December 2021 Beacon

Member Highlights (December 2021)

 Contact the editors if you have items of interest for the society  

Life on the small island

Tamaki Ura

Tamaki Ura (fellow of IEEE), Prof. Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, is retired from the university and lives in a small village on Fukue Island in the Goto Islands, a tiny island on the western edge of Japan. He lives a peaceful life, waking up to the sun rising behind an offshore floating wind turbine, working on the farm and taking photographs of the insects. This summer, while working as a senior AUV engineer, he enjoyed taking care of the swallowtail butterflies (Papilio machaon).  This morning, two swallowtails emerged from chrysalises, so he had a lot of work to do!

Fukue Island (red mark in the map)
Sunrise behind the offshore floating wind turbine
Swallowtail caterpillars
Metamorphosis
Beautiful design on the skirt

Scribes of Scripps Ranch

Robert Wernli

Robert Wernli, Co-editor of the Beacon, was recently recognized by his local community of Scripps Ranch. Their monthly newsletter, with a distribution of over 12,000 copies, periodically includes articles on “Scribes of Scripps Ranch,” which recognizes local authors. “When I was interviewed for the article, I never thought I would make the cover of the newsletter. I felt highly honored.”

The interview, and the subsequent article, discussed how he got into writing and his approach to complete and publish his books. He is widely published in both technical books and techno-thriller fiction novels. The article can be seen on his website: wernlibooks.com.