Wireless communication

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).
 

Slim Boumaiza is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

His research is focused on defining, conceptualizing, designing, and realizing high-performing microwave and millimeter wave circuits and systems for wireless communications (with applications in 4G, 5G and the Internet of Things). He directs the Emerging Radio System Research Group (EmRG), which conducts multidisciplinary research encompassing the semiconductor device, circuit, and system levels of radio hardware. Under his supervision, researchers investigate the areas of transistor modelling and characterization (at the semiconductor device level), ultra wideband and highly efficient power amplifiers (at the circuit level) and low power linearization schemes (at the system level).

In the above research areas, Dr. Boumaiza has authored and co-authored over 65 refereed journal publications, over 120 conference publications, been granted 7 patents with 3 more pending, and delivered numerous keynotes, workshops and talks to members of academia and industry.

He is passionately involved in communicating knowledge of radio systems through teaching, supervision, and youth outreach. He has taught several undergraduate and graduate courses covering basics of electrical engineering and advanced topics in microwave engineering. Over 100 highly qualified personnel (undergraduate, master's, and PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, and other research staff) have worked under his supervision to date. Many have gone on to secure highly sought-after positions in industry. Dr. Boumaiza and his team also actively participate in university-led efforts to engage youth and minorities and promote their interest in engineering.
 

Sujeet K. Chaudhuri is a distinguished professor emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Waterloo. In recognition of his sustained outstanding scholarship and academic leadership, Professor Chaudhuri was installed in 2004 as the O’Donovan Research Chair of RF/Microwaves and Photonics at the university. He was the Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1993 - 1998 and the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 1998-2003.

Under Professor Chaudhuri’s leadership, initially as the Chair, and later as the Dean, the university experienced unprecedented growth. The research budget of the faculty tripled, new buildings were added, and new undergraduate programs like Software Engineering and Mechatronics Engineering were successfully introduced. Several graduate/research programs were also new additions to the university. As the Chair of the National Council of Deans of Engineering and Applied Sciences (NCDEAS), Professor Chaudhuri provided new visions and progressive leadership to the Engineering Profession in Canada. Due to his initiatives, NCDEAS now enjoys a prominent consultative role with governments and the private sector in North America.

Current research interests of Professor Chaudhuri include guided-wave/electro-optic structures, planar microwave structures, dielectric resonators, optical and EM imaging, fiber based broadband network and the emerging technologies based on the EBG/PBG-nanostructures. Additionally, Professor Chaudhuri is a member of URSI Commission B, and Sigma Xi.

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.

Anwar Hasan is the Ripple Chair and a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. He is also a faculty member at the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. From January 2013 to April 2018, he was the Faculty of Engineering's Associate Dean of Research and External Partnerships.

Professor Hasan’s research interests include cryptographic computations and embedded systems, dependable and secure computing, and security for cloud and Internet of Things.

He has made contributions to multiple books, journal and conference articles and has also received several awards for his many achievements in research.

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.

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. 

Omar Ramahi is an Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor at the University of Waterloo.

Professor Ramahi’s research interests include radiating systems, renewable energy technology, biomedical applications of electromagnetic waves and fields, electromagnetic compatibility and interference, metamaterials and its engineering applications, and material measurements. In addition to his research, he co-founded Applied Electromagnetic Technology, LLC., and Wave Intelligence Inc.

Professor Ramahi has received numerous awards as a result of his extensive research and teaching capabilities. He was recognized for his graduate research work with the 2010 University of Waterloo Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision. Additionally, Professor Ramahi was awarded the IEEE Electromagnetic Compatibility Society Technical Achievement Award in 2012. Professor Ramahi is an elected IEEE Fellow.

Professor Ramahi has written over 450 journal and conference papers on electromagnetic phenomena and computational techