Presents the introductory editorial for this issue of the publication.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

Provides society information that may include news, reviews or technical notes that should be of interest to practitioners and researchers.

For the MTT-S, June is one of the most important months of the year because it is traditionally the month for the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) and other conferences associated with Microwave Week. IMS and Microwave Week are now back in full force after IMS2023’s attendance that was back to nearly prepandemic levels, with a full slate of in-person technical sessions, exhibits, tutorials, and networking. For 2024, the MTT-S will continue this annual conference tradition, and Washington, DC, the U.S. capital, will welcome the MTT-S’s IMS2024. This month’s issue is focused on IMS2024 and provides you with a preview of all the events of Microwave Week. Before I begin introducing the issue, I would like to thank the guest editor, Janine Love, for her dedication and effort in working with the entire IMS2024 Steering Committee to put together and coordinate informative articles for you to read about all of the events scheduled for Microwave Week. After starting with this column, we will next go to the “IMS2024 General Chair’s Greeting” article by the cochairs of IMS2024, Scott Barker and Sanjay Raman [A1] . As general cochairs, they have been working with a dedicated team both within the Washington, DC, area as well as around the globe to put together an exciting technical and social program for all attendees. The tagline for the conference, “Capitalizing across the Spectrum” is indicative of the broad reach of the technologies we all work with every day.

Looking back to the “From the Editor’s Desk” column in the August 2024 issue of IEEE Microwave Magazine [1] , I speculated that the 2024 International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2024) would be well attended, as well as technically (and socially) stimulating. Having just returned from IMS 2024, I am happy to say that IMS 2024 in Washington, DC, the capital of the United States, supported my speculation. I was also correct when I said that many of us would have to be in two (or more) places at once, since the conference was so rich in technical sessions, workshops, exhibits, and other activities. If you were not able to attend, try to attend an IMS in the future, as meeting and talking with members of our community provides food for thought and motivation to continue our work and branch out into new areas.

When the general public hears the term <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">wireless communications</i> , they might think of applications such as their wireless Internet connection, wireless earbuds, or perhaps the satellite radio receiver in their cars. Wireless technology is exceedingly reliable, and therefore, the general public takes it as a given that it works as soon as they need it and assumes that it will provide the needed service without giving it much thought. It is also a human trait that if something works well, they will inevitably ask “Can it work better (and cheaper and with a smaller footprint)?” Again, the general public assumes that these improvements will occur, given time and funding, and that applications such as high-definition video can be delivered to their mobile devices. Microwave and optical engineers know, though, that the robust and reliable technology required (and still requires) enormous time and effort to design, fabricate, and exhaustively test the systems to provide the functionality and reliability the general public expects. Wireless communication is a pervasive technology with a continued bright future as enhancements are built on previous technologies, with new applications yet to be envisioned. Because of this importance to society in general, the MTT-S has, among its 26 technical committees (TCs), a dedicated Wireless Communications Committee (TC-23).