IEEE Future Networks World Forum
13–15 November 2023 // Baltimore, MD, USA
Imagining the Network of the Future

Women in Engineering (WiE)

IEEE WIE Summit at IEEE Future Networks World Forum 2023

Theme

Game Changers for Sustainable Future Networks: 
Collaborative Research, Open Innovation, & Open Source
 

Women in Engineering (WiE) ORGANIZERS

  • Pamela Kumar, Chief Strategic Advisor, IUDX
  • Celia Shahnaz, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh and 2023-24 Chair, IEEE Women in Engineering Committee
  • Laxmi Mukund, Principal Engineer, Cisco
  • Monisha Ghosh, University of Notre Dame, USA

Co-organized/Parterned by

IEEE WIE and Standing Committees of Women in ComSoc, APS, CAS, EPS, ITSS, MTTS, IEEE RS, SSCS, and VTS

Program Schedule


Session 1: Keynote and Panel Discussion "Role of Open Source for 6G"

Date and Time: 13 November 2023, 11:00 - 12:30 (Eastern Standard Time (EST))

Keynote Speaker

Abstract: Dr. Sanyogita Shamsunder, in conversation with Prof. Monisha Ghosh, will delve into her extensive two-decade journey in a captivating fireside chat. Her rich experience spans innovation across telecommunications, wireless, mobile, and semiconductor industries. This discussion will encompass her roles in driving technology and product development within hyperscalers, telcos, and startups. Exploring the realm of emerging cellular technologies and network architectures, they'll delve into successes and potential prospects.

Dr. Shamsunder's active engagement in industry conferences as a distinguished speaker, backed by numerous published papers and patents, showcases her profound expertise and insights. Join us for a compelling keynote session with Dr. Sanyogita Shamsunder to uncover her perspectives on industry strategies, network innovation, and transformative technology.

Panel Discussion

Panelists

  • Rose Qingyang Hu, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering, Utah State University

  • Tracy Van Brakle,  Member of Technical Staff within AT&T Labs Wireless Technologies

  • Pamela Kumar, Chief Strategic Advisor, IUDX

Moderators

As telecom and IT are getting integrated and focusing on Vertical Industry driven Use cases and solutions, there is a strong need for seamless interoperability and plug-and-play. Softwarization and the use of AI and Automation will make this possible. Open Source platforms are the most effective way to bring diverse developers together to address the complexity of these solutions. This panel will address the questions of :

  • Are there any success stories of using Open Source in 5G? 
  • What are the lessons learnt from the "unsuccessful stories"?
  • How important is Open Source for the success of 6G ?
  • What are solutions to the " Security/Privacy; Operational Complexity and Business Model Challenges" 
  • How can IEEE enable the Open Source community?

Session 2Pecha Kucha Talks and Keynote : Programmable and Sustainable networks of the future,  Privacy with Securty

Date and Time: 14 November 2023, 11:00 - 12:30 (Eastern Standard Time (EST))

Keynote Speaker

Title: Game Changers in Future Networks - Lessons for Career Futures

Abstract: Building a sustainable career future includes enabling and inspiring greater advancement and advocacy goals of Women in Engineering (WIE).  This talk connects the technical aspects of working towards future networks to advocacy for changing the game for WIE and other diverse technical communities.

Pecha Kucha Speakers

Moderator: Laxmi Mukund, Principal Engineer, Cisco

Title: Evolution of Network as a Programmable Platform 

Abstract: Networks are very complex and have evoled to provide a very wide range of features. Computer networks are no longer just pumbling for data, they offer many services ranging from quality of service, access control, network security, policy based routing, service insertion, queueing, policing just to name a few. And today these services can be controller through APIs. Very interesting Apps can be written using these APIs to exploit the features of the network and there is a huge community of open source developers contributing in this space. The talk is going to focus on the evolution of networks into a programmable platform.

