Ali Abedi graduated from National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET) in 1992 with diploma in Mathematics and Physics. He has received his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, from University of Waterloo in 1996, 1998, and 2004, respectively, all with focus on Communication Systems. From 1998 to 2000 he was with the department of Electrical Engineering at the Air-Force University as lecturer and director of undergraduate research center. He worked as lecturer at the University of Waterloo and adjunct professor at Queen’s University in 2004 and 2005 teaching graduate and undergraduate courses, and conducting research funded by NSERC.

Dr. Abedi joined the University of Maine, Orono in 2005, where he is currently Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Cooperating Professor of Computing and Information Sciences. He is also serving as Associate Vice President for Research and Director of Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR) at UMaine. He was visiting Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD and Guest Researcher at NIST in 2012 and Faculty Fellow at NASA in 2016. Dr. Abedi is founding Director of WiSe-Net Lab where he directs research programs wireless communications and sensor networks for structural monitoring, space explorations and bio-medical applications. His research on wireless sensing of lunar habitats was featured on NSF Science360 in 2012. He is co-Founder of two startup companies (Activas-Diagnostics and Nawindor). Dr. Abedi has received a number of awards and recognitions from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Canadian Space Agency (CSA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He is a senior member of IEEE and has served on several IEEE Boards and Committees at local, regional, national, and international levels.  Dr. Abedi is Co-founder of IEEE International Conference on Wireless for Space and Extreme Environments (WiSEE) and currently serves as IEEE Region-1 Northeastern Area chair, Associate Editor for IEEE Journal of RFID, IEEE/KICS Journal of Communications and Networks (JCN), and previously served as Associate Editor for IET Wireless Sensor Systems (WSS) Journal.  Dr. Abedi serves as program evaluator (PEV) for ABET (Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) since 2016 and as Extra class accredited Volunteer Examiner (VE) for ARRL since 2012.

Ekram Hossain (F’15) is a Professor and the Associate Head (Graduate Studies) in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Manitoba, Canada. He is a Member (Class of 2016) of the College of the Royal Society of Canada. Also, he is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Dr. Hossain's current research interests include design, analysis, and optimization beyond 5G cellular wireless networks. He was elevated to an IEEE Fellow “for contributions to spectrum management and resource allocation in cognitive and cellular radio networks". He received the 2017 IEEE ComSoc TCGCC (Technical Committee on Green Communications & Computing) Distinguished Technical Achievement Recognition Award “for outstanding technical leadership and achievement in green wireless communications and networking”. Dr. Hossain has won several research awards including the “2017 IEEE Communications Society Best Survey Paper Award and the 2011 IEEE Communications Society Fred Ellersick Prize Paper Award. He was listed as a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher in Computer Science in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Currently he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Press and an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. Previously, he served as the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (2012-2016). He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. Also, he is an elected member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society for the term 2018-2020.

His research interest is in the area of network optimization theory, network topology control and graph theory, spectrum sharing, artificial intelligence, block chain technology, cloud/edge/fog computing, networks information theory and network sciences.

Yingying (Jennifer) Chen is a tenured Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University and the Associate Director of the Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB). She also leads the Data Analysis and Information Security Laboratory (DAISY). Her background is a combination of Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Physics. She has co-authored three books Securing Emerging Wireless Systems (Springer 2009) and Pervasive Wireless Environments: Detecting and Localizing User Spoofing (Springer 2014) and Sensing Vehicle Conditions for Detecting Driving Behaviors (Springer 2018), published 200+ journal articles and referred conference papers and obtained 8 patents. Her research has been licensed by multiple companies and reported in numerous media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review, CNN, Fox News Channel, IEEE Spectrum, Fortune, Inside Science, NPR, Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Voice of America TV.

Her research interests include:

Smart Healthcare, Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Computing and Sensing, Cyber Security and Privacy, and Connected Vehicles.

She is one of the pioneers to use machine learning techniques and data mining methods to classify and model the healthcare, security, system, network related problems since its infancy. Besides the algorithm development, her work has a strong emphasis on system implementation and validation in real-world scenarios. Her interdisciplinary research and education have been sponsored by multiple grants from various funding agencies:

She is serving and served on prestigious journal editorial boards including IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (IEEE/ACM ToN), IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (IEEE TMC), IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (IEEE TWireless), ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security, IEEE Network Magazine, EURASIP Journal on Information Security, and International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributes Systems (IJPEDS).
She is actively involving in conference organizations. She was the Technical Program Co-chair and General Co-chair of ACM MobiCom 2018 and 2016, respectively - a top-tier conference in mobile computing. She also served on many other conference organizations including the Technical Program Co-chair of ACM WiSec 2019, IEEE CNS 2016, and IEEE MASS 2013, and the General Co-chair of IEEE DySPAN 2019. She regularly serves on the technical program committees of ACM and IEEE conferences including ACM MobiCom, ACM MobiSys, ACM MobiHoc, ACM SenSys, IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE ICDCS, IEEE CNS, IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom, etc.

Previously, she was a tenured professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Stevens Institute of Technology. She received early promotion twice at Stevens: from Assistant to Associate Professor, and from Associate to Full Professor. She was also the Graduate Program Directors of Information and Data Engineering (IDE) and Networked Information Systems (NIS) in ECE Department at Stevens. She was a visiting professor at Princeton University. Prior to joining Stevens, she was with Alcatel - Lucent (now Nokia) at Holmdel & Murray Hill, New Jersey. Her work has involved a combination of research and development of new technologies and real systems, ranging from Network Management Systems for Lucent flagship optical and data products to voice/data integrated services.

