In 2009, the Membership & Chapters (M&C) Committee of the IEEE IT Society was created. One of the M&C Committee's missions for the year 2009 is to re-establish and revamp the Society's Distinguished Lecturer Program.

Through this program, Society Chapters will have an opportunity to organize lectures given by the appointed DLs, and receive financial aid to offset the costs related to the DLs' travel. DLs will be appointed for a period of two years. The Committee envisions having a total of 10-12 active DLs, with 5-6 newly appointed DLs each year. DLs shall be appointed by the M&C Committee, following internal and external nominations.

All Society members are invited to submit DL nominations for the year 2009-2010 to the M&C Committee by the deadline of June 15th, 2009. Please submit your nomination statement by e-mail to Giuseppe Caire  ( [email protected] ). DL nominees should be an outstanding researcher in Information Theory and related areas, with a distinguished track record of research. Furthermore, they should be outstanding speakers, able to engage a broad public and raise interest in Information Theory and ``Information theoretic Thinking''. Finally, the ideal nominees should be personally available and motivated to deliver 2-3 distinguished lectures per year during their appointment.

The M&C Committee will serve as the liaison to the Chapters, matching Chapters invitations with traveling schedules of the appointed DLs. The Committee plans to use the Society website as the main tool to organize distinguished lectures, post the DL program schedule, and eventually post multi-media material of some distinguished lectures.