  • Manisha Guduri, Post-doctoral fellow and Visiting scholar in University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Title: Privacy Preservation and Security in Smart Healthcare for Futuristic Design

Abstract: This talk introduces a blockchain-based light weight encryption strategy with federated learning to address the scalability and trust concerns of smart electronic health records (EHR). After implementing light weight encryption, the EHR data is stored in a decentralized cloud system.  The importance of protecting the privacy and security of distant patients'; health records is explored. Now that stakeholders have a secure portal and cloud data is inaccessible, assaults on electronic healthcare records should decrease. The study guarantees full encryption throughout the whole conversation with federated learning. Deprived of the essential for a trusted third party, the system sets up active smart contracts at runtime between the sensor and the data user to facilitate the transfer of EHR data. To ensure that the data is private between the owner and user during the contract's execution, it employs a very effective proxy re-encryption mechanism with federated learning. To examine the performance of the system, it has been built and deployed on an Ethereum-based testbed. It is observed that PSNR and MSE of the model are 39 (1.07×) and 229.6 (1.02×) respectively. The entropy of the image is assessed to be 7.8 for the developed model. This is also compared with existing algorithms and proved to be a secured model.

  • Veena Rawat, President and CEO of Expert Strategies International, LL

Title: Spectrum Needs for Sustainable 6G and Challenges

Abstract: While 5G will continue to be deployed beyond 2030, planning for 6G capabilities, vision, and spectrum needs has started. 6G will need new spectrum. This talk will address discussions to take place at ITU (UN organization for telecommunications) later this month at WRC-23 in Dubai.

Title: Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion: Engage to Invent Resilience for the
Sustainable Future

Abstract: Society addresses the many challenges of our world through technology and
innovation. We have become tragically aware of the widening digital divide
leading to poor outcomes for many people, locally and globally, especially during
emergencies such as the global pandemic, natural disasters, or turmoil. Women
can play a larger and active role to embrace a humanitarian framework, invent
the resilient and sustainable future, and provide for diversity, equity, accessibility,
and inclusion (DEAI). Without the humanitarian framework engaging DEAI, more
people will find themselves living outside the mainstream economy, with no hope
of achieving wellbeing, unable to help themselves or their loved ones.
Accessibility must be built in up front or a large segment of the population is
unable to participate. To bridge the digital divide, interoperable, effective
infrastructure can be realized through consortiums, standards, engaging
stakeholders, including individuals, families, members of communities locally and
globally to improve understanding how people live. Game changers involve
incorporating dignity, identity, language and culture, tackling important use cases,
engaging diversity in designers, developers, researchers, building in accessibility,
employing agile development, gathering feedback, testing outcomes, and
attending to intersectional needs of user groups. Resilience and sustainability will
require understanding more about how to make future services and access more
generalizable and personalized at the same time, making every item and location
smart, meeting the needs of a wider constituency for many more purposes,
anywhere, any time, and through all phases of life. With collaborative research,
open innovation, & open source even people who do not directly use technology
will still benefit from the successful advances.

Networking event 

Organizer: Celia Shahnaz, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh and 2023-24 Chair, IEEE Women in Engineering Committee

Speaker

  • Celia Shahnaz Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh and 2023-24 Chair, IEEE Women in Engineering Committee

Title: Designing Impactful Program for capacity building in Technical Activities promoting diversity and inclusion in Research and Innovation

Abstract: The objective of this session is to share ideas for more impactful programs to enhance the careers of WIE members from diversified IEEE regions. It will also focus on IEEE WIE's commitment in promoting and implementing the IEEE WIE pledge to different OUs. To nurture the potential of our volunteers and members, to ensure their retention and growth as well as enhance their experience and satisfaction, it is important to keep them engaged in impactful programs design and implementation.  Such priority program examples are innovative approaches for IEEE WIE Affinity Group development and retention, engagement of WIE in climate change assessments and sustainability solutions, more involvement with IEEE technical Societies, etc promoting research and innovation. It is expected from WIE members to demonstrate the ability to identify problems and provide solutions to be change makers. Any woman with well-documented accomplishments can achieve awards and lead WIE, regardless of their region or ethnicity. To promote creativity and boost problem-solving strategies, we need platforms for our female researchers and industry experts to exchange ideas beyond borders. IEEE WIE strongly encourages males to participate in WIE programs. The benefits of networking and the collaboration between members of diversified backgrounds can improve the percentage of women's participation in STEM fields thus creating a stronger impact on society's development. This will allow IEEE WIE to have volunteer driven programs with a target for capacity building of WIE members who are prepared for the IEEE WIE leadership and beyond in future.

