Young Engineer & Scientist Initiative (i-YES) Education & Training Track
Room: Pershing Place North (Westin)
Wednesday, May 23 (14:00 – 15:45 and 16:15 – 18:00)
Organizers
- Periklis Chatzimisios (Alexander TEI of Thessaloniki, Greece & Bournemouth University, UK)
- Mike Devetsikiotis (The University of New Mexico, USA)
Motivation and Background
The Education Track organized by the IEEE Communication Society Education and Training Board (ESB) will feature a Hands-on Demo Session by National Instruments entitled "SDR Hands-On: FPGA Prototyping with Over-the-Air Signals", two Keynote Speeches and a Panel entitled "Exploring Excited Career Paths for Young Engineers & Scientists".
Organizers’ CVs
Periklis Chatzimisios serves as an Associate Professor and the Director of the Computing Systems, Security and Networks (CSSN) Research Lab in the Department of Informatics at the Alexander TEI of Thessaloniki (ATEITHE), Greece. Currently, he is a Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Science & Technology, at Bournemouth University, UK. In the past, he has been a Visiting Academic/Researcher at University Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC LIP6) (France), University of Toronto (Canada) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA). Dr. Chatzimisios is/has been involved in several standardization and IEEE activities serving as a Member of the Standards Development Board for the IEEE Communication Society (ComSoc), Member of the IEEE ComSoc Standards Program Development Board, Member of IEEE ComSoc Education & Training Board, Vice Chair of the Technical Committee on Big Data (TCBD) and Vice Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee in Information Infrastructure and Networking (TCIIN). Dr. Chatzimisios is the editor/author of 8 books and more than 130 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Dr. Chatzimisios received his Ph.D. from Bournemouth University, UK (2005) and his B.Sc. from ATEITHE, Greece (2000).
Mike Devetsikiotis is Professor and the Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of New Mexico, USA. He received the Dipl.-Ing. degree from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1988,and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from North Carolina (NC) State University, Raleigh, in 1990 and 1993, respectively, all in electrical engineering. In 1993, he joined the Broadband Networks Laboratory, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. He later became an Adjunct Research Professor with the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, Carleton University, in 1995, an Assistant Professor in 1996, and an Associate Professor in 1999. He joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NC State University, as an Associate Professor, in 2000, and became a Professor in 2006. He is currently a member of the Eta Kappa Nu Honor Society, the Sigma Xi Honor Society, and the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. He served as the Chairman of the IEEE Communications Society Technical Committee Communication Systems Integration and Modeling, and a member of the ComSoc Education Board.
Session 1: 14:00 - 15:45
Hands-on Demo Session: "SDR Hands-On: FPGA Prototyping with Over-the-Air Signals"
Software Defined Radios (SDR) solutions by National Instruments (NI) scale from design and prototyping, to deployment, enabling faster innovation and accelerated results. Attendees (mainly young researchers and members of ComSoc) of this hands-on Session will have the opportunity to see firsthand how the LabVIEW Communications System Design Suite, when paired with NI USRP-RIO hardware, can accelerate productivity and drive rapid innovation. During this Session, attendees will:
- Build an FM radio
- Create a real-time LTE link between two USRP-RIOs and transmit video on the downlink
- Demo and have detailed conversations around LTE and WiFi coexistence as an example of what can be developed with the IP
- Learn how leading researchers are leveraging NI SDR solutions to break world-records in spectral efficiency with Massive MIMO, prove out FD-MIMO as a candidate technology for 5G, and experiment on LTE/WiFi coexistence in real-world conditions
Instructor: Ben Coffin, National Instruments, Austin, USA
Instructor’s CV:
Ben Coffin is a Product Manager at National Instruments responsible for USRP Software Defined Radio Products. Ben graduated from Auburn University in 2015 with a Bachelor's Degree in Wireless Engineering. Ben has worked for National Instruments since 2015, working with Wireless Production Test, Automotive Radar, and Software Defined Radio-based Advanced Wireless Research. In his current role, Ben manages the USRP product line and the Massive MIMO Prototyping System product to enable customer applications in 5G Research, Wireless Networking, and Signal Intelligence.
Session 2: 16:15 – 18:00
Keynote Speech: "Education for Careers in Academia versus Industry - Similarities and Differences"
Keynote Speaker: Andreas F. Molisch, University of Southern California, USA
Abstract: This talk will present a perspective on what counts for careers in industry versus academia. Having bounced back and forth between universities and research labs for the past 25 years, I will describe my experience of the similarities and differences of the type of knowledge that is required in the different environments, and some strategies for obtaining and maintaining skills that are applicable in either.
Keynote Speaker's CV:
Andreas F. Molisch is the Solomon Golomb - Andrew and Erna Viterbi Chair Professor at the University of Southern California. He previously was at TU Vienna, AT&T (Bell) Labs, Lund University, and Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs. His research interest is wireless communications, with emphasis on wireless propagation channels, multi-antenna systems, ultrawideband signaling and localization, novel modulation methods, and caching for wireless content distribution. He is the author of four books, 18 book chapters, more than 200 journal papers, 300 conference papers, as well as 80 patents and 70 standards contributions. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, IEEE, AAAS, and IET, as well as Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and recipient of numerous awards.
Keynote Speech: "Theory that Matters! On the Implementation of Innovation for 5G Communication Systems"
Keynote Speaker: Frank H. P. Fitzek, TU Dresden
Abstract: 5G communication networks will be dominated by softwarization and virtualisation concepts such as SDN, NFV, and ICN. This breaks new ground for researchers to implement innovation in running systems with overwhelming standardization. This talk will present 5G technology development and introduce several examples for theory that matters.
