WICE Program

Dr. Baek-Young Choi is a Professor at the University of Missouri – Kansas City (UMKC). She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She published three books on network monitoring, storage systems, and cloud computing. She has been a faculty fellow of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Visiting Faculty Research Program (AFRL-VFRP), and Korea Telecom’s - Advance Institute of Technology (KT-AIT). She has been an associate editor for IEEE Internet-of-Things Journal, IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, Springer Journal of Telecommunication Systems, Elsevier Journal Computer Networks. Her research interests generally lie in the broad area of networking and communications, with specific emphasis on Internet-of-Things, cybersecurity, network management, and smart city technologies. She is a senior member of ACM and IEEE, and a chair of IEEE Women in Communications Engineering (WICE).

Dr. Periklis Chatzimisios serves as a Professor in the Department of Information and Electronic Engineering at the International Hellenic University (Greece). Moreover, he has been awarded the title of Researcher Professor by the University of New Mexico (USA). He is also a Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Science & Technology, Bournemouth University (UK). Dr. Chatzimisios is/has been involved in several standardization and IEEE activities serving as a Member of Education Services Board, Standards Program Development Board, Industry Outreach Board and Online Content Board under the IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc). He is currently the Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals Standing Committee, Chair of the Communications Chapter & Professional Activities for the IEEE Greece Section and an active member of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative. In the past he served as the Chair of Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure and the Vice Chair of Technical Committee on Big Data.

Dr. Newman Wilson serves as PM for COSMOS, a Rutgers University WINLAB led project to design, develop, and deploy at-scale Platform for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) in New York, NY, USA. This involves Rutgers, Columbia, and NYU researchers; partners including NY City, CCNY, University of Arizona, Silicon Harlem, IBM; along with support by U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), PAWR Project Office (PPO), and 30-member industry consortium.

He has over two decades of professional accomplishments, in industry and academia, that span research and development in communication systems and networks involving key wireless, data, and optical technologies. He co-authored papers published in refereed Journals (e.g., IEEE, IEE, Bell Laboratories) and Conferences. His current interests include 5G and beyond, IoT, among others.

He is a senior member of IEEE and has held leadership positions in IEEE region, section, and chapter. At the board level, he has served in IEEE Region 1 and Communications Society including the committees on Awards, Nominations, Membership Development, Student Activities, and Mentoring.

Angela Sara Cacciapuoti is a professor at the University of Naples Federico II (Italy), where she is co-leading the Quantum Internet Research Group.

Her research interests include mainly quantum communications and quantum networks. In particular, her research seeks to pave the ground for a better understanding of the challenges and technical leaps necessary to achieve the ultimate vision of a Quantum Internet.

Her work has appeared in first tier IEEE journals and she has received different awards and recognition, including the ''2022 IEEE ComSoc Best Tutorial Paper Award’’, the “2022 IEEE ComSoc WICE Outstanding Achievement Award" and ''2021 N2Women: Stars in Networking and Communications'’.

For the Quantum Internet topics, she is a IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer. Currently, Angela Sara serves as Area Editor for IEEE Communications Letters, as Editor at Large for IEEE Trans. on Communications and as Editor/Associate Editor for the journals: IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, IEEE Trans. on Wireless Communications, IEEE Trans. on Quantum Engineering, IEEE Network. She was the recipient of the 2017 Exemplary Editor Award of the IEEE Communications Letters.

From 2020 to 2021, Angela Sara was the Vice-Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Women in Communications Engineering (WICE). Previously, she has been appointed as Publicity Chair of WICE. From 2016 to 2019 she has been an appointed member of the IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals Standing Committee. From 2017 to 2020, she has been the Treasurer of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group of the IEEE Italy Section.

Nury Ramirez Cely currently works at FICO as a software Project Manager. She worked at Continental Automotive as Technical Project Leader, collaborated with Cisco Systems as Services Project Manager, and had 9 years of experience at Intel working for Intel Xeon-based projects, from being a hardware design engineer to an engineering Program Manager.

She is an IEEE Senior Member with a leadership role managing women’s technical outreach and professional awareness projects. In ComSoc, she was the Young Professional Coordinator for 2018 and 2019, Director for Latin America for 2020 and 2021, and the Women in Communications Engineering Coordinator for the first semester of 2022.