Special Contributors

VP Standards Activities, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Chair, Standards Committee, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Steering Committee Member, IEEE Future Networks Technical Community General Co-Chair, IEEE Future Networks World Forum 2023

Associate Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Liaison to IEEE WIE from IEEE Reliability Society


Session 3: Keynote and Panel Discussion "Promoting Global Research Collaborations for Future Networks Technology"

Date and Time: 15 November 2023, 11:00 - 12:30 (Eastern Standard Time (EST))

Keynote Speaker 

Title: Democratising Technology using Open Source and Open Standards

Abstract:  Democratising Technology is "about broadening the set of people able to participate in technologies that impact our lives." An attempt will be made to make a case for why Democratising Technology is the only way to achieve the vision of UN SDGs and Atma Nirbhar Bharat. The trends in Standards Development and the emerging importance of Open Source will be presented. Some case studies will be presented to highlight the importance of embracing the new "OPEN paradigm," hence democratizing Technology.

Panel Discussion

Panelists

  • Neeli R. Prasad, Co-founder/CEO of SmartAvatar B.V., Delft, Netherlands

  • Srikanth Chandrasekaran, Country Head – IEEE India, Global Practice Lead, Foundational Technologies, IEEE Standards Association

  • Yuji Zhang, Chair of Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group, IEEE Baltimore Section 

Moderator

Monisha Ghosh, University of Notre Dame, USA

6G has been kicked off with several collaborative consortiums - Hexa-X, NGA, IMT 2030 PG, Bharat 6G Alliance, etc. Some of the questions addressed by this panel will be:

  • Can these provide the basis for global research collaborations? 
  • How can these be enabled? 
  • What makes global collaborations succeed or fail? 
  • What are the measures of success? 
  • What would be the approach for developing a Framework for Global Research collaborations for Future Networks?

 


 

Short Bio of ORganizer, Keynote Speakers, Pecha Kucha Speakers, and Panelists

Pamela Kumar, former Director General - Telecommunications Standards Development Society (TSDSI), is currently serving as Advisor, TSDSI. She is also the Bharti Chair Visiting Professor at UIET Panjab University. She joined TSDSI as Director General (DG) in early 2017. During her tenure, TSDSI made a mark in the global standards arena – with its contribution of the Low Mobility Large Cell (LMLC) requirement for 5G Rural broadband in ITU and later approval of its Radio Interface Technology (RIT) - 5Gi as an IMT2020 technology standard by the ITU and its subsequent merger with 3GPP 5G Standard. Other notable accomplishments are adoption of oneM2M as a national standard and formation of 5G High Level Forum. Pamela has worked at AT&T, Bell Labs, C-DOT, and held leadership positions in Texas Instruments, IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, R&D labs in India. She also did a short stint with 2 startups, setting up the R&D centres of Network Programs and Alliance Semiconductors. She holds 3 Patents granted by USPTO and has 5 patent applications pending in the Networking Accelerators domain. She has been a Keynote/ invited speaker in 90+ Local and Global forums. Pamela has held various honorary positions - Vice Chair of 3GPP PCG, member of the IEEE-SA Nominations & Appointments Committee, Member at large- IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors, Chair of the IEEE Charles Steinmetz Awards Committee, General Chair of IEEE ANTS Conference & COMSNETS Conference, Coordinator Industry Relations for IEEE Region 10, Chair for IEEE Computer Society Chapter, Vice Chair of IEEE Bangalore section, Founding Chair & President of CCICI etc.

Pamela earned her B.E in Electronics and Electrical Communication from Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh, Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University, USA and Executive MBA from IIM Bangalore. She is passionate about the role of technology in driving quality of life and socio-economic development.  She firmly believes that national and international collaborations between Industry, Academia and Government are key enablers for sustainable development.

 

