Summa Foundation Overview
AT&T Conference Center | University of Texas at Austin, USA 14th July – 19th July 2024
The SUMMA Foundation (https://ece-research.unm.edu/summa/) was founded in 1973 by the late Dr. Carl E. Baum and registered as a philanthropic organization to promote scientific and educational activities in the field of high-power electromagnetics (HPEM), also known as HPRF. The field of HPEM emerged from research on high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and evolved to study sources of ultrawideband (UWB) radiation (now referred to as hyperband or mesoband radiation) and narrowband high- power microwave (HPM) radiation (now referred to as hypoband radiation). Today this field includes sources of intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI), which is of concern to civilian infrastructure as well as to nations’ militaries. The SUMMA Foundation first sponsored the Nuclear EMP (NEM) conference in 1973 which then became a biennial conference in 1978. It turns out that the history of the SUMMA Foundation parallels the history of the HPRF community. Here is a listing of all previous conferences:
| YEAR | CONFERENCE/LOCATION | CHAIR |
|---|---|---|
| 1973 | NEM 1973, Albuquerque, NM, USA | John H. Darrah |
| 1978 | NEM 1978, Albuquerque, NM, USA | Carl E. Baum |
| 1980 | NEM 1980, Anaheim, CA, USA | Gene E. Morgan |
| 1982 | NEM 1982, Albuquerque, NM, USA [Held jointly with IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Symposium and National Radio Science Meeting (U.S. National Committee of the International Radio Science Union (USNC/URSI))] | Carl E. Baum |
| 1984 | NEM 1984, Baltimore, MD, USA | Louis F. Libello |
| 1986 | NEM 1986, Albuquerque, NM, USA | Robert L. Gardner |
| 1988 | NEM 1988, Menlo Park, CA, USA | Werner Graf |
| 1990 | NEM 1990, Albuquerque, NM, USA | Michael G. Harrison |
| 1992 | NEM 1992, Chicago, IL, USA [Held jointly with IEEE AP-S Symposium and National Radio Science Meeting] | Piergiorgio L.E. Uslenghi |
| 1994 | EUROEM 1994, Bordeaux, France | Dominique J. Serafin |
| 1996 | AMEREM 1996, Albuquerque, NM, USA | Shyam H. Gurbaxani |
| 1998 | EUROEM 1998, Tel Aviv, Israel | Joseph Shiloh |
| 2000 | EUROEM 2000, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK | Paul D. Smith and David M. Parkes |
| 2002 | AMEREM 2002, Annapolis, MD, USA | Terence J. Wieting |
| 2004 | EUROEM 2004, Magdeburg, Germany | Jürgen Nitsch |
| 2006 | AMEREM 2006, Albuquerque, NM, USA [Held jointly with IEEE AP-S Symposium and National Radio Science Meeting] | Donald McLemore |
| 2008 | EUROEM 2008, Lausanne, Switzerland | Farhad Rachidi |
| 2010 | AMEREM 2010, Ottawa, Canada | Lot Shafai |
| 2012 | EUROEM 2012, Toulouse, France | Jean-Philippe Parmantier |
| 2014 | AMEREM 2014, Albuquerque, NM, USA | Edl Schamiloglu |
| 2015 | ASIAEM 2015, Jeju, Korea | Yanzhao Xie |
| 2016 | EUROEM 2016, London, UK | Richard Hoad |
| 2017 | ASIAEM 2017, Bengaluru, India | David G. Giri |
| 2018 | AMEREM 2018, Santa Barbara, CA, USA | William Radasky |
| 2019 | ASIAEM 2019, Xi’an, China | Yanzhao Xie |
| 2022 | GLOBALEM 2022, Abu Dhabi, UAE | Chaouki Kasmi |
| 2024 | GLOBALEM 2024, Austin, TX, USA | Janet O’Neil |
Dr. Baum was an early advocate of what we know today as “open access.” The “Note Series” was started in 1964 by Dr. Ralph Partridge of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory with the first several of the Sensor and Simulation Notes. All the notes are available at this url: https://ece-research.unm.edu/summa/notes/NoteDef.html
The Note Series was started as a means of rapid communication between researchers in the EMP (Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse) community in the United States and Britain. As such it can be considered as some kind of informal journal of the EMP community. A Note may be very brief (a few pages) or quite lengthy (over 100 pages), giving a new idea, an analysis of an old problem, or whatever. The essence is informality and speed of communication. Dr. Baum took over the Editorship of the Note Series a couple of years after its inception. The current Editor is Dr. Everett Farr.
HPM has been receiving a lot of attention recently, primarily as a means to defend against the ubiquitous use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, in conflicts around the globe. Our Keynote Speaker at GLOBALEM 2024 is Dr. Gun-Sik Park from Seoul National University and the title of his address, “Advances in HPM Technologies,” reflects the increased interest in HPM.
I would like to thank Ms. Janet O’Neil for Chairing GlobalEM 2024 and Mr. Joel Kellogg for serving as Vice Chair. I would like to thank Dr. William Radasky for serving as Technical Program Chair of GlobalEM 2024 (and serving in this role for many of the conferences) and Dr. Nicolas Mora serving as Vice Chair. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow Board Members (https://ece-research.unm.edu/summa/boardofdir.htm) for supporting the activities of the SUMMA Foundation. In particular, I would like to thank Mr. Bill Prather, Treasurer of the SUMMA Foundation, for supporting the administrative needs of this conference.
Edl Schamiloglu
President