Eta Kappa Nu

Eta Kappa Nu (ΗΚΝ) is the electrical and computer engineering honor society of the IEEE, founded in October 1904 by Maurice L. Carr at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The organization currently has around 200 student chapters and several thousand members and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. In 2008, hitherto-independent HKN became an organizational unit of the IEEE, making membership in the IEEE a requirement for membership in HKN. Membership in HKN thus became equivalent to an "honor student" member category of IEEE membership.

The Greek letters ΗΚΝ were chosen from the 1st, 4th, and last letter of the Greek word for amber or electron: ΗΛΕΚΤΡΟΝ. In 1927, the HKN Shield and coat-of-arms was adopted (see right). The emblem of HKN (incorporated at the top of the Shield) is the Wheatstone bridge.

HKN was originally established for electrical engineering students but expanded to include computer engineering in 2000. Membership in the local chapter is offered to the top 25% of juniors and 33% of seniors at each college.

Since 1992 Eta Kappa Nu has celebrated the exemplary engineer Vladimir Karapetoff by dispensing the Vladimir Karapetoff Outstanding Technical Achievement Award to worthy engineers.

In 2004, the organization received 501(c)(3) non-profit status from the IRS.

The Bridge, the official magazine of HKN, is published twice yearly and provides timely articles of interest covering ECE and HKN news to professional and student members.