Dr Paulina Chan is a global citizen. She is Principal/CEO of GMC, an international think-tank on innovative tech-biz development. She has been Managing Director of AT&T/LucentTechologies, Exxon/Mobil Corporation, and ICO Global Communications. Paulina is a strong advocate for young professionals and women in STEM.
Paulina is: Chair, IEEE Public Visibility Committee; Appointed Representative for MGA on IEEE Diversity & Inclusion Committee; General Chair,TENCON’22; Immediate Past Chair, IEEE Hong Kong Section; ExCom member of WIE ILC (International Leadership Conferences); and Voting Member, Standards Association. She has been: Chair, WIEHK; Member, Humanitarian Activities Committee; ExCom at ComSoc (ICC, Globecom, InfoComm); and Speakers of more than 100 conferences/webinars worldwide.

Paulina received PhD, DIC in EEE at Imperial College, and MBA at University of London. Paulina is recipient of IEEE MGA Leadership Award 2021.

Toktam Mahmoodi [S’06, M’09, SM’16] is a Professor of Communication Engineering and Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research (CTR) in King’s College London. Previously, she was visiting research scientist at F5 Networks, research associate in Imperial College London, Mobile VCE researcher, and telecom R&D engineer. Toktam is and has been involved in number of European FP7 and H2020 projects on 5G mobile networks, vehicular communications, and Software-defined Networking. Her research focuses on the areas of mobile and cloud networking, and includes ultra-low latency networking, network virtualization, mobility management, network modelling and optimization. She has contributed to the ETSI, IETF and 3GPP standards, and has played an active role within 5GPPP in defining 5G vision for vertical industries. She has also served on number of editorial boards, and the roles include the executive editor of Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, series guest editor of JSAC series on network softwarization, area editor of IEEE Communications Standard Magazine on management & orchestration, and editor of IEEE communication letters. Toktam served as general chair of ICT 2021, and has been technical committee chair and member of various IEEE ComSoc conferences.

Filippo Malandra is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University at Buffalo and director of the Wireless Network for Smart Systems (WN4SS) Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnique Montreal in 2016, and a B.Eng. and a M.Eng. in Telecommunications Engineering from Politecnico di Milano in 2008 and 2011, respectively. His research interests include the performance analysis and design of mobile networks for smart cities, smart grid, and IoT applications, and the design of new solutions to provide broadband Internet access to underserved communities.

Mathini Sellathurai (Senior Member, IEEE) is currently a Professor of signal processing and wireless communications and Dean of Science and Engineering with Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. She has been active in signal processing research for the past 20 years and has a strong international track record in multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) signal processing with applications in radar, and wireless communications. She held visiting positions with Bell-Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, USA, and at The Canadian Communications Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. She has published over 200 peer reviewed papers in leading international journals and IEEE conferences, given invited talks and has written several book chapters as well as a research monograph as a lead author. Her present research includes full-duplex systems, passive radar topography, localisation, massive-MIMO, non-orthogonal multiple access, waveform designs, caching technologies, assisted care technologies, IoT, hearing-aids, optimal coded-modulation designs using auto-encoders, channel prediction, and mm-wave imaging and communications. She is a recipient of an IEEE Communication Society Fred W. Ellersick Best Paper Award in 2005, the Industry Canada Public Service Awards for contributions to Science and Technology in 2005, and Awards for contributions to Technology Transfers to Industry in 2004. She was the recipient of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Doctoral Award for her Ph.D. dissertation in 2002. She was an Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING from 2009 to 2014, and from 2015 to 2018, the General Co-Chair of IEEE SPAWC2016 in Edinburgh, and a member for IEEE SPCOM Technical Strategy Committee from 2014 to 2019.

Lajos Hanzo (FIEEE) received Honorary Doctorates from the Technical University of Budapest and Edinburgh University. Prof. Hanzo received his Master degree and Doctorate in 1976 and 1983, respectively from the Technical University (TU) of Budapest. He has served several terms as Governor of both IEEE ComSoc and of VTS. He has published 2000+ contributions at IEEE Xplore, 19 Wiley-IEEE Press books and has helped the fast-track career of 123 PhD students. Over 40 of them are Professors at various stages of their careers in academia and many of them are leading scientists in the wireless industry. He is a Foreign Member of the Hungarian Science-Academy, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), of the IET, of EURASIP and holds the IEEE Eric Sumner Technical Field Award.

