From the editor-in-chief June 2013

Summary form only given, as follows. Aerospace technology encompasses a very diverse array of topics and thus the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems magazine must reflect this. As you can see from the wide variety of specialty areas for our Associate Editors, we embrace this philosophy heartily. This issue, in particular, demonstrates our emphasis on the broad nature of AES by incorporating papers associated with diverse topics such as biometrics, avionics, radar, space, and navigation. There is however one exception to this philosophy and that is our Special Issue series. SpeCial Issues focus on a very specific topic. They are very popular with our readers and we enjoy bringing them to you. However, in order to adhere to our charter of diversity, we limit the appearance of Special Issues to no more than two publications per year. Last year we published a Special Issue on Passive Coherent Radar and we will be bringing another to you in the very near future on Standards. Student highlights are feature articles that aid in our diverSity as well, not only from a technical standpoint, but from the perspective of diversity of viewpoint and experience. We have had some very interesting student highlights but unfortunately not enough to publish on a regular basis. With that, I would like to leave you with a request to reach out to any students you may know and encourage them to use the magazine as a forum to begin their foray into the realm of publishing.