Celia Shahnaz, SMIEEE, Fellow IEB, received Ph.D. degree from Concordia University, Canada and is currently a professor at, Department of EEE, BUET, Bangladesh since 2015. She was the winner of  Canadian Common Scholarship for pursuing her Ph.D study in Canada and recipient of Bangladesh Academy of Science Gold Medal for her contributions in science and technology. The World Academy of Science (TWAS) members have elected her  as a Fellow of TWAS for the advancement of science in developing countries, effective 1 January 2023. Recently, her nomination  has been approved and she has been inducted into IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu as a Professional Member into the Eta Chapter of the Board of Governors. She has been elected as 2022 IEEE WIE Committee Chair-Elect and she is serving as the 2023-2024 IEEE WIE Committee Chair.  She has been appointed as 2022-23 Member, IEEE New Initiative Committee, 2021-23 Member, IEEE History Committee, Liaison between IEEE History Committee and IEEE WIE. She has served as 2021-23 Chair, IEEE SPS Women in Signal Processing, 2021-23 Liaison between IEEE SPS and IEEE WIE, 2021-22 Member, IEEE Educational Activities Board Faculty Resource Committee, 2022 Member, IEEE WIE Strategic planning Committee, 2021 Chair, IEEE WIE History Subcommittee, 2020-21 Member, IEEE WIE Senior Member Elevation Drive and 2019-2022 Member, IEEE WIE WePower Subcommittee. She has served as an  Editorial board member, IET Signal Processing From 2018 to date. She is the immediate past Chair, IEEE Bangladesh Section, Co-founder & Chair, IEEE EMBS, IAS, RAS, SSIT Bangladesh Chapters, Co-founder  & Vice-Chair, IEEE SPS Bangladesh Chapter, Founder and Advisor, WIE  AG, and founder and Chair of SIGHT group FLASH,  IEEE Bangladesh Section. She is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE MGA Achievement Award, 2021 Inspiring Women in Academia Award from Bangladesh brand forum, 2019 R10 Humanitarian Activities Outstanding Volunteer Award, 2016 MGA Leadership Award 2015 WIE Inspiring Member Award, 2013 R10 WIE Professional Volunteer Award. She has more than 22 years of experience (22 years as an IEEE volunteer) in leading impactful Technical, Professional, Educational, Industrial, Women Empowerment, Humanitarian Technology, Power and Energy-related Projects at national/international levels.

 

Laxmi Mukund is a Principal Engineer at Cisco with a master's in computer science and networking and about 22 years of industry experience. She has worked on various routing, switching and security products across Enterprise, Service Provider and Data center. Her main contributions have been in the architecture, design and development of features in the areas of core routing and switching, prefix convergence, Netflow, access control, quality of service, secure policy access and LISP (Locator Identity Separation Protocol). She is currently working on security with privacy as an important component. Understanding customer key requirements and translating them into usable features, reviewing network topology designs and troubleshooting complex customer network topologies has been part of her journey through out. She has a Cisco pioneer award and patents in the area of networking. She was the co-founder of a startup that used autonomous drones to collect aerial images and processed these images for various applications like agriculture, city planning and windmill blade crack detection.

 

Monisha Ghosh is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the Notre Dame Wireless Institute. She is also the Policy Outreach Director for SpectrumX, the first NSF Center for Spectrum Innovation and the co-chair of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC) Working Group on Advanced Spectrum Sharing. Her research interests are in the development of next generation wireless systems: cellular, Wi-Fi and IoT, with an emphasis on spectrum sharing and coexistence and applications of machine learning to improve network performance. Prior to joining the University of Notre Dame in 2022, she was the Chief Technology Officer at the Federal Communications Commission, a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Research Professor at the University of Chicago and spent 24 years in industry research at Bell Labs, Philips Research and Interdigital working on a wide variety of wireless systems: HDTV, Wi-Fi, TV White Spaces and cellular. She obtained her B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur in 1986 and Ph.D. from USC in 1991. She is a Fellow of the IEEE.

 

Sanyogita Shamsunder is the head of Global Edge Networking at Google, where her team is responsible for various cloud networking products, solutions, and systems supporting Google's Global Network. Previously, she was the Vice President of Product Strategy and Operations at Verizon, where she was responsible for incubating enterprise and consumer products driven by emerging technologies. Previously, she led the industry leading 5G network and technology development. Sanyogita's work experience spans all areas of the wireless business, including silicon, network technology development, and spectrum strategy. Earlier in her career, she held various R&D and development roles at Lucent-Bell Labs, Sandbridge Technologies and Stanford Telecom. A sought-after speaker, Sanyogita has spoken at many industry conferences, including Mobile World Congress, Fierce Wireless events, CES, and various IEEE conferences and workshops. She also actively mentors and advocates for women in technology. She is on the Board of Industry Leaders of Consumer Technology Association, technical advisory board of Maxilinear, and the non-profit Manavi. Sanyogita received her MBA from the Wharton School and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and math from the University of Virginia.

