Communications and information systems

Otman Basir is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He is the also the Associate Director of the Waterloo Institute for Health Informatics Research, Director of Urban Informatics Corporation and Associate Director for the Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence Laboratory. 
 
His research interests include: Intelligent Embedded Systems, Sensory Systems Design, Biologically Inspired Intelligent Systems and Human Computer Interface (HCI) Systems. Professor Basir has authored and co-authored over 400 scientific publications, and holds a total of 121 issued and pending patents. 
 
Additionally, Dr. Basir is the founder, president and CEO of Intelligent Mechatronic Systems and co-founder of Voice-Enabled Systems and Technology. Intelligent Mechatronic Systems Inc. (IMS) is a leader in telematics and infotainment technologies, including the convergence of both technologies to deliver the ideal connected car experience. The company’s innovations are pioneering the connected car category while making drivers smarter, safer and greener. 
 
Dr. Basir has received multiple awards. He was the recipient of the Ontario Premier Research Excellence Award (PREA), the Canada Foundation Innovation Award, the Academic Leadership Award (University of Guelph) and Professor of the Year Award (University of Guelph). 

Mohamed-Yahia Dabbagh is a lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. 
 
His research interests include digital signal processing, image processing and video processing. Dr. Dabbagh developed VLSI multiprocessor implementation of high demanding computational algorithms in the areas of Communication Systems, Computer Vision, and Control Systems. He is also looking into the development of algorithms in video motion estimation, video segmentation, and pattern recognition and classification. Dr. Dabbagh published several articles with IEEE and other organizations regarding video and image processing systems. 

Mohamed Oussama Damen is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Waterloo. 
 
Dr. Damen has an extensive background in research positions at multiple academic institutions including École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications in Paris, France; the University of Minnesota and the University of Alberta. In June of 2004, he joined the University of Waterloo, where he then became the Nortel Networks Associate Chair in Advanced Telecommunications from April 2005 to April 2010. 
 
His current research interests include coding theory (particularly regarding lattices, coding and decoding algorithms), cross-layer optimization, multiple-input multiple-output and space time communications, multiuser detection, and wireless communications. 
 
Dr. Damen has received several awards including the University of Waterloo ECE Research Excellence Award in 2007, Early Researcher Award in the Province of Ontario for 2007 to 2010 and the Junior Research Fellowship from the French Research Ministry in 1996 to 1999. Dr. Damen has published numerous articles and journals with, and is currently a senior level member of, IEEE. 

George Freeman is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Waterloo. 
 
His current research interests include signal processing for digital communications, optimal lossless data compression algorithms, and storage and recognition applications in speech and image coding. 
 
In addition to his research contributions, Professor Freeman has received the Dedicated Service Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers for recognition of his exceptional service to their academic staff associations. 

Guang Gong is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a University Research Chair, and an IEEE Fellow. Her research focuses on multiple areas such as design and implementation of lightweight cryptographic systems, cryptography and cryptanalysis; security and privacy of Internet-of-Things (IoT), privacy of blockchain and blockchain based IoT security, privacy preserving machine learning, security in cloud, network, ad-hoc network and RFID systems; wireless security, multimedia security, and physical layer security. Her research also lies in and signal design for wireless Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Orthogonal frequency-division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) communications. In 2005, Dr. Gong, together with former Ph. D student Yassir Nawaz, proposed a new stream cipher, namely, a WG stream cipher family, which offers unique randomness properties that other ciphers do not have. Recently, together with Professor Mark Aagaard, some lightweight instances (i.e., WG-5, WG-7, WG-8) of this stream cipher family have been implemented in hardware for securing RFID systems and embedded devices. In Feb 2019, her team submitted 4 lightweight cryptographic schemes, i.e., ACE, SPOC, SPIX, and WAGE to the NIST LWC competition. 

Pin-Han Ho is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. 

His current research interests cover a wide range of topics in broadband wired and wireless communication networks, including survivable network design, wireless communications, cyber-physical systems, and Internet of things. Professor Ho and his PhD student Dr. James She invented Wireless Media Express™ to rectify the problem of ‘wireless channel fading’. Wireless channel fading is the intrinsic wireless communication systems problem that limits wireless service providers from effectively multicasting to intended receivers. Wireless Media Express™ generates an intelligent multicast signal that maximizes the video quality for all intended receivers, regardless of receiver channel quality status. This technology will allow users to have access to TV channels on handheld devices while watching consistent high quality live broadcasting. It also gives a business owner the capability of conveniently uploading video advertising materials to different digital displays throughout a city (highway billboards, shopping mall displays, subway station terminals) all in one shot and targeted to different “time of day” audiences. 

