’s impression can lengthen effectively past their lifetime.” — Karen Galuchie
“I think about him one of the crucial insightful and broadly skilled engineers within the HTS energy engineering discipline.”
Kalsi was granted greater than 30 U.S. patents.
After retiring in 2007, he based Kalsi Inexperienced Energy Methods, a consulting firm in Princeton, N.J. As a advisor, he helped authorities and personal purchasers design massive superconducting mills and motors for wind generators, ship propulsion, transformers, fault present limiters, and magnet programs.
Kalsi authored the e book Purposes 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 utility of high-temperature superconductor electrical energy gear.”
Retaining the legacy alive
Since IEEE Instructional Actions launched EPICS in IEEE in 2009, greater than 12,000 college students from 39 nations have participated in service-learning initiatives. EPICS gives scholar groups with as much as US $10,000 in funding, together with sources and mentorship, for initiatives centered on 4 key areas of neighborhood enchancment: training and outreach; the setting; entry and talents; and human providers.
The Kalsi household made the only largest pledge within the EPICS program’s historical past, based on Karen Galuchie, the IEEE Basis’s govt director.
The IEEE Basis “couldn’t be prouder or extra excited to ascertain the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Group of Tasks fund,” says Marko Delimar, 2025 president of the Basis. “It’s going to 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 Instructional Actions, is grateful as effectively, saying, “Due to the Kalsi household’s unimaginable generosity, we are able to present long-term assist for service-learning initiatives for years to return, additional empowering the subsequent technology of engineers to advance expertise 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 venture.
“Swarn was the group’s most respected collaborator, informing our superconducting motor analysis applications for greater than a decade,” Storey says. “I knew him as—moreover being extremely educated—a really sort, beneficiant, and hospitable particular person. 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 relations, pals, colleagues, lecturers, professors, college students, and others. Any such 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 Tasks fund is an exquisite instance of how an IEEE member’s impression can lengthen effectively 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 via his skilled residence.
“By the worldwide, hands-on, instructional alternatives this program gives to assist advance expertise for the advantage of 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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