 

Kathleen A. Kramer is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. She is a Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Aerospace & Electronics Systems Society (AESS), and an active member of MTT-S and SPS, among others. She has worked as a Member of Technical Staff at several companies including ViaSat, Hewlett Packard, and Bell Communications Research. Her technical interests are in multisensor data fusion and applications of neural and fuzzy systems to navigation and data security. She is also internationally known as a leader in accreditation and has been named a Fellow of ABET. She is the 2024 IEEE President Elect, and has a record of leadership across IEEE, emphasizing especially advancing Women in Engineering, Young Professionals, and Student Activities. She received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering magna cum laude with a second major in physics from Loyola Marymount University, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

 

Manisha Guduri (SMIEEE) is currently post-doctoral fellow and visiting scholar in University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA. She is the author or co-author of more than 50 research papers in reputed journals. Her research interests include Smart healthcare, VLSI/CAD design for classical CMOS, non-classical CMOS and non-CMOS (non-Silicon) technologies, power- and variability- aware design. She received 150 Lakhs (INR) of fund from different funding agencies in India. She published 5 patents from IPO, Chennai office out of which 3 are under FER. She is reviewer of IEEE TVLSI, Microelectronics Journal, IET digital circuits, Multimedia Tools and Applications Journal, International Journal of Nanotechnology, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, etc. She received best paper award in IEEE conference ICICT-2015. She is a senior member of IEEE, USA. She is also currently member of various IEEE Societies such as IEEE Young Professionals, IEEE Women in Engineering, Circuits and Systems, Sensor Council, etc. She is appointed as IEEE WiE CASS representative for 2023. She is also serving as IEEE
WiE technical subcommittee member. She is WiCAS chair in APCCAS 2023. She has delivered more than 35 invited talk/tutorial speech/expert talk in various platforms like International Conference /technical programs. She has organized 7 international conferences under different roles like convener, general chair, organizing secretary, etc. She organized events under IEEE Hyderabad section and conducted faculty development programs. She visited 3 Countries – USA, Thailand and Dubai. 

Veena Rawat is President and CEO of Expert Strategies International, LLC, a US-based consulting firm, advising national and international entities on telecommunication policies and regulations. She is consulting for GSMA as Senior Spectrum Advisor. In 2014 Dr. Rawat was awarded ‘Officer of the Order of Canada’ for her “contributions to telecommunications engineering and for leadership in establishing the global regulatory framework for radio spectrum management”. In 1973 Dr. Rawat received PhD in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University, Canada, and in 2019 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa, Canada. In 2021 she was made Fellow of WWRF (Wireless World Research Forum). Between 2011-14, Dr. Rawat worked as Vice President and Ambassador to ITU for BlackBerry. During 2004-11, she was President of Communications Research Centre of Canada. Before that, she spent 28 years within the Canadian Government where she held executive positions in managing radio frequency spectrum.  Dr. Rawat has  many trailblazer ‘firsts’ in her career include being first woman to receive PhD in Electrical Engineering from Queens University, Canada in 1973 and has a long list of national and international awards.

 

Athina P. Petropulu is Distinguished Professor at the Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) Department at Rutgers, having served as chair of the department during 2010-2016. Prior to joining Rutgers she was a Professor of ECE at Drexel University (1992-2010). She held Visiting Scholar appointments at SUPELEC, Universite’ Paris Sud, Princeton University and University of Southern California. Dr. Petropulu's research interests span the area of statistical signal processing, wireless communications, signal processing in networking, physical layer security, and radar signal processing. Her research has been funded by various government industry sponsors including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Naval research, the US Army, the National Institute of Health, the Whitaker Foundation, Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon.

Dr. Petropulu is Fellow of IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and recipient 2022-2023 President of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (of the 1995 Presidential Faculty Fellow Award given by NSF and the White House SPS).  She has served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2009-2011) and IEEE Signal Processing Society Vice President Conferences (2006-2008). She was the Technical Program Co-Chair of the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), General Co-Chair of the 2018 IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), and General Chair of the 2005 ICASSP. She was Distinguished Lecturer for the Signal Processing Society and the IEEE Aerospace; Electronics Systems Society. She is recipient of the 2012 IEEE Signal Processing Society Meritorious Service Award, and co-recipient of the 2005 IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award, the 2020 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award (B. Li), the 2021 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award (F. Liu), the 2021 Barry Carlton Best Paper Award by IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, the 2022 IEEE Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing Workshop Best Student paper Award (Y. Li), the 2023 IEEE Machine Learning in Signal Processing Workshop Best Student paper Award (S. Evmorfos), and the 2023 Stephen O. Rice Prize Best Paper Award by the IEEE Communications Society. 