Maziar Nekovee is a Professor of Telecoms and Mobile Technologies and Head of Centre for Advanced Communications, Mobile Technology and IoT at University of Sussex. Maziar sits (as the only UK academic) at the EU’s 5G Infrastructure Association, where he advises the EC on 5G and beyond-5G Strategic Research Agenda. He is also on the steering board of the EPSRC-funded ComNet2 consortium in mobile technologies and the US National Academy of Science (NSF) funded research coordination network on 5G communications and networks and is Vice Chair of NetWorld 2020 European Technology Platform in Telecommunication Networks and Services,  and a member of the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIIOT). Prior to joining University of Sussex, he was from 2013 to 2017 a Chief Engineer and Head of 5G research at Samsung R&D UK, where he established, led and greatly expanded Samsung’s European and UK research operations in 5G infrastructure, with a focus on advanced technology development and IP generation (10 personal 5G  standard patents and over 40 5G standard patents from his team), contributions to 5G industry  standards in 3GPP,  industry collaborations and consensus building, as well as working closely with Samsung’s Network Business  teams. While at Samsung he established and successfully led a large (19 partners) industry-led Horizon 2020 consortium (5G PPP mmMAGIC) which laid the technology  foundations for mobile communications  systems  being able to operate in  the extremely challenging millimetre-wave frequency bands (as  part of the 5G global standards for IMT 2020, as developed by 3GPP). From 2001 to 2013, he was with British Telecom (BT) Research and Technology, as a senior scientist and subsequently a team leader. At BT Maziar led and  carried out  research in fixed and wireless communication technologies and services , including IP multicast,  digital fountain,  publish-subscribe, WiFi, M2M, cognitive radio and spectrum sharing , mobile backhaul  complex network analytics, as well as advising BT's business and strategy units on wireless and wireline technology options and 4G spectrum auction strategy.  From 2006 to 2010 he also held a Royal Society (UK Academy of Science) Industry Fellowship at University College London (UCL) while at BT, where he developed in collaboration with UCL’s computational scientists novel platforms for massively parallel simulations of vehicular communication networks, with applications to self-driving cars and intelligent transport systems. Maziar has a PhD in Theoretical and Computational Physics (from University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and a MEng in electrical and electronic engineering (cum laude) (from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, with a highly successful one year research internship at Philips Research Laboratories). Maziar is the author of over 120 highly cited peer-reviewed papers, one best-selling book "Cognitive Radio Communications and Networks: Principle and Practice" and has 13 patents in telecommunication and mobile technologies. In 2018 he funded Quantrom Technologies LTD, a spin-off company specialising in strategic consultancy and  R&D in mobile , IoT and AI  technologies , with applications to digitalisation  in health, care, manufacturing and education sectors.

Dr. Kota is the Founder of SoHum Consulting and Adjunct Professor at University of Oulu, Finland. His major contributions over four decades span three segments of Satellite and Space sector, including system development, international standardization and teaching. He held technical and management positions at Harris, Loral Space, Lockheed Martin, SRI International, The MITRE Corp, Xerox Corp. and Computer Science Corp. His research interests include satellite and wireless communication network systems, digital video broadcasting, mobile communications, broadband internet and integrated wireless - satellite networks. His entrepreneur efforts included Broadband Multimedia Services (BMS) and Ka- band satellite – Astrolink. He provided leadership in international standardization of broadband satellite networks as head of the U.S. delegation and the U.S. chair of the ITU-R Working group developing recommendations for Fixed, Mobile and Broadcast (FSS, MSS and BSS) satellite systems. He also led the wireless ATM group of the ATM Forum.

Currently, Dr. Kota, as a Working Group Co-Chair leads 5G Satellite, an IEEE Future Network initiative. He has authored/co-authored over 200 papers in conference proceedings and journals, and five books. He served as a guest editor of special issues for IEEE Communications, Wireless Communications, Vehicular Technology, Int’l Journal of Satellite Communications and Networking, Space Communications, and Wireless Information Networks. He was involved as an executive member organizing MILCOM Conference for several years and served as Technical Program Chair. He was very active in organizing and Charing Symposiums/Workshops/Sessions of IEEE GLOBECOM, ICC, WCNC and PIMRC; and ICSSC of AIAA conferences. He received IEEE ComSoc Satellite and Space Communications Distinguished Service Award. He is a Fulbright Specialist of U.S. Department of State and received the Golden Quill Awards from Harris Corporation for Project Leadership and research publications. He received Spotlight award from the ATM Forum. Dr. Kota holds a Ph. D from University of Oulu, Finland. He is a

Life Senior Member of IEEE and an Associate Fellow of AIAA.

Scott Burleigh is a Principal Engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he has been developing flight mission software since 1986. A founding member of the Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) Research Group of the Internet Research Task Force, Mr. Burleigh was a co-author of the DTN Architecture definition (Internet RFC 4838). He also co-authored the specification for version 6 of the DTN Bundle Protocol (BP, Internet RFC 5050) supporting automated data forwarding through a network of intermittently connected nodes, and is now lead author for the specification for BP version 7. Mr. Burleigh leads the development and maintenance of implementations of BP and related protocols that are designed for integration into deep space mission flight software, with the long-term goal of enabling deployment of a delay-tolerant Solar System Internet. Mr. Burleigh has received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal and four NASA Space Act Board Awards for his work on the design and implementation of these communication protocols.

