Mary Ward-Callan

Until early 2024, Mary Ward-Callan was a Managing Director at the IEEE responsible for the strategic and operational leadership of the staff supporting IEEE Technical Communities within the IEEE. The 47 Technical Societies and Councils, and numerous emerging technical communities collectively deliver more than 1800 conferences, 183 periodicals, countless technical training seminars, and three certification programs. Mary has been responsible for the programming and visibility of new technology areas within the IEEE, such as Internet of Things, Software Defined Networks, Rebooting Computing, 5G, and Big Data. Mary led the Award-winning IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge; a project that used solid engineering techniques to provide solutions to pressing world problems such as lighting Haiti/Africa/Nicaragua, providing data communications to healthcare facilities in Peru, and providing RFID patient identification in India.

Before joining the IEEE, Mary was an Executive Director in the telecommunications industry, employed by Telcordia, Bellcore, and Bell Labs.  Mary’s career included significant contributions in local loop design, network simulation, network operations, and management, sub-network control, and product testing and product certification. Mary led the network operations activities for several technologies such as SONET, ATM, DLC, VPN, and SMDS. She has extensive experience in business management, process re-engineering, requirements management, quality, and project management.

Mary is a Certified Association Executive, holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Mathematics from Vassar College (with honors, Phi Beta Kappa), and a Master of Science degree (MSEE) in Electrical Engineering and Computing from Princeton University. Mary is a member of the Vaughn College Board of Trustees. She completed the Executive Development Program at Bellcore as as well as numerous other key management courses. Mary is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of ASAE.