Keynote Speakers

Khaled B. Letaief, FIEEE and FHKIE
Member, US National Academy of Engineering
New Bright Professor of Engineering, HKUST

Naser El-Sheimy, PEng, CRC
President, Profound Positioning Inc (PPI)
Professor and Canada Research Chair, The University of Calgary
Fellow, Canadian Academy of Engineering
Fellow, the US Institute of Navigation (ION)

Mohamed-Slim Alouini, IEEE Fellow
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Soumaya Cherkaoui, IEEE Senior Member
Universite de Sherbrooke 
Sherbrooke, Canada

Biography​

Dr. Letaief is an internationally recognized leader in wireless communications and networks with research interest in big data analytics systems, mobile cloud and edge computing, tactile Internet, 5G systems and beyond.  He is a Member of the United States National Academy of Engineering, Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, and Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences. He is also recognized by Thomson Reuters as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher with over 38,400 citations and h-index of 87 and was listed among the 2020 top 30 of AI 2000 Internet of Things Most Influential Scholars.
He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the prestigious IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications.  He is the recipient of many distinguished awards and honors including the 2019 Distinguished Research Excellence Award by HKUST School of Engineering (Highest research award and only one recipient/3 years is honored for his/her contributions); 2019 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award; 2018 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award, 2016 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications, and 2010 Purdue University Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award.
Dr. Letaief is well recognized for his dedicated service to professional societies and in particular IEEE where he has served in many leadership positions.  These include IEEE Communications Society President, the world’s leading organization for communications professionals with headquarter in New York City and members in 162 countries.
Since 1993, he has been with HKUST where he has held many administrative positions, including Dean of Engineering, Head of the Electronic and Computer Engineering department, and founding Director of Huawei Innovation Laboratory. 
 
Dr. Letaief received the BS degree with distinction, MS and Ph.D. Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University at West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

Biography 

Dr. El-Sheimy ​is Professor and former Head of the Department of Geomatics Engineering, the University of Calgary. He holds a Tier-I Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Geomatics Multi-sensor Systems. His research expertise includes Geomatics multi-sensor systems, GPS/INS integration, and mobile mapping systems. He is the founder and president of Profound Positioning Inc.
 
Dr. El-Sheimy published two books, 6 book chapters and over 450 papers in academic journals, conference and workshop proceedings, in which he has received over 30 national and international paper awards. He supervised and graduated over 60 Masters and PhD students. He is the recipient of many national and international awards including the ASTech “Leadership in Alberta Technology” Award the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists, and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) Educational Excellence Award. He also received the Schulich School of Engineering Research Excellence Award, the Schulich School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, The UofC Student Union Teaching Excellence Award, and 4 times the departmental teaching award, 2 times departmental research excellence award, and the department of Geomatics Engineering Graduate Educator Award.    Dr. El-Sheimy was the president of Commission I on “Sensors and Platforms” of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) from 2008 – 2012. He organized and participated in organizing many national and international conferences and chaired many conferences such as the USA Institute of Navigation Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS).  Dr. El-Sheimy is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Survey Review, MDPI Sensors, Journal of Applied Geodesy, and Coordinates.

Biography

​Dr. Alouini was born in Tunis, Tunisia. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA, in 1998. He served as a faculty member in the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, then in the Texas A&M University at Qatar, Education City, Doha, Qatar before joining King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia as a Professor of Electrical Engineering in 2009.
Professor Alouini current research interests include design and performance analysis of diversity combining techniques, MIMO techniques, multi-hop/cooperative communications systems, optical wireless communication systems, cognitive radio systems, and multi-resolution, hierarchical and adaptive modulation schemes as well as high-speed underwater wireless communication systems.
He has published several papers on the above subjects and he is co-author of the textbook Digital Communication over Fading Channels published by Wiley Interscience. He has also won several awards in his career. For instance, he was honored in 2017 with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Science and Technology (S&T) Achievement Award in Engineering Science at the First OIC Summit on Science and Technology, Astana, Kazakhstan. Prior to this, he received the 2016 Recognition Award of the IEEE Communication Society Wireless Technical Committee and the 2016 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers in Engineering Sciences. Other recognitions include his selection as (i) Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the African Academy of Science (AAS), the European Academy of Science and Arts (EASA),  and the Academia Europaea (AE), (ii) IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Communication Society and IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, (iii) member for several times in the annual Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge list of Highly Cited Researchers as well as the Shanghai Ranking/Elsevier list of Most Cited Researchers, and (iv) a co-recipient of best paper awards in eleven IEEE conferences (including ICC, GLOBECOM, VTC, PIMRC, ISWCS, and DySPAN).

Biography

​Dr. Soumaya Cherkaoui is a Full Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Université de Sherbrooke, Canada, which she joined in 1999. Since 2005, she has been the Director of INTERLAB, a research Laboratory which conducts research funded both by government and industry. Before joining U. Sherbrooke, she worked for industry as a project leader on projects targeted at the Aerospace Industry. Pr. Cherkaoui has held invited positions at leading institutions including the University of California at Berkeley, Bell Laboratories, Monash University, and the University of Toronto, as well as an adjunct position at Lulea University, in Sweden. She served on several research-related organizations, including as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence Auto21, Canada in 2011, a member of the Expert Advisory Panel of Precarn, Canada in 2010 and a member of the Mitacs Research Council in 2017.
Pr. Cherkaoui avails of a long research experience in the wireless networking. Her current research interests include Multi-access edge computing, vehicular communications, machine-to-machine communications, and Internet-of-Things in next generation networks. Her work resulted in technology transfer to companies and to patented technology.  Pr. Cherkaoui has published over 200 research papers in reputed journals and conferences. She co-edited 7 books and collective works, has been an associate editor and guest editor of several IEEE, Wiley and Elsevier Journals. Her work was awarded with recognitions and best paper awards including a best paper award at the IEEE ICC conference in 2017. She has chaired prestigious conferences such as IEEE LCN 2019, and has served as a symposium co-chair for flagship conferences including IEEE ICC 2018, IEEE Globecom 2018, Globecom 2015, IEEE ICC 2014, and IEEE PIMRC 2011. She is a Professional Engineer in Canada, a senior IEEE Member, and has served as the Vice-Chair of the IEEE Communications Society AHSN Technical Committee since 2017.