Ricardo Veiga is an Associate Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA). He graduated from UBA as an electronics engineer (six-year degree program), and did postgraduate studies in Japan and at UADE University. He has also been working in industry for 25 years, participating in the start-up of several companies, in leadership positions in mobile communications companies and service providers. He is a member of ComSoc’s Board of Governors as Director of Member Services (2020-2023), increasing the number of members by 9.2% during 2020 and reaching 30,000 members in 2022. He launched programs like Virtual Distinguished Lecturers, Sister Chapters’ program, Internet for All competition, and several membership discounts. He was elected as Member-at-Large of ComSoc’s Board of Governors (2017–2019) and was previously appointed as Regional Director (2004–2005), increasing the number of Chapters by 17 percent and Student Branch Chapters by 38 percent. As Chair of the local ComSoc Chapter, he received the Chapter Achievement Award. He also received the ComSoc Latin America Region Distinguished Service Award, the IEEE RAB Achievement Award, IEEE Third Millennium Medal, IEEE Richard E. Merwin Scholarship, and Larry K. Wilson Regional Student Award, among others.

Octavia A. Dobre (FIEEE) is a Professor and a Canada Research Chair Tier 1 at Memorial University, Canada. She was a Visiting Professor with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA and Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, France.Her research interests encompass wireless communication and networking technologies, as well as optical and underwater communications. She has (co-)authored over 450 refereed papers in these areas. Dr. Dobre serves as the Director of Journals of the Communications Society. She was the inaugural Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society and the EiC of the IEEE Communications Letters. She also served as General Chair, Technical Program Co-Chair, Tutorial Co-Chair, and Technical Co-Chair of symposia at numerous conferences. Dr. Dobre was a Fulbright Scholar, Royal Society Scholar, and Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. She obtained Best Paper Awards at various conferences, including IEEE ICC, IEEE Globecom, IEEE WCNC, and IEEE PIMRC. Dr. Dobre is an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Walid Saad (FIEEE) received his Ph.D degree from the University of Oslo in 2010. He is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech where he leads the Network sciEnce, Wireless, and Security (NEWS) laboratory. He is also the Wireless Faculty Lead for Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus. His  research interests include wireless networks, machine learning, game theory, cybersecurity, unmanned aerial vehicles, semantic communications, and cyber-physical systems. Dr. Saad was the author/co-author of eleven conference best paper awards  and of the 2015 and 2022 IEEE ComSoc Fred W. Ellersick Prize. He is the winner of the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award 2023, and the co-authors of the papers that won the 2019, 2021, and 2023 IEEE ComSoc Young Author Best Paper Award. Dr. Saad is a Fellow of the IEEE. He is also the inaugural Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking.

Gunes Karabulut Kurt received the B.S. degree with high honors in electronics and electrical engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, in 2000 and the M.A.Sc. and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Ottawa, ON, Canada, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. From 2000 to 2005, she was a Research Assistant with the CASP Group, University of Ottawa. Between 2005 and 2006, she was with TenXc Wireless, Canada. From 2006 to 2008, Dr. Karabulut Kurt was with Edgewater Computer Systems Inc., Canada. From 2008 to 2010, she was with Turkcell Research and Development Applied Research and Technology, Istanbul. Between 2010 and 2021, she was with Istanbul Technical University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada. She is a Marie Curie Fellow and has received the Turkish Academy of Sciences Outstanding Young Scientist (TUBA-GEBIP) Award in 2019. In addition, she is an adjunct research professor at Carleton University. She is currently serving as an associate technical editor of the IEEE Communications Magazine, an associate editor of IEEE Communication Letters, an associate editor of IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, and an area editor of IEEE Transactions on Machine Learning in Communications and Networking. She is a member of the IEEE WCNC Steering Board. She is serving as the secretary of IEEE Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee and also the chair of the IEEE special interest group entitled “Satellite Mega-constellations: Communications and Networking”. She is a Distinguished Lecturer of Vehicular Technology Society Class of 2022. Her research interests include space information networks, satellite networking, wireless network coding, wireless security, space security, and wireless testbeds.

