Event date: Thursday 19th May 2016
Presenter: Dr. Desmond McLernon from Leeds University
The IEEE Jordan Communication Chapter had a vibrant start in 2016. On Thursday 19th May
2016, the chapter organized a technical talk given by Dr. Desmond McLernon from Leeds
University titled “APPLICATIONS OF MOBILE ROBOTS AND DRONES IN FUTURE WIRELESS
COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS” at the German Jordan University on. The talked was originally
geared toward academics and professionals.
Surprisingly, many students flocked in to attend the talk. As organizers, we felt some unease
since the talk’s content was technically beyond the BSc level taught to our students. So we
expected the students to lose interest and miss the main objective of the talk, which is engaging
engineers in serving the community needs via researching new technologies. However, the talk
“engineered” such that all the audience (including us) left the auditorium appeased.
Firstly, the speaker credited the talk his students. The reaction of our students was memorable
when the speaker crossed his name from the introductory slide and put the name of his student.
Furthermore, the mathematical ideas in the talk were presented as logical and intuitive
concepts in lieu of rigid equations. Also, to aid in explaining some problems encountered in the
research presented, famous mathematical examples were used such as the marriage problem
from optimal stopping theory. The interest of the audience, academics and students alike, was
evident in the questions and answers session held after the talk.
In conclusion, we were thrilled by the way this talk was received and encourage our speakers to
engage BSc level students in research oriented events.