The IEEE Foundation this 12 months established the EPICS in IEEE Dr. Swarn S. Kalsi Community of Projects fund to assist initiatives “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 offers alternatives for college kids to interact in service studying and collaborate proactively with engineering professionals and group organizations to develop options that handle 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 loyal IEEE volunteer, passionate in regards to 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 instructor who cared deeply about throughout him and wished to share his information.”
To additional prolong his legacy, Kalsi’s household labored with the IEEE Foundation to ascertain the brand new memorial fund.
“Dad’s need was for every particular person to succeed in their full potential, and he usually mentioned that ‘engineers construct the long run,’” says Kalsi’s daughter, Kiran. “In that means, the EPICS in IEEE program appeared like a pure option to honor him whereas supporting the subsequent technology of engineers.”
An professional 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 together 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 reinforce the corporate’s growth 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 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 an attractive instance of how an IEEE member’s affect can prolong nicely 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 guide, he helped authorities and personal shoppers design massive superconducting mills and motors for wind turbines, ship propulsion, transformers, fault present limiters, and magnet programs.
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 software of high-temperature superconductor electric power tools.”
Preserving 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 initiatives. EPICS offers pupil groups with as much as US $10,000 in funding, together with sources and mentorship, for initiatives targeted on 4 key areas of group enchancment: schooling and outreach; the atmosphere; entry and skills; and human providers.
The Kalsi household made the only 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 Group of Initiatives 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 Educational Activities, is grateful as nicely, saying, “Due to the Kalsi household’s unbelievable 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 Research Institute in Decrease Hutt, New Zealand, helps the fund, for instance. He labored with Kalsi on a superconducting undertaking.
“Swarn was the staff’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 sort, 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. 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 an attractive instance of how an IEEE member’s affect can prolong nicely 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 residence.
“Via the worldwide, hands-on, academic alternatives this program provides 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 reward.”
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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