Within the IEEE, there are 39 Societies and eight Technical Councils representing the various technical areas (or a blend of technical areas) associated with electrical and electronics engineering. There are also affinity groups that have been “established by petition to the parent organizational unit, to fulfill the purposes of IEEE”. Within the MTT Society, there are two particularly active affinity groups, Women in Microwaves (WiM) and Young Professionals (YP). The first two issues of IEEE Microwave Magazine in 2025 featured focused issues that came out of a series of YP virtual workshops. This month, it is the WiM group’s turn at a focused issue on research by women in microwaves, outlining some of the research achievements by women in the MTT-S. This is the fourth year in a row that we have featured WiM research, and I would like to thank the organizer of this year’s focus issue, Kiki Ikossi, for communicating with the authors from initial discussions through to final acceptance of their peer-reviewed articles. Kiki has provided an excellent From the Guest Editor’s Desk column outlining the issue, and I encourage you to start there as you read the issue. In addition to the four technical features that make up the WiM focus issue (and a fifth WiM technical feature next month), we also have another technical feature, as well as an Applications Note. This fifth technical feature, “Microwave Technologies in Experiments for Detection of Dark Matter Axions,” by Navarro-Madrid et al. looks at how microwave technology is being used to perform fundamental physical measurements on a component that makes up more than a quarter of the universe: dark matter and its associated particles. We also have an Applications Note by Sinha, entitled “Design Guidelines and Applications for Dual-Band Rat-Race Couplers and Gysel Power Dividers with Unequal Amplitude Imbalances,” that provides designers of couplers and power dividers not only useful design equations, but also access to a software design tool.

Besides being an issue packed with technical content, we also have news from a variety of MTT-S committees and other global activities. In his President’s Message, MTT-S President Goutam Chattopadhyay talks about the MTT-S mission to support discovery, innovation, and education. Fred Schindler, in his MicroBusiness column, takes a look at something we have all observed in both our personal and professional lives: style versus substance. In a nice link with the Navarro-Madrid et al. technical feature (and the timing was purely serendipitous), Rajeev Bansal also talks about dark matter and the measurement of dark matter axions in his Microwave Surfing column. Our MTT Society News column has two reports this month, including one from MTT-S Technical Committee 12 (the Microwave High-Power Techniques Committee) and a report from Chinmoy Saha on MTT-S Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (MTT-S SIGHT) activities in India. In keeping with our WiM theme for the month’s issue, Anthony Ghiotto reports on events at the French Microwave Days that highlighted the contributions of women in the microwave field. Within the MTT-S, there are numerous chapters throughout the world that organize and offer various technical and networking opportunities for local engineers. To recognize the most active chapters, the MTT-S created the MTT-S Outstanding Chapter Award.

In this month’s MGA News, the winners of the 2024 Outstanding Chapter Chair Award are announced. The winning chapter will be presented with a plaque signifying this accomplishment at a future MTT-S event. In our second installment of our Microwave Spectrum Policy column, Michael Marcus and Laura Stefani outline the importance of national and international cooperation in determining frequency allocations, as well as the general processes involved. In this month’s issue, we also have our periodic New Products column organized by Ken Mays, a Women in Microwaves column, and a new challenge by Takashi Ohira in our Enigmas, etc. column

Finally, we would like to mention the passing of a well-known and respected MTT-S member, Anand Gopinath. I knew Anand personally, as we had overlapping research interests; I found him to be an excellent engineer, as well as an outstanding individual. Besides our overlapping research interests, we also had an overlapping interest in playing stringed musical instruments. You can read about Anand’s life and career accomplishments in this month’s In Memoriam column

Robert Caverly, EIC, IEEE Microwave Magazine