Professor Pavlov’s expertise is in multi-sector analysis that accounts for feedback and resistance to change often exhibited by real systems. His research examines the interests of stakeholders and takes a system-wide view that combines relevant technological, psychological, social, and economic factors. He has published on artificial stock markets, telecommunications, online file sharing, digital marketing, trends in medical education, and peace economics. Typically, he manages a portfolio of research projects and collaborates with teams of co-authors throughout the world. He also supervises research by teams of students. One of his recent research projects was on the viability of businesses with strong network externalities. Currently, he is leading a project to develop an analytical framework that explains the evolution of risk perception in populations.  In 2011, Professor Pavlov completed a rigorous two-year Executive MBA program at Cornell University. As part of that program, he recently completed a year-long team project on microfinance. His client was an advisory and finance firm from Dubai. The firm operates in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. After his team conducted market analysis, which involved interviewing finance professionals and traveling to Egypt to perform due diligence, they formulated a strategic plan for the firm and recommended a list of products and services that the company could offer to microfinance organizations.

Professor Pavlov has a keen interest in the economics of the education sector. He teaches class-based and online courses on money and banking, economics, system dynamics and telecommunications. Besides teaching and writing papers, he has presented his work at international conferences and organized threads at international research conferences. He reviews regularly for journals, foundations and publishers. On the administrative side, Pavlov has been a coordinator for an online graduate program in system dynamics and active in the university faculty governance. He’s a faculty advisor to the System Dynamics Club and a Fellow of the Coleman Foundation (program directed at WPI by Frank Hoy). As part of the Coleman Foundation fellowship, he has worked on incorporating elements of entrepreneurship into his teaching. He was also a faculty advisor for the INSIGHT program at WPI in the fall of 2010 and 2011 and contributed to the WPI success in student retention in the “INSIGHT 1st Year Experience” program.

He has been active in the graduate program by teaching online graduate courses, supervising graduate-directed research, and being a member of a Ph.D. committee. During his academic career, Pavlov has taken leadership roles in the International System Dynamics Society, which is the main professional organization in his academic field. He served as the secretary and was then elected president of the Economics Chapter.

Dr. Masoud Olfat completed his PhD post-doc studies in wireless communications at University of Maryland, College Park in 2003. He has more than 24 years of experience in managing multi-task teams in developing multimedia communication systems, signal processing, and mobile broadband wireless systems such as WiFi, WiMAX, LTE and 5G.

As the Vice President of Technology Development in Federated Wireless, Dr. Olfat has been a key individual in the research and product development of CBRS Spectrum Sharing framework, as well as 6 GHz WiFi-6E development. He has chaired several activities in multi-company standard activities. He has also been involved in the development of the 5^th Generation (5G) of mobile wireless technologies.

In his previous roles in Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, and Ligado (Lightsquared), he has managed numerous key projects essential for the deployment of 4G network. He was essential in the research and development of 4G technologies in global standardization communities such as WiFi, WiAMX and LTE. He also represented his companies in ITU-R (International Telecommunication Unit) activities.

He has published numerous papers, written book chapters, and has about 30 granted patents along with 25 more filed patents in United States and internationally, all in the field of wireless communications.

Randall A. Berry (Fellow, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000. He joined Northwestern University, where he is currently the John A. Dever Professor and the Chair of electrical and computer engineering. His research interests span topics in network economics, wireless communication, computer networking, and information theory. He was a recipient of the 2003 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. He has served on the program and organizing committees for numerous conferences, including serving as the Co-Chair for the 2012 IEEE Communication Theory Workshop and the 2010 IEEE ICC Wireless Networking Symposium and the TPC Co-Chair for the 2018 ACM MobiHoc Conference. He has also served as an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications from 2006 to 2009 and the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory from 2008 to 2012 and a Guest Editor for special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory in 2007, the IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing in 2008, and the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications in 2017.

Dr. Jerry Ellig is a research professor at The George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. His research focuses on regulatory impact analysis, regulation of network industries, and performance management in government.

In 2017-18, Dr. Ellig served as chief economist at the Federal Communications Commission. He was a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University since 1996. Between August 2001 and August 2003, he served as deputy director and acting director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission. Dr. Ellig has also served as a senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress (1995-96), an adjunct professor in the George Mason University School of Law (2005-08), and an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University (1989-95).

Dr. Ellig has published numerous articles on government regulation and management in both scholarly and popular periodicals, including the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Review of Industrial Organization, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Journal of Regulatory Economics, Regulation and Governance, Public Choice, Managerial and Decision Economics, Journal of Politics, Business & Politics, Risk Analysis, Antitrust Bulletin, Administrative Law Review, Federal Communications Law Journal, Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, Texas Review of Law & Politics, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Barron’s, and Washington Post. His co-authored/edited books include Government Performance and Results: An Evaluation of GPRA’s First Decade, Dynamic Competition and Public Policy, New Horizons in Natural Gas Deregulation, and Municipal Entrepreneurship and Energy Policy.

He is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio and a graduate of St. Xavier High School. He received his B.A. in economics from Xavier University in Cincinnati, OH, and his Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.

Jeff Prince is Professor and Chair of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He is also the Harold A. Poling Chair in Strategic Management and Co-Director of the Institute for Business Analytics at Kelley. He recently served as Chief Economist at the Federal Communications Commission. He is an accomplished empirical researcher in the broad categories of industrial organization and applied econometrics. His primary focus is on technology markets and telecommunications, having published works on dynamic demand for computers, Internet adoption and usage, the inception of online/offline product competition, and telecom bundling. His research also encompasses topics such as household-level risk aversion, airline quality competition, and regulation in healthcare and real estate markets. His works have appeared in top general interest journals in both economics and management, including the American Economic Review, the International Economic Review, Management Science, and the Academy of Management Journal. He has also published in top journals in industrial organization, including the Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, and the International Journal of Industrial Organization. He is currently a co-editor at the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, and is on the board of editors at Information Economics and Policy.