 

Neeli R. Prasad, Co-founder/CEO of SmartAvatar B.V., Delft, Netherlands and co-founder/CTO, TrustedMobi “VehicleAvatar Inc.”, Mountain View, CA, USA, and IEEE VTS Board of Governor Elected Member & VP Membership. She is IEEE Senior Member. She is Digital Privacy, cybersecurity, 5G/6G and IoT strategist. She has throughout her career been driving business and technology innovation, from incubation to prototyping to validation and is currently an entrepreneur and consultant in Silicon Valley. She is an accomplished researcher, academic, and entrepreneur with a focus on developing innovative technologies and solutions to address the challenges in these domains. 

She is the advisory board member for the European Commission H2020 projects. She was also a vice chair and patronage chair of IEEE Communication Society Globecom/ICC Management & Strategy Committee and Chair of the Marketing, Strategy and IEEE Staff Liaison Group. She is Director of CGC, USA. She was Professor at Department of Business Development and Technology, Aarhus University and assistant head of department and Professor at ECE, ITU, USA. She has led global teams of researchers across multiple technical areas and projects in Japan, India, throughout Europe and USA. She has been involved in numerous R&D projects receiving both public and private funding. She also led multiple EU projects as project coordinator and PI. She has played key roles from concept to implementation to standardization. Her strong commitment to operational excellence, innovative approach to business and technological problems and aptitude for partnering cross-functionally across the industry have reshaped and elevated her role as project coordinator.

As an advocate for women in technology, Dr. Prasad actively promotes diversity and inclusion in the field. She encourages more female representation and empowerment in the traditionally male-dominated sectors of telecommunications and cybersecurity. She has 4 books on IoT and WiFi, many book chapters, peer-reviewed international journal papers and over 200 international conference papers.  

 

Rose Qingyang Hu is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering at Utah State University. Besides more than 15 years’ academia research experience, Prof. Rose Hu has more than a decade R&D experience with Nortel, Blackberry and Intel as technical manager, senior research scientist, and senior wireless system architect, working on industrial 3G and 4G technology development and 3GPP/IEEE standardization. Professor Rose Hu's current research interests encompass cutting-edge areas in the field of wireless communications, including next-generation wireless technologies, wireless network design and optimization, the Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, and the application of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in wireless networks. She has made significant contributions to her field, with a portfolio that includes the publication of over 6 books, 4 book chapters, 300 papers in leading IEEE journals and conferences, and 30 patents in her areas of research.  She is a Fellow of IEEE,  NIST Communication Technology Laboratory Innovator 2020,  IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer 2014-2018, IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Distinguished Lecturer 2020-2022. She currently serves as the Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine,  member of Board of Governors of IEEE Communications Society, and a Board of Director member of the American Society of Engineering Education Engineering Research Council.  

 

Srikanth Chandrasekaran is the Country Head of IEEE India, Global Practice Lead, Foundational Technologies, IEEE Standards Association. Sri has been associated with the IEEE since 2012 focusing on developing key standardisation programs in emerging areas focusing on building end-to-end trustworthy devices and systems with emphasis on cybersecurity, identity and privacy through his practice. Sri also heads the standardization efforts for the Asia Pacific region and leads Business Operations for IEEE’s office in India. Sri and his team in India also drive the IEEE Blended Learning Program (BLP) initiative, an eLearning platform, focused on bridging skills gap for students and lateral skilling of industry professionals. Prior to joining IEEE, Sri was associated with Freescale Semiconductor Inc. (formerly Motorola Inc.) for 17 years, managing a global Electronic Design Automation R&D team.

Sri received the Accellera Technical Excellence Award in 2009 for his leadership and contributions to design automation standardisation. Sri holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Madras University, India and Master’s degree in Electrical Communication from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

 

Yuji Zhang is Professor and Lead Bioinformatician at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She also serves as the Co-Chair of Informatics Working Group for the My Healthy Maryland Research Program. Dr. Zhang’s primary research interest focuses on developing translational biostatistics and informatics approaches to reveal novel human disease mechanisms. She has over 20 years of research experience in integrative analysis of multi-source high-dimensional biological data, leading to over 80 peer-reviewed publications in renowned international journals. She has extensive collaborative research experience in medical informatics, ontology, software  engineering, biomedical and basic science fields. Her research mission is to leverage the gap between the analytical needs arising from multi-source biological “big” data in biomedical research and advanced informatics approaches. She has Dr. Zhang has been serving as co-principal investigator/co-investigator leading the bioinformatics and statistical analyses in numerous federal funded research projects in various disease areas. Dr. Zhang has also been actively mentoring numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows over the years. She has also been chairing/organizing several international workshops in the informatics field since 2012. Dr. Zhang is a member of several professional societies, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB). She currently is the Chair of Women in Engineering Affinity Group in Baltimore Section of IEEE.