Amir Khandani is a Professor and NSERC/Ciena Industrial Research Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He held a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Wireless Communications, and prior to that, he held a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Information Theory. He currently holds the Senior Ciena-NSERC Industrial Research Chair on Network Information Theory of Optical Channels. Prior, he held a Senior NSERC Industrial Research Chair jointly funded by Blackberry/NSERC, and prior to it, a Senior NSERC Industrial Research Chair jointly funded by Nortel/NSERC. 

Dr. Khandani’s research involves physical and media-access control (MAC) layers of telecommunications systems, information theory and signal processing, with primary focus on wireless and optical transmission. His goal is to understand the basics, further develop the theory in targeted areas, and apply it to the practice of commutations systems. 

Dr. Khandani received his degrees from Tehran University, Iran, and McGill University, Canada, in 1984 and 1992, respectively. He joined Waterloo in 1993. Since 1993, he has supervised more than 45 PhD students, 35 master's students, 35 post-doctoral fellows and 20 research engineers. His former team members have successful careers in industry and academia across the globe. He frequently serves on technical program committees of major conferences in the area of wireless communication, and has acted as a consultant to various industrial and government agencies, delivering lectures and keynote speeches worldwide. 

Ravi Mazumdar has been a Professor and research chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo since 2004. 

He was elected Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to modeling, control, and performance analysis of networks, and is also a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He is a recipient of the Best Paper Award for the IEEE INFOCOM 2006 and was a Finalist for the Best Paper at INFOCOM 1998. Since 2012 he is a J. D. Gandhi Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a Senior Editor of the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications. 

Professor Mazumdar’s research interests include applied probability and stochastic analysis focusing on applications in complex networks, network science, randomized algorithms, and wireless systems. 

More information coming soon!

Patrick Mitran is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Lecturer in applied mathematics with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University. 
 
His current research interests include information theory and wireless communications, cross-layer design, and signal processing for 5G. 
 
He was a recipient of the Government of Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2011. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario. From 2012 to 2016, he served as an Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS. From 2016 to 2019, he served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY. 

Chrystopher Nehaniv is a full professor in the departments of Systems Design Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo (since August 2018). He is a Mathematician, Computer Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Researcher. He is also affiliated with the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, where he served as Director of the Centre for Computer Science & Informatics Research prior to coming to Canada, leading research in the Algorithms, Adaptive Systems, and Wolfson Royal Society Biocomputation Research Groups there as Professor of Mathematical and Evolutionary Computer Sciences. Previously, he held positions as full professor at the University of Aizu in Japan, and visiting professor in Mathematics at Ibaraki National University, Japan, and at the Institute for Mathematics & Informatics at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, as well as post-doctoral research fellow and lecturer in Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is founder of the Waterloo Algebraic Intelligence & Computation Laboratory (WAICL), and with Prof. Kerstin Dautenhahn, a co-founder of the University of Waterloo's Social and Intelligent Robotics Research Laboratory (SIRRL). Professor Nehaniv is also a member of the Waterloo AI Institute and the steering committee of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI). He serves as Associate Editor for the journals BioSystems, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems, Interaction Studies, and Complexity, and previously as Topic Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems for the topics of AI Robotics and Human-Machine/Robot Interaction, and has served on the IEEE Task Force for Artificial Life and Complex Adaptive Systems since its founding in 2003, as Chair (2012-2018), Vice Chair (2018-), and on the IEEE Cognitive and Developmental Systems Technical Committee (2019-) of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. 

Catherine Rosenberg is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. She is a Cisco Research Chair in 5G Systems (since 2018) and a former Canada Research Chair holder in the Future Internet (June 2010 to June 2024). 
 
Dr. Rosenberg began her career at ALCATEL in France, and then at AT&T Bell Labs, USA. From 1988-1996, she was a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at École Polytechnique, Montreal, Canada. In 1996, she joined Nortel Networks in the UK where she created and headed the R&D Department in Broadband Satellite Networking. In August 1999, Dr. Rosenberg became a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University where she co-founded in May 2002 the Center for Wireless Systems and Applications (CWSA). She joined the University of Waterloo in September 2004 as the Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for a three-year term. 
 
Catherine Rosenberg was on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Orange Group (France-Telecom) from 2007 to mid 2015. She became its president from January 2013 to mid 2015. She is currently the president of the Scientific Advisory Board of the French IRT (Research and Technology Institute) BCOM on multimedia and networking (since 2014). She is also on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the IEEE. 
 