George C. Polyzos (Member, IEEE) received the Diploma degree in electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and the M.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of Toronto, Canada. He is currently a Professor and the Director of the M.Sc. in Computer Science Program, AUEB, where he also founded and currently leads the MMlab. His research interests include the Internet of Things, security, Internet architectures and protocols, information-centric networking, security and privacy, mobile and wireless networks, and systems performance evaluation.

Akhtar is currently consulting several Governments, Private Equity Companies and large Wireless Operators on next generation telecommunication technologies. He retired as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Motorola Asia Pacific and Middle East Region in 2019. He was responsible for sales, business operations, overall business strategy and market solution development of networks in Asia Pacific/Middle East. He also served as the Director of Middle East & Africa governmental relations.

Akhtar has been transforming organizations throughout his career with his academic knowledge and practical experiences. He has developed courses on global business transformation and has lectured at various universities throughout his career. He currently serves as visiting Professor of Management at Tokyo Technology University.

He was a member of the Executive Management Team at Nokia-Siemens Networks. As part of the Motorola Networks acquisition in April of 2011 byNokia-Siemens, he was instrumental in the integration of Motorola Networks into Nokia-Siemens and to ensure the value acquired is protected and expanded.

Akhtar has also served as the director of Cellular Engineering at Motorola, where he provided leadership to a large team of wireless system engineers and was responsible for the design and delivery of end-to-end wireless systems in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Russia.

Akhtar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UTA and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University in Chicago. He also obtained a PhD from Waseda University in Japan.

Dr. Paul Jaffe is an electronics engineer and researcher with over 25 years of experience at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). He has led or held major roles on dozens of space missions and on breakthrough technology development projects for civilian, defense, and intelligence community sponsors, including SSULI, STEREO, TacSat-1, TacSat-4, ORS, MIS, PRAM, CARINA, RSGS, PTROL, S2FOBs, and LEctenna. He was responsible for electrical system and spacecraft computer hardware development. He served as coordinator and editor of two solar power satellite study reports and was the principal investigator for a ground-breaking space solar research effort. His current roles include program management and systems engineering of a portfolio of projects. He serves as a lecturer for the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Maryland. He has over 50 journal, conference, and patent publications and is the recipient of numerous awards. Dr. Jaffe has made many international speaking and media appearances, including as a TEDx speaker, on MSNBC, and the Science Channel’s “Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.” He is also active in educational and STEM outreach.

Dr. Matt Trotter a Senior Research Engineer with the Information and Communications Laboratory (ICL) at Georgia Tech Research Institute(GTRI). He leads multiple projects involving software-defined radio, LTE behavioral modeling, IoT communications analysis, and electronic warfare gaming. He taught a senior-level class at Georgia Tech called “Software-Defined Radios” in Fall 2020. He leads multiple small teams of 2-4 engineers and co-op student researchers. From requirements derivation to testing, he has formally rapid-prototyped multi-million-dollar systems and devices. He has performed experimentation, modeling, and simulation of wireless communication systems in IoT and electronic warfare including reactive jammers. He has also modeled and simulated nonlinear microwave devices and radio wave propagation.

Prof. Kobus Van Der Merwe is the Jay Lepreau Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah and a director in the Flux Research Group. He came to Utah in August 2012 after more than fourteen years at AT&T Labs - Research in New Jersey. He received the AT&T Science and Technology Medal in 2010 for his work on Intelligent Route Control. In 2015 he received the USENIX Test of Time award for developing a logically centralized BGP routing controller, which was an important step towards the centralized routing controllers of Software-Defined Networks. He has broad interest in networking systems research including network management, control and operation, mobile networking, network evolution, network security and cloud computing.

Zeinolabedinzadeh’s research has been focused on developing new RF, millimeter-wave and Terahertz integrated circuits (DC - 300+ GHz), as well as, high-speed integrated electronics-photonics circuits for space applications. This includes high-speed IC design for radiation-intensive space environments, radiation hardening, as well as, design for robust operation over the temperature down to cryogenic temperatures.

Akhtar is currently consulting several Governments, Private Equity Companies and large Wireless Operators on next generation telecommunication technologies. He retired as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Motorola Asia Pacific and Middle East Region in 2019. He was responsible for sales, business operations, overall business strategy and market solution development of networks in Asia Pacific/Middle East. He also served as the Director of Middle East & Africa governmental relations.

Akhtar has been transforming organizations throughout his career with his academic knowledge and practical experiences. He has developed courses on global business transformation and has lectured at various universities throughout his career. He currently serves as visiting Professor of Management at Tokyo Technology University.

He was a member of the Executive Management Team at Nokia-Siemens Networks. As part of the Motorola Networks acquisition in April of 2011 byNokia-Siemens, he was instrumental in the integration of Motorola Networks into Nokia-Siemens and to ensure the value acquired is protected and expanded.

Akhtar has also served as the director of Cellular Engineering at Motorola, where he provided leadership to a large team of wireless system engineers and was responsible for the design and delivery of end-to-end wireless systems in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Russia.

Akhtar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UTA and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University in Chicago. He also obtained a PhD from Waseda University in Japan.

Professor of Mathematical Sciences, WPI
Incoming Executive Director, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

As dean, Dr. Suzanne Weekes has worked to increase the focus on the undergraduate research enterprise at WPI to continue to advance WPI’s mission to create, to discover, and to convey knowledge at the frontiers of academic inquiry for the betterment of society. This effort has been aimed at  i) supporting faculty and students in the undergraduate research enterprise, ii) increasing the impact, outcomes, and visibility of WPI student research, and iii) cultivating and developing new opportunities and partnerships, internally and externally that will enhance and broaden research at the university.