Sharief Oteafy is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing, DePaul University, USA, where he founded the Next Generation Networking (NexGeN) lab. His current research focuses on developing the Tactile Internet, caching in Information Centric Networks, and managing the proliferation of Big Sensed Data (BSD). He is the lead technical editor of the IEEE P1918.1 Tactile Internet (TI) Standard, and co-leads the team working on that standard. Dr. Oteafy co-authored a book on "Dynamic Wireless Sensor Networks", presented 50+ publications and delivered multiple IEEE tutorials on IoT, BSD and TI. He is the General Chair of IEEE LCN 2023, and co-chaired a number of IEEE conferences and symposia (LCN, Globecom, ICC, CSCN), in addition to a number IEEE and workshops in conjunction with IEEE ICC and IEEE LCN. He is currently an Associate Editor with IEEE Communications Magazine and on the editorial board of Wiley's Internet Technology Letters, and previously with IEEE Access.

K. Kaur currently works as an Assistant Professor at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), Montreal. Before this, she worked as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at ÉTS and a Visiting Researcher in at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her main research interests include Cloud Computing, Energy Efficiency, Smart Grid, Frequency Support, and Vehicle-to-Grid. Dr. Kaur has secured more than 60+ research articles in top-tier journals and international conferences. Dr. Kaur received the 2018 IEEE ICC best paper award, the 2019 Best Research Paper Award from Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, India, and the 2020 IEEE System Journal Best Paper Award.

Yessica Saez Barrios is an electronics and telecommunications engineer, graduated from the Technological University of Panama and a specialist in higher education from the University of the Isthmus of Panama. She holds an MEng and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
She currently works as a researcher professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Technological University of Panama, whe she serves as the Research Coordinator of the Azuero Region Branch. She is the coordinator of the Research Group on Telecommunications Engineering and Intelligent Systems Applied to Society (ITSIAS), where she collaborates in several research projects financed by different institutions.

She has several publications in national and international high impact scientific journals, has participated and presented scientific articles in various national and international congresses and also holds invention patents. She is a member of the National Research System (SNI) of Panama, director of outreach of the Panamanian Association for the Advancement of Science (APANAC), active member of the Movement Science in Panama. Dr. Sáez is the Chair of the Communications Society (COMSOC) of the IEEE – Panama Section and is a member of the board of directors of the Communications Society (COMSOC) of IEEE Latin America.

Prof. Stefano Bregni (M'93-SM'99) is with Politecnico di Milano, Italy. He graduated in Electronics Engineering (1990). After nine years in Industry, he joined Politecnico in 1999. He contributed to ETSI/ITU-T Standards. He is author of 100+ papers and of a recognized book on network synchronization (Wiley, 2002).

He is an active IEEE ComSoc volunteer. He has been a voting member of the IEEE Conferences Committee (2019-2020). In ComSoc, he holds or has held the following leadership positions: Director of Conference Operations (2022-23), Vice-President for Conferences (2020-21, 2018-2019), Vice-President for Member and Global Activities (2016-2017, 2014-2015), Board of Governors Member-at-Large (2013, 2010-12), Director of Education (2010-2011, 2008-2009), GITC member (2006–2009), Chair of the Transmission, Access and Optical Systems (TAOS) Technical Committee (2008–2009). He served as IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer for 7 years (2003–2009). He is Editor-in-Chief of Global Communications Newsletter (since 2007) and Associate Editor of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials.

He has led several top IEEE ComSoc conferences, including: Technical Program Co-Chair/Vice-Chair of GLOBECOM 2023, ICC 2016, GLOBECOM 2012 and GLOBECOM 2009, Vice General Chair of GLOBECOM 2022, Symposium Co-Chair in nine other ICC/GLOBECOMs, Chair of the LATINCOM Steering Committee. He is co-founder and Co-Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Student Competition. He received the 2014 ComSoc Hal Sobol Award for Exemplary Service to Meetings & Conferences and the 2019 IEEE ComSoc/KICS Exemplary Global Service Award.

Ana García Armada (Senior Member, IEEE) is currently a Professor with Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain. She has published approximately 200 refereed papers and holds four patents. Her research interest includes signal processing applied to wireless communications. She serves on the editorial board for IEEE Transactions on Communications and Open Journal of the IEEE Communications Society. She has served for TPC of more than 50 conferences. She has been part of many organizing committees. She has received several awards from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, including an Excellent Young Researcher Award and an Award for Best Practices in Teaching. She was awarded the Bell Labs Prize 2014 (third place) for shaping the future of information and communications technology. She received the Outstanding Service Award from the IEEE ComSoc Signal Processing for Communications and Computing Technical Committee (formerly SPCE).

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