Raouf Boutaba head shot

Raouf Boutaba

Professor and Director, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Raouf Boutaba

Raouf Boutaba is a University Research Chair Professor and the Director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He previously served as Associate Dean Research (2016-2019) and as founding Associate Dean Innovation and Entrepreneurship (2019) of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Boutaba currently holds an INRIA International Chair in Network Softwarization (2017-2022), and has held several visiting professor positions in the past, including, at the University of Toronto, Canada, the Pohang University of Science and Technology POSTECH, South Korea, Sorbonne Université, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications Telecom ParisTech, the Université Henry Descartes Paris University, France, the Federal University of Rio do Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil, and the Université de Bordeux, France. Raouf received the Bachelors degree from the Badji Mokhtar Annaba University, Algeria (1988), a M.S. degree from the Université de Pierre et Marie Curie (now Sorbonne Université), France (1990), a Magister degree from Annaba University in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, Scotland (1993), and a Ph.D. degree from the Université de Pierre et Marie Curie Sorbonne University (1994), all in Computer Science.

Dr. Boutaba's primary research interests are in the areas of network and service management. His current research projects include, AI-driven 5G network slice management and orchestration, application of machine learning to cybersecurity, network virtualization, network function virtualization, software-defined networks, cloud computing, future Internet architecture, and blockchains. Dr. Boutaba has published more than 500 papers in world leading conferences and journals in these areas, received 15 Best Paper awards, and holds/filed 15 patents.

He has served as a distinguished speaker of the IEEE Communications Society (2005-2010) and the IEEE Computer Society (2002-2004), and has given numerous keynote and invited talks in conferences worldwide.