 Prof. Weekes' mathematical interests are in numerical methods for differential equations including applications to spatio-temporal composites and cancer growth. She also spends a lot of time involved in various initiatives connecting the academic mathematics community to mathematics and statistics work done in business, industry, and government.

She is co-founder and co-director of the national PIC Math (Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematical Sciences) Program, and co-director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Undergraduate Program whose goal is to increase the number of undergraduate math students from underrepresented groups who engage in research and go on to graduate school.

She is the recipient of a 2020 Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). She also received the 2019 Humphreys Award for Mentoring from Association of Women in Mathematics (AWM).

Dr. Weekes will move to the position of Executive Director of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in Jan 2021. In her new role, Weekes will continue to build SIAM’s reputation as the leading professional society for applied mathematicians and computational scientists. 

Dr. Ece Yaprak is a Professor and Chair of the Engineering Technology Division in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. She received her BS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan (Dearborn) in 1980 and MS and PhD degrees in computer engineering from Wayne State University in 1984 and 1989, respectively, while pursuing a professional career as a product engineer at General Electric (after her BS degree) and Ford Motor Company (after her MS degree).

Dr. Yaprak’s research interests are in computer networks and communications, especially in wireless communications and wireless sensor networks. Her research has been published in leading scholarly journals in engineering, including the IEEE Transactions on Communications, the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Education and the International Journal of Modeling and Simulation. Dr. Yaprak’s research has been funded by grants awarded her from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, NASA, the US Navy, and the business community. She has held 8 research fellowships at NASA research centers (John Glenn Laboratory at Case Western, Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech, Ames Research Center at Stanford, and the Johnson Space Center at Texas A&M Universities) and the U.S. Navy (at its SPAWAR Research Center in San Diego). She has also served as a Fulbright scholar at the Nokia Wireless Communications Research Center at the University of Oulu in Finland.

Dr. Yaprak has been involved with ABET Accreditation in various capacities since 2002: From 2002 to 2012 she served as Program Evaluator, evaluating Electrical Engineering Technology and Computer Engineering Technology programs, both in the US and internationally. From 2006 to 2012 she served on the IEEE Committee on Engineering Technology Accreditation Activities (CETAA) as Chair (April 2010 – April 2012), Vice-Chair (April 2008-April 2010) and Committee member (April 2006-April 2008 and April 2017 - present). Dr. Yaprak also served as an ABET IEEE/ETAC Commissioner (July 2012-July 2017). Dr. Yaprak served as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education, Feb 2015 to Feb 2017. In that role, she was responsible for planning and budgeting for science in engineering education; managing the awards process; marketing the program; working with other NSF programs, federal agencies and organizations; advising and assisting the division's director in long-range planning; and reviewing research, education and infrastructure proposals.

As Division Chair in WSU’s College of Engineering, Dr. Yaprak continues to teach, conduct research, and manage the development of the Division’s undergraduate and graduate programs.

Dr. Susan McKay joined the faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Maine (UMaine) in 1986 as an assistant professor. There she advanced to the rank of full professor, served as Department Chair for six years, conducted research in theoretical condensed matter physics, and taught many of the department’s graduate physics courses. In 2001, she led a small group of STEM and STEM Education faculty to establish the RiSE Center and the research-based Master of Science in Teaching (MST) Program at UMaine, focused on education research to improve teacher preparation. Since then, she has served as the center’s Director, building strength in STEM education research and advancing evidence-based teaching and learning in the STEM disciplines in Maine schools and at UMaine. She was the Principal Investigator of the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership and the Maine Elementary Sciences Partnership, which led to the formation of the Maine STEM Partnership at the RiSE Center, a statewide STEM education improvement community involving more than 50 Maine school districts and the Maine Department of Education as partners. She is currently the Principal Investigator of an NSF Teaching Fellowship Program, which recruits, prepares, and supports new science and mathematics teachers in Maine’s rural, high-need districts, tapping into the leadership and expertise of experienced Maine teachers. She is also the Principal Investigator of an NSF STEM+C award that has formed a research-practice partnership to integrate computer science into middle school science. Research done as part of this grant will provide knowledge about the supports for teachers that are needed to successfully accomplish this integration. Under Dr. McKay’s leadership, the RiSE Center has grown to include 19 UMaine faculty across multiple disciplines, 6 accomplished professional staff with expertise in STEM education, and more than 30 graduate students. Over the years, she has been awarded more than $20 million in federal and state competitive grants to support STEM education research to strengthen learning for students and provide professional learning experiences for current and future teachers. These accomplishments were recognized in 2019 with the University of Maine’s Presidential Public Service Achievement Award.

Dr. McKay received her Bachelor’s (Princeton University), her Master’s (University of Maine), and her Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in physics. She completed requirements for secondary teaching certification in mathematics and physical sciences through Princeton University’s Teacher Preparation Program and worked as an engineer before joining the faculty at UMaine. Her research interests in teaching and learning support the goal of providing a rigorous and exciting education in the STEM disciplines for all students, including those from groups currently under-represented.

Dr.  Kathy Chen joined The STEM Education Center at WPI after 15+ years as a professor in Materials Engineering at California Polytechnic (Cal Poly) State University, San Luis Obispo where she served as Department Chair and lead many K-12 and community STEM outreach activities. In her current role to support PreK-12 STEM educators and to transform STEM education, she works to broaden the participation of students in STEM (especially those from underrepresented and excluded groups) by advancing equity in education through holistic and innovative approaches. She also currently leads the Central MA STEM Network. Her current research interests revolve around how to support STEM educators in the many aspects and stages of an educator’s career (e.g., formation of identity as a teacher, developing inclusive and culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum in STEM, and engaging STEM education ecosystems with local communities). She is currently on NSF S-STEM and Noyce grants. Dr. Chen earned her B. Sc.degree in Chemistry and in Materials Science & Engineering from Michigan State University, and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT. She was also a post-doc at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Dr. Elliot Moore II received his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1998, 1999, and 2003, respectively. His thesis work pertained to the study and application of speech analysis techniques in the classification and recognition of stress and emotion. In particular, his dissertation presented an in-depth analysis of objectively measurable features of speech that were useable in creating patterns of separation between normal voices and those exhibiting the emotional disorder of clinical depression.

