Newswise — In this annual special report on "Dream Jobs," IEEE Spectrum profiles 10 amazing engineers who meld their passions and personal interests into their careers.

* Sigrid Close, resident expert in ionospheric and near-Earth phenomena at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico--works with rocket scientists to study meteoric and other disturbances in the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere, with the goal of improving satellite communications.

* Bruno Putzeys, designer of amplifiers and other audio electronics for Hypex Electronics and Grimm Audio--one of the world's top designers of class-D audio amplifiers.

* David Downey, software engineering team leader in Garmin International's fitness products division--testing high-tech biking and running gear has him in a bike race, a running race, or a triathlon at least once a month.

* James Brown, test pilot on the F-22 Raptor for Lockheed Martin Corp.--logs hundreds of flight hours at 2600 kilometers per hour with an eye to modifying onboard computers, navigation systems, and weapons.

* Steven Camilleri, designs and builds highly efficient brushless dc motors--based at In Motion Technologies in Dandenong, Australia, he has reinvented the motor, figuring out the engineering from scratch.

* Roger Hill, develops devices that can be attached to fish, marine mammals, and birds in order to monitor their functions and locations--alternates between his office at Wildlife Computers and the Antarctic ice.

* Ney Robinson Salvi dos Reis, a robotics engineer at Petrobras in Brazil--heads the underwater-technology division's robotics laboratory and takes robots into the field, whether that's an Amazonian swamp or the Campos Basin near Rio de Janeiro.

* Ash Nehru, designs software for creating interactive 3-D lighting displays for United Visual Artists in London--the guy who makes the tools that make the art, whether it's a light show for a rave or a music video.

* Salinee Tavaranan, project director of the Border Green Energy team--on the Thai-Burma border, she installs solar panels and microhydro turbines and trains local residents in how to install and maintain the systems.

* Mark Schubin, television engineer and tech guru for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City--puts together televised broadcasts of the performing arts, reaching a larger audience in new ways.