She is an IEEE Fellow and was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering in 2013. 
 
She has authored over 200 papers on wireless networking, traffic engineering and energy systems, and has been granted eight US patents. 

Xuemin (Sherman) Shen is the University Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and specializes in wireless communications and networking. Professor Shen is a fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Academy of Engineering as well as the Engineering Institute of Canada. In addition, he is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Internet of Things Journal and Springer Peer-to-Peer Networking and Application. 
 
His research focuses on wireless communication networks, including capacity analysis, mobility and radio resource management, quality-of-service provisioning, wireless/Internet interworking, network modeling, stability and performance analysis. In addition, he has been investigating and developing algorithms and protocols for wireless network security and privacy preservation. His research findings have been applied to vehicular networks, wireless body area networks and remote e-healthcare systems, wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, and smart grid. 
 
Professor Shen received the R.A. Fessenden Award in 2019 from IEEE Canada, the James Evans Avant Garde Award in 2018 from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, the Joseph LoCicero Award in 2015 and the Education Award in 2017 from the IEEE Communications Society. He has also received the Excellent Graduate Supervision Award in 2006 and the Outstanding Performance Award 5 times from the University of Waterloo. 

Zhou Wang is a Professor at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada (RSC) – Academy of Science, a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Science (CAE), and a certified Professional Engineer. He is a recipient of 2021 Faculty of Engineering Excellence in Graduate Supervision Award, 2021 Technology Emmy Award, 2017 IEEE Signal Processing Society Sustained Impact Paper Award, 2015 Primetime Engineering Emmy Award, 2014 NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship Award, 2013 IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award, 2009 IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award, 2013 NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement, and 2009 Ontario Early Researcher Award. Prof. Wang served on the Editorial Boards of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, and IEEE Signal Processing Letters, among may other international journals. He also served on the IEEE Image, Video and Multidimensional Signal Processing, and IEEE Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committees. 
Professor Wang’s research interests include signal and image processing, computational vision and pattern analysis, multimedia coding and communications, and biomedical signal and image processing. He has more than 200 published journal and conference papers in the field with over 80,000 citations. 

Liang-Liang Xie is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. 

Professor Xie’s research interests are in wireless networks, information theory, adaptive control, system identification and Shannon theory. His publications include journals for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. Conference papers written by Professor Xie were for events such as the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), IEEE Globecom and IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT). 

En-Hui Yang is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo, and the founding Director of the Leitch-University of Waterloo Multimedia Communications lab. He is also the co-founder of SlipStream Data Inc. (now a subsidiary of BlackBerry Inc. formerly known as Research In Motion), and a past associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. Professor Yang is a former Tier 1 Canada Research Chair holder in Information Theory and Multimedia Data Compression. 
 
Professor Yang is the co-developer of the Yang-Kieffer algorithm, a numerical set of rules that use grammar-based coding to achieve lossless compression of text and image files, and also the co-inventor of soft decision quantization (also known as rate distortion optimization quantization or trellis quantization), an efficient coding technology widely used in image/video application related products (such as smart phones, web browsers, etc.) for better compression. With research interests ranging from multimedia compression, information theory, digital communications, image and video coding, image understanding and management, big data analytics, information security, to deep learning, he aims to develop technologies that will enhance the storage capacity of computers, make the transmission of data faster and more reliable, secure data anytime and anywhere, and/or make big data understandable. 
 
He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2024, for his exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence, Professor Yang was designated the title 'University Professor' by the University of Waterloo. 

Weihua Zhuang is a University Professor at the University of Waterloo with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Wireless Communication Networks. Professor Zhuang also has fellowships with the IEEE, Royal Society of Canada (RSC), Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), and Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). In 2021 she was recognized by the University of Waterloo for her exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence through the designation “University Professor." 

Professor Zhuang’s current research involves engineering solutions for future communication networks, for applications in industrial IoT, autonomous driving, and smart communities, to name a few. Her research program encompasses topics such as network virtualization and slicing, service customized topology for virtual network over both wireless and wireline domains, adaptive networking protocols for virtual networks, and multi-dimensional resource allocation for transmission, processing, and caching. The research is empowered by both technical insights from model-based theoretical analysis and machine learning tools, in order to efficiently and effectively accommodate temporal-spatial dynamics and uncertainties of data traffic load due to user mobility and new use cases. Through her research, Professor Zhuang hopes to develop cost effective algorithms and protocols for network automation in future integrated space, air and terrestrial communication systems, to facilitate various new applications and to enhance users’ experience.