After working in a post-doctorate position for about a year, Dr. Moore joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in the fall of 2004 and was appointed as the School's associate chair for Undergraduate Affairs in August 2017. He continues his research in using digital speech processing theory and analysis in the classification of human vocal patterns for determining speaker demographics (i.e., dialect, language, etc.), speaker characteristics (i.e., gender, dimensions, etc.), and speaker state (i.e., emotion, stress, etc.).

 Dr. Crystal Bailey is the Head of Career Programs at the American Physical Society (APS) in College Park, MD.  Crystal works on several projects which are geared towards marketing physics and physics career information to high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and physics professionals.  Some of her principle projects include career events and workshops at APS annual and division meetings, the APS Job Board and Job Fairs, APS career webinars, and maintaining resources on the APS careers website. As the principle investigator for the APS PIPELINE project, she also devotes significant amounts of time to promoting innovation and entrepreneurship education in physics. 

Before coming to the APS, Dr. Bailey did research in nuclear physics at Indiana University, Bloomington in the area of few-body systems. In 2008 she received the Konopinski Award for Outstanding Graduate Teaching from the IU Physics Department.  She graduated with her PhD from IU in 2009.

Weisong Shi is a Charles H. Gershenson Distinguished Faculty Fellow and a Professor of Computer Science with Wayne State University, USA, where he directs the Mobile and Internet SysTems Laboratory (MIST) and Connected and Autonomous dRiving Laboratory (CAR), investigating performance, reliability, power- and energy-efficiency, trust and privacy issues of networked computer systems, and applications. He is one of the world leaders in the edge computing research community and published the first book on edge computing. His paper entitled “Edge Computing: Vision and Challenges” has been cited more than 2200 times.  In 2018, Dr. Shi led the development of IEEE Course on Edge Computing. In 2019, Dr. Shi served as the lead guest editor for the edge computing special issue on the prestigious Proceedings of the IEEE journal. He is the Founding Steering Committee Chair of the ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC) and the IEEE/ACM Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering (CHASE). He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. 

Jeongho Jeon (JJ) received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. He is currently engineering manager at the Standards and Mobility Innovation Lab, Samsung Research America, where he explores various 6G candidate technologies. Dr. Jeon is the author of more than 30 articles and more than 130 inventions including pending applications.

Fan Bai received the B.S. degree in automation engineering from Tsinghua University, China, in 1999, and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA, in 2005. He is a staff researcher in the Electrical & Control Systems Lab., Research & Development and Planning, General Motors Corporation. His current research is focused on the discovery of fundamental principles and the analysis and design of protocols/systems for next-generation vehicular networks. (Based on document published on 22 August 2018).

Kandan is the Director at AT&T Labs and he leads the innovations of 5G and Edge Computing. In addition, he serves as a Technical Steering Committee (TSC) Chair at Akraino Edge Stack and Technical Advisory Council (TAC) at Linux Foundation. Kandan served on the OpenStack board of directors from 2017 to 2019. Kandan has led several open source initiatives, and a big Open Source advocate. He has been vocal about the potential of 5G, Edge Computing and frequent speaker on the IEEE, OpenStack, Linux Foundation and other open source forums. He has more than 16 years of experience in Telecommunication industry.

Collin Castle has worked in the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Program Office for the past 12 years. He is currently serving as the MDOT ITS Program Manager responsible for the administration, support and oversight of the statewide ITS, Signals, connected and autonomous vehicle programs at MDOT. He is a graduate of Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Civil Engineering with a focus on Transportation and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Michigan.

Akhtar is currently consulting several Governments, Private Equity Companies and large Wireless Operators on next generation telecommunication technologies.

He retired as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Motorola Asia Pacific and Middle East Region in 2019. He was responsible for sales, business operations, overall business strategy and market solution development of networks in Asia Pacific/Middle East. He also served as the Director of Middle East & Africa governmental relations.

Akhtar has been transforming organizations throughout his career with his academic knowledge and practical experiences. He has developed courses on global business transformation and has lectured at various universities throughout his career. He currently serves as visiting Professor of Management at Tokyo Technology University.

He was a member of the Executive Management Team at Nokia-Siemens Networks. As part of the Motorola Networks acquisition in April of 2011 byNokia-Siemens, he was instrumental in the integration of Motorola Networks into Nokia-Siemens and to ensure the value acquired is protected and expanded.

Akhtar has also served as the director of Cellular Engineering at Motorola, where he provided leadership to a large team of wireless system engineers and was responsible for the design and delivery of end-to-end wireless systems in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Russia.

Akhtar holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from UTA and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University in Chicago. He also obtained a PhD from Waseda University in Japan.

Dr. Onur Altintas is the InfoTech Labs Fellow and a Senior Executive Engineer at InfoTech Labs, Toyota North America R&D, in Mountain View, California. He has been with the Toyota Group since 1999 in various roles in New Jersey, Tokyo and California. He has been the co-founder and general co-chair of the IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (IEEE
VNC) since 2009. He serves as an associate editor for IEEE ITS Magazine and IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles and IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine. He is an IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer.