Keynote Speaker's CV:
Frank H. P. Fitzek is a Professor and head of the “Deutsche Telekom Chair of Communication Networks” at TU Dresden coordinating the 5G Lab Germany. He received his diploma (Dipl.-Ing.) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Technology – Rheinisch-Westfalische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) – Aachen, Germany, in 1997 and his Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University Berlin, Germany in 2002 and became Adjunct Professor at the University of Ferrara, Italy in the same year. In 2003 he joined Aalborg University as Associate Professor and later became Professor. He co-founded several start-up companies starting with acticom GmbH in Berlin in 1999. He has visited various research institutes including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), VTT, and Arizona State University. In 2005 he won the YRP award for the work on MIMO MDC and received the Young Elite Researcher Award of Denmark. He was selected to receive the NOKIA Champion Award several times in a row from 2007 to 2011. In 2008 he was awarded the Nokia Achievement Award for his work on cooperative networks. In 2011 he received the SAPERE AUDE research grant from the Danish government and in 2012 he received the Vodafone Innovation prize. In 2015 he was awarded the honorary degree “Doctor Honoris Causa” from Budapest University of Technology and Economy (BUTE). His current research interests are in the areas of wireless and 5G communication networks, network coding, cloud computing, compressed sensing, cross layer as well as energy efficient protocol design and cooperative networking.
Panel: "Exploring Excited Career Paths for Young Engineers & Scientists"
Panelists:
- Giovanni Geraci, Research Scientist, Nokia Bell Labs, Ireland
- George Koutitas, Assistant Professor, Texas State University and CoFounder & CEO Gridmates, USA
- Sharief Oteafy, Assistant Professor, DePaul University, USA
- Meryem Simsek, Research Group Leader, TU Dresden, Germany and Principal Investigator, International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley
Abstract: This Panel will have speakers from industry and academia, all of them successful professionals less than 40 years old! The main purpose of the Panel is to inspire the participants (Young Engineers and Scientists) by interacting with professionals and involve them in various IEEE volunteer, educational and standardization activities. The panel discussion will mainly focus on the following topics:
- Industry Talks to Young Engineers & Scientists
- Entrepreneurship for Young Engineers & Scientists
- The Long Journey through PhD to Research and Academia
- The Exciting World of a Research Center
- Involvement of Young Researchers with Standardization Activities
Panelists’ CVs:
Giovanni Geraci was born in Sicily, at the heart of the Mediterranean. He is currently a Research Scientist at Nokia Bell Labs, Ireland, working on wireless communications, networking, and signal processing. On these topics, he has co-authored over 50 between publications in top-tier venues and pending patents, and delivered over a dozen international talks. Prior to joining Bell Labs, he was with the Singapore University of Technology and Design, and held research appointments at the University of Texas at Austin, USA, at Supelec, France, and at Alcatel-Lucent, Italy. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees respectively from Università di Palermo and from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. At the University of New South Wales, Australia, he earned the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and telecommunications. Giovanni is a very lucky individual, having had the privilege to work with brilliant mentors and colleagues, be welcomed in over 50 countries, and live across six continents, whether for studying, working, or volunteering.
George Koutitas is an academic and entrepreneur in Electrical and Computer engineering. He is an Assist. Professor at Texas State University and the Director of the XReality research lab where he integrates AR and IoT technologies. Dr. George Koutitas is also the CoFounder & CEO of Gridmates Inc. Gridmates is the world’s first cloud platform for Smart Energy Donations and Energy Gift Cards that helps electric utilities transform their bill assistance programs and billing services with digital innovation. Dr. George Koutitas holds a B.Sc. degree in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, an M.Sc. degree (with Distinction and prizes from 'Nokia') in Mobile and Satellite Communications from the University of Surrey, UK and a PhD in Electrical Engineering under EPSRC scholarship from the Centre for Communications Systems Research, UK. He has published more than 47 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and conferences, 2 books in Smart Grids and Smart Cities and he is the inventor of 2 patent pending technologies in the areas of AR and Energy. His research is cited in more than 800 scientific publications (src. Google Scholar).
Sharief Oteafy is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing, DePaul University, USA. He received his PhD in 2013 from Queen’s University, Canada, focusing on adaptive resource management in Next Generation Sensing Networks. His current research focuses on Information Centric Networks, dynamic architectures for interoperability in the Internet of Things, and managing the proliferation of Big Sensed Data (BSD). He is actively engaged in the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), and is a professional member in both IEEE and ACM. Dr. Oteafy is the ComSoc AHSN Standards Liaison, and on the ComSoc Tactile Internet standards Working Group. He co-authored a book on “Dynamic Wireless Sensor Networks”, published by Wiley, presented 50+ publications and delivered multiple IEEE tutorials in IoT and BSD. He co-chaired a number of IEEE workshops in conjunction with IEEE ICC and IEEE LCN, and served on the TPC of numerous IEEE and ACM symposia. He is currently an Associate Editor with IEEE Access, and on the editorial board of Wiley’s Internet Technology Letters.
Meryem Simsek received her Dipl.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany in 2008, holding a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation which is granted to the outstanding 0.5% of all students in Germany. She obtained her Ph.D. degree on "reinforcement learning based inter-cell interference coordination in heterogeneous LTE-Advanced networks" from the same university in 2013. In 2013, she was a post-doctoral visiting scientist at Florida International University. Since 2014, Dr. Simsek is a research group leader at the TU Dresden, Germany. In October 2016, she also joined the International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley as a principal investigator. She won the IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize in 2015. Since June 2015, she is chairing the IEEE ComSoc Tactile Internet TC and has initiated the IEEE P1918.1 working group. Her main research interests include fifth generation (5G) wireless systems, wireless network design and optimization, and the Tactile Internet and its applications.
