ECSE Professor Emeritus, Dr. J. Keith Nelson, was honored with the 2022 IEEE Thomas W. Dakin Award from the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society (DEIS). He was presented with the award gave the Dakin Award Lecture in the 2023 IEEE Conference on Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena (CEIDP) held in East Rutherford, NJ, October 15-19, 2023. The title of his talk was "Nanodielectrics -- An Evolving Phenomenon." Recording of the lecture may be accessed at IEEE.tv.
The Thomas W. Dakin award was first given in 1978. It is named in honor of the late Thomas W. Dakin, one of the most distinguished scientists in our field. Tom Dakin was a lifelong employee of Westinghouse Electric and was a key figure in the development of new insulation systems for capacitors and rotating machines. He was also one of the first to recognize that thermal aging of electrical insulation followed the Arrhenius model for chemical reactions, and that voltage aging followed a power law model. Dr. Dakin was involved with the creation of many IEEE standards concerned with insulation aging and was very active in Cigre working groups. The Dakin Award winner receives a plaque and an honorarium of $5,000US. The Award is funded by a donation by the family of Thomas Dakin, as well as contributions from the IEEE DEIS.
Keith Nelson received his B.Sc.(Eng.) and Ph.D. degrees from the University of London, UK, and has held industrial and academic appointments on both sides of the Atlantic. He is a Professor Emeritus at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was previously Philip Sporn Chair and Chairman of Electric Power Engineering Department. Prior to his appointment at Rensselaer, he was manager of Electric Field Technology Programs at the General Electric R & D Center in Schenectady, NY. He has held numerous IEEE appointments, including that of Technical Director, 2011-12, and the Presidency of the Dielectrics & Electrical Insulation Society, 1995-6. Keith Nelson has been closely associated with CEIDP having been the conference Chair, 1988-90, and the Whitehead Memorial Lecturer in 1993. He is a chartered electrical engineer, a Fellow the IET and IEEE and the recipient of the IEEE Millennium Medal and numerous other awards. Keith is the author of over 250 papers, patents and other technical documents together with the first book published on Nanodielectrics (Springer, 2010).