 

Katherine Grace August is a biomedical and communications engineer who received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at NJIT, her MS in Computer Science MIS at Marist College Poughkeepsie, NY, and BFA Communications Design at Parsons The New School for Design New York, NY. Kit was a Whitaker Scholar at ETH Zurich. A Research Guest at Stevens Institute of Technology, formerly Kit was a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Labs in Advanced Communications Technologies, active in human factors, accessibility, accommodation, rehabilitation, learning, language, hearing, speech technologies, virtual reality, search, signal processing, wireless, communication technologies, standards and patents 
Kit has three recent book chapters, and an IEEE IC Whitepaper. Google Citations:3472. 18 US Patents, 50 international Patents.
Kit is currently an IEEE Volunteer: IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board, Taenzer Grant Ad-Hoc Committee Chair; IEEE SA DIITA Transparent Design for Wellbeing and Accessibility in Technology Workstream Chair and a new Standards PAR P3386 Standard for Defining and Inferring User Accessibility Needs for Applications including Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Systems; also serving on Workgroup P2933 TIPPSS. Kit is IEEE New Jersey Coast PACE SIGHT Group Chair, IEEE Region 1 PACE Chair, IEEE New Jersey Coast Instrumentation & Measurements / Computer Joint Chapter Chair, IEEE New Jersey Coast Women in Engineering WIE Chair, and IEEE ComSoc History Committee Vice Chair.

Meng Lu, Strategic Innovation Manager at SWARCO PEEK, The Netherlands; Expert / Head of Delegation (The Netherlands), ISO/TC 204 - Intelligent transport systems; Executive Committee Member / VP Standards Activities, IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society; Steering Committee Member, IEEE Future Networks Technical Committee; Corresponding Member, IEEE TAB (Technical Activities Board) Committee on Standards; Senior Editor, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. In 2011-2015 Programme Manager at Dutch Institute of Advanced Logistics, The Netherlands; In 2009-2010 Visiting Professor at the National Laboratory for Automotive Safety and Energy, Tsinghua University, P.R. China. Since 2002 active in the areas of ICT for transport and logistics. Participation in European initiatives and R&D projects since 2005, as Coordinator, WP Leader and/or Partner. Education: PhD at LTH (Faculty of Engineering), Lund University, Sweden; Master's title and degree of Engineering in The Netherlands and P.R. China.

 

Tracy van Brakle is a Member of Technical Staff within AT&T Labs Wireless Technologies / Network Automation and Analytics group, and is also a co-chair and/or contributor within several open source projects and standards development organizations.  Her current area of interest is integrating Open RAN technologies with open platforms, e.g., LFN 5G SBP, ETSI NFV MANO, using model-driven interface specifications from O-RAN and 3GPP.  Before joining AT&T, Tracy was a Senior Technologist with Goldman Sachs.  She holds 17 active US patents in Wireless Technologies

 

 

Zhou received her B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Dalian Jiaotong University, China in 2003; M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Wright State University in Dayton, OH in 2007 and 2012, respectively. She joined University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in September 2018. From August 2012 to August 2018, she was with Western New England University in Springfield, MA, where she was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure granted in early of 2018. Her research interests and expertise include: FPGA based and Software Defined Radio (SDR) based intelligent RF systems, AI in dynamic spectrum access and management, hardware security, wireless communications, and data analytics. She has served as a Principle Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on several projects sponsored by DoD, Lockheed Martin, Xilinx, and Intel FPGA. She was the recipient of the 2010 Best Demo Award from IEEE Globecom, the flagship conference of IEEE Communication Society. Dr. Zhou served on the technical committees for several conferences such as SPIE – Defense and Commercial Sensing, Radar Sensor Technology in 2018 and 2019, IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems in 2017, and Workshop on Security, Reliability, and Resilience in Wireless Sensor Networks and Smart Grid in 2017, etc. She is an organizing committee member of IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems and EAI international Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications in 2020.

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Financial Co-Sponsors

Technical Co-Sponsors