The IEEE Foundation this 12 months established the EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Community of Projects fund to help tasks “designed to encourage multidisciplinary groups of engineering college students to collaborate and engineer options to deal with area people wants.”
The EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) in IEEE initiative gives alternatives for college students to have interaction in service studying and collaborate proactively with engineering professionals and group 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 concerning the significance of hands-on schooling and supporting up-and-coming engineers.
“Dad believed that schooling, particularly an engineering diploma, had the facility to alter lives,” Kalsi’s son, Sonny, says. “He was a lifelong trainer who cared deeply about throughout him and wished to share his data.”
To additional lengthen his legacy, Kalsi’s household labored with the IEEE Foundation 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 long run,’” says Kalsi’s daughter, Kiran. “In that means, the EPICS in IEEE program appeared like a pure technique to honor him whereas supporting the subsequent technology of engineers.”
An knowledgeable 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 Technology in Kharagpur. He continued his schooling by incomes a grasp’s diploma in EE in 1963 from Benaras Hindu University, in Varanasi, India. He then moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a doctoral diploma in EE at Imperial College London. After incomes his Ph.D. in 1970, he moved to the United States along with his spouse, Kuldeep.
All through his 50-year profession, Kalsi labored at industry-leading corporations together with AMSC (American Superconductor), General Electric, and Northrop Grumman. His work targeted on designing and constructing superconducting magnets for motors and mills, energy cables, and fault present limiters.
At AMSC, he labored to boost the corporate’s improvement course of for energy tools utilizing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) expertise.
“One in all 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 take a look at of an HTS dynamic synchronous condenser.
“The creation of the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Neighborhood of Tasks fund is a ravishing instance of how an IEEE member’s influence can lengthen effectively past their lifetime.” — Karen Galuchie
“I think about him one of the insightful and broadly skilled engineers within the HTS power engineering area.”
Kalsi was granted greater than 30 U.S. patents.
After retiring in 2007, he based Kalsi Inexperienced Power Systems, a consulting firm in Princeton, N.J. As a marketing consultant, he helped authorities and personal purchasers design giant superconducting mills and motors for wind turbines, ship propulsion, transformers, fault present limiters, and magnet methods.
Kalsi authored the e-book Applications of High Temperature Superconductors to Electric Power Equipment, launched in 2011.
He was energetic with the IEEE Princeton Central Jersey Section for a few years and was elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2013 for “the event and utility of high-temperature superconductor electric power tools.”
Conserving the legacy alive
Since IEEE Educational Activities launched EPICS in IEEE in 2009, greater than 12,000 college students from 39 international locations have participated in service-learning tasks. EPICS gives pupil groups with as much as US $10,000 in funding, together with assets and mentorship, for tasks targeted on 4 key areas of group enchancment: schooling and outreach; the surroundings; entry and talents; and human providers.
The Kalsi household made the one largest pledge within the EPICS program’s historical past, in accordance with Karen Galuchie, the IEEE Basis’s government director.
The IEEE Basis “couldn’t be prouder or extra excited to ascertain the brand new EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Neighborhood of Tasks 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 help ongoing innovation by future generations.”
Jamie Moesch, managing director of IEEE Educational Activities, is grateful as effectively, saying, “Because of the Kalsi household’s unimaginable generosity, we are able to present long-term help for service-learning tasks for years to come back, 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 Research Institute in Decrease Hutt, New Zealand, helps the fund, for instance. He labored with Kalsi on a superconducting venture.
“Swarn was the crew’s most dear collaborator, informing our superconducting motor analysis applications for greater than a decade,” Storey says. “I knew him as—moreover being extremely educated—a really form, beneficiant, and hospitable individual. It was a real privilege to have the ability to study from him.”
Set up a memorial fund
The IEEE Basis companions with IEEE groups and the households of IEEE members to create memorial funds, which pay tribute to members of the family, pals, colleagues, academics, professors, college students, and others. One of these 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 Neighborhood of Tasks fund is a ravishing instance of how an IEEE member’s influence 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 schooling by persevering with his legacy by way of his skilled house.
“By way of the worldwide, hands-on, instructional alternatives this program affords to assist advance expertise 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 data on the fund or to donate to the initiative, go to its page on the IEEE Foundation website. To study extra about memorial and tribute funds, go to this page.
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