In his application for the program, Campbell stated: "As a biomedical engineer, I feel it is my duty not only to conduct high-quality research, but also to act as an ambassador of sci-tech to the general public. I hope to improve the general impression of science and engineering by making the disciplines more relatable to the average person. I want to do more than just conduct elegant research in my specialty; I want to help the public understand my field and how it affects the public."   Follow Ian's posts

The IEEE-USA Engineering Mass Media Fellow has had impressive experience communicating with the public, especially elementary and high-school students, on science, engineering and technology. For example, he volunteered in a third-grade classroom in a public school in Atlanta, helping youngsters understand "that science class can be mean more than worksheets." Third graders joined Ian in dissecting owl pellets, building bird feeders and making cleaning products out of nontoxic chemicals "while learning about the food web, animal habitats and the water cycle."

In addition, as an academic assistant at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., he helped boost non-science majors' self-esteem by relating science and math curricula to the undergraduates' everyday lives.

In a letter of recommendation, a former chair of the St. Olaf Physics Department praised Campbell as the first author of a manuscript on Antarctic ice streams presented at a fall 2006 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, as well as an article on the same subject published in the JOURNAL OF GLACIOLOGY in 2008. Further, with the former physics department chair, Campbell was co-presenter at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Forum on Climate Change.

As one of Campbell's co-advisers at the Emory University School of Medicine wrote: "He is simply the smartest graduate student I have ever worked with, and one of the best writers." A second co-adviser cited Campbell's undergraduate work at St. Olaf as enhancing his writing ability. He graduated magna cum laude in 2007, having double majored in physics and math -- with a curriculum heavy in writing, philosophy, Latin and the classics.

In one of Campbell's writing samples for the Mass Media Fellows program application, he described "Home brewing beer: delicious home science," which "requires no technical background for success, but which can scale into a complex project integrating disciplines -- from cell biology, to chemistry, to heat transfer and construction."

Helping to select the organization's 2012 Fellow again this year were: former IEEE-USA Communications Committee Chair Abby Robinson, herself an IEEE-USA Mass Media Fellow in 2005; and former Communications Committee chair and long-time Media Fellows program supporter Allan C. Schell.