Alenka Zajić joined the faculty of Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Fall 2012. She received B.S. (2001) and M.S. (2003) degrees from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade and a Ph.D. (2008) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech. From 2001 to 2003, she was a design engineer for Skyworks Solutions. In 2009, she was awarded the Naval Research Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellowship and spent one year at NRL in Washington D.C. From 2010 to 2012, she was a visiting assistant professor in School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech.

Professor Zajić received the Best Paper Award at ICT'08, the Best Student Paper Award at WCNC'07, and was the recipient of the Dan Noble Fellowship in 2004. She authored Mobile-to-Mobile Wireless Channels, the first book in the field of mobile-to-mobile wireless channel modeling. She serves regularly as a consultant to industry

Roya Doostnejad received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2005. She is a Research Scientist at Intel Labs, deriving physical layer and system algorithm designs for the next generation of wireless connectivity, including sub-7 GHz WiFi, 5G mmWave, and higher frequency bands of sub-Terahertz. Before joining Intel, she was a Wireless System Architect at Redline Communications Inc. where she was leading the physical layer design in WiMax as well as IEEE 802.16m and LTE standard. She was an Adjunct Professor with the University of Toronto in 2009-2011 and is the inventor of more than 40 patents. She is also an Intel liaison leading Terahertz University research. Her research interests include physical layer and system protocols of future wireless communication systems (e.g., 5G/6G) with emphasis on pioneering use cases, artificial intelligence, and Distributed MIMO.

Gerhard received his BS in Physics from the US Naval Academy in 1992 and his Ph D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 2003. After graduating from the Naval Academy, Gerhard served on active duty in the US Navy for 5 years. After graduate school, he worked as a Senior Process Engineer at Intel PTD in 2003 and 2004. For the past 16 years, he has served in many roles at Virginia Diodes, Inc. the world’s leading mmWave and THz test and measurement and components company. He is currently the Chief Operations Officer

Jeanne T. Quimby (M’99-SM'19) is a researcher in the Spectrum Sharing Group in the Communication Technology Laboratory (CTL) at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder. She received a B.S. degree from the University of California of San Diego in 1998 and her M. S.in 2001 and Ph.D. in 2005 from The Ohio State University.   She has authored and co-authored numerous papers for conferences, journals, and patents. She is a contributor to the NIST 5G mmWave Channel Modeling Alliance. Her current research interests are channel sounder measurements and uncertainties in multiple environments including manufacturing facilities, hardware system verification for 5G applications

Ingmar Kallfass received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Stuttgart in 2000, and the Dr.-Ing. degree from University of Ulm in 2005. In 2001, he worked as a visiting researcher at the National University of Ireland, Dublin. In 2002, he joined the department of Electron Devices and Circuits of University of Ulm as a teaching and research assistant. In 2005, he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid-State Physics. From 2009 to 2012, he was a professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Since 2013, he holds the chair for Robust Power Semiconductor Systems at the University of Stuttgart, where his major fields of research are compound semiconductor based circuits and systems for power and microwave electronics. In a range of national and international R&D projects, the team is pioneering high date rate, high range wireless communication at high millimeterwave and sub-millimeterwave frequencies.

Victor M. Lubecke received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 1990 and 1995, respectively, and his B.S.E.E. degree from the California Polytechnic Institute, Pomona, in 1986. He is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, HI, USA. From 1998 to 2003, Dr. Lubecke was with Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, where his research focused on remote sensing technologies for biomedical and industrial applications, and on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and 3-D wafer-scale integration technologies for wireless and optical communications. From 1987 through 1996, he was with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and from 1996 to 1998, he was with the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Sendai, Japan, where his research involved terahertz and MEMS technologies for space remote sensing and communications applications. He holds 7 U.S. patents with several pending, and has published hundreds of peer-reviewed research articles.

Prof. Lubecke is an IEEE Fellow, an emeritus Distinguished Microwave Lecturer (’06–’08) of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) Society, and served as Topic Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. He is also a member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology (EMB) and Electron Devices (EDS) societies, and serves on Technical Committees for Terahertz Technology and Applications and Biological Effects and Medical Applications. He has also served on Steering Committees for various IEEE and SPIE committees and symposia, including serving as Vice Chair of the 2017 IEEE International Microwave Symposium. He was the recipient of the 2000 Microwave Prize for best paper presented at the Asia–Pacific Microwave Conference and has had several of his students’ papers recognized with awards at IEEE conferences. He was co-recipient of the Emerging Technology Award at TechConnect 2007 and co-founded two technology start-up companies. His current research interests include remote sensing technologies, biomedical sensors, microwave/terahertz radio, and MEMS, heterogeneous integration.

Seyed A. (Reza) Zekavat received his PhD from Colorado State University in 2002. He is the Author of the textbook "Electrical Engineering: Concepts and Applications" published by Pearson, and the editor of the book “Handbook of Position Location: Theory, Practice and Advances,” published by Wiley/IEEE. He holds a patent on an active Wireless Remote Positioning System. Zekavat has also co-authored two books “Multi-Carrier Technologies for Wireless Communications,” published by Kluwer, and “High Dimensional Data Analysis,” published by VDM Verlag; and ten book chapters in the areas of adaptive antennas, localization, and spectrum sharing. Zekavat’s research interests are in wireless communications, positioning systems, software defined radio design, dynamic spectrum allocation methods, Radar theory, blind signal separation and MIMO and beam forming techniques, feature extraction, and neural networking. He is active on the technical program committees for several IEEE international conferences, serving as a committee chair or member. He served on the editorial board of many Journals including IET Communications, IET Wireless Sensor System, Springer Inernational Journal on Wireless Networks, and GSTF Journal on Mobile Comm.. He has been on the Executive Committee of multiple IEEE conferences.

Yuguang Fang (S’92, M’97, SM’99, F’08) received an MS degree from Qufu Normal University, China in 1987, a PhD degree from Case Western Reserve University in 1994, and a PhD degree from Boston University in 1997. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Florida in 2000 as an assistant professor, then was promoted to an associate professor in 2003 and a full professor in 2005, and has been a distinguished professor since 2019.  He holds a University of Florida Foundation Preeminence Term Professorship (2019-2022), a University of Florida Foundation Professorship (2017-2020, 2006-2009), and a University of Florida Term Professorship (2017-2021).

Dr. Fang received the US NSF Career Award in 2001, the US ONR Young Investigator Award in 2002, the 2018 IEEE Vehicular Technology Outstanding Service Award, the 2019 IEEE Communications Society AHSN Technical Achievement Award, the 2015 IEEE Communications Society CISTC Technical Recognition Award, the 2014 IEEE Communications Society WTC Recognition Award, the Best Paper Award from IEEE ICNP (2006), and a 2010-2011 UF Doctoral Dissertation Advisor/Mentoring Award. He was the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (2013-2017) and IEEE Wireless Communications (2009-2012) and serves/served on several editorial boards of premier journals. He also served as the Technical Program Co-Chair of IEEE INFOCOM’2014. He is a fellow of IEEE and AAAS.

Zhiguo Ding received his B.Eng in Electrical Engineering from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2000, and the Ph.D degree in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College London in 2005. From Jul. 2005 to Apr. 2018, he was working in Queen’s University Belfast, Imperial College, Newcastle University and Lancaster University. Since Apr. 2018, he has been with the University of Manchester as a Professor in Communications. From Sept. 2012 to Sept. 2020, he has also been an academic visitor in Princeton University.

 Dr Ding’ research interests are 5G networks, game theory, cooperative and energy harvesting networks and statistical signal processing. He has been serving as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Networks, and Journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, and served as an editor for IEEE Wireless Communication Letters and IEEE Communication Letters. He was the TPC Co-Chair for the 6th IET International Conference on Wireless, Mobile & Multimedia Networks (ICWMMN2015), Symposium Chair for International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications. (ICNC 2016), and the 25th Wireless and Optical Communication Conference (WOCC), and Co-Chair of WCNC-2013 Workshop on New Advances for Physical Layer Network Coding. He received the best paper award in IET Comm. Conf. on Wireless, Mobile and Computing, 2009 and the 2015 International Conference on Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP 2015), IEEE Communication Letter Exemplary Reviewer 2012, the EU Marie Curie Fellowship 2012-2014, IEEE TVT Top Editor 2017, 2018 IEEE Communication Society Heinrich Hertz Award, 2018 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Jack Neubauer Memorial Award, and 2018 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Signal Processing Letter Award. He is a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Deniz Gündüz received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from NYU Tandon School of Engineering (formerly Polytechnic University) in 2004 and 2007, respectively. After his PhD, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University, and as a consulting assistant professor at Stanford University. From Sep. 2009 until Sep. 2012 he served as a research associate at CTTC in Barcelona, Spain. ln Sep. 2012, he joined the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Imperial College London, UK, where he served as a Lecturer (2012-2016) and a Reader (2016-2020). Currently, he is a Professor in the same department, and serves as the deputy head of the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group. He leads the Information Processing and Communications Laboratory (IPC-Lab). He is also a part-time faculty member at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and has held visiting positions at University of Padova (2018-2020) and Princeton University (2009-2012). He has served in various editorial roles for the IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking. He is a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Information Theory Society (2020-21). He is the recipient of the IEEE Communications Society - Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Early Achievement Award in 2017, a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC) in 2016, IEEE Communications Society Best Young Researcher Award for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa Region in 2014, Best Paper Award at the 2019 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP) and  the 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), and the Best Student Paper Awards at the 2018 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC) and the 2007 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT). His research interests lie in the areas of communications and information theory, machine learning, and privacy

Shucheng Yu received an MS degree from Tsinghua University in 2004 and a PhD degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2010. He joined the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2010 and was promoted to associate professor in 2016. He served as the interim chair of the Computer Science Department and the director of the Computational Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock during 2016 - 2017. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in 2017, where he leads the Analytics and Information Security for Complex Systems Lab (AISecLab).

Dr. Yu's research interest is on information security and privacy, wireless systems and physical-layer security, and applied cryptography. He has served on the editorial board of several premier journals including IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications and IEEE Internet of Things Journal. He has been at the organizing committee for numerous international conferences such as IEEE Infocom and IEEE Globecom. He serves at the board of trustee for Wireless and Optical Communication Conference (WOCC) during 2018 - 2021. He received the Test of Time Paper Award of IEEE Infocom in 2020. He is a senior member of IEEE and a member of ACM.

Dr. Semiari (S’14–M’18) received his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran, in 2010 and 2012, respectively, and his PhD degree from Virginia Tech, in 2017. He is currently an Assistant Professor and the director of Mobile Systems, Intelligent Networks, and Data Science (MINDS) Lab at the ECE Department at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). He had previously held industry positions as a research intern at Qualcomm and Nokia Bell Labs.

Dr. Semiari’s research interests include wireless communications (6G and beyond), machine learning, cross-layer network optimization, and context-aware networks with an emphasis on new technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles, wireless extended reality, and industrial IoT. He is the recipient of several research awards, including the NSF CRII award. He is currently an associate editor for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, machine learning series. He has actively served as a reviewer for IEEE Transactions and has been a TPC member for many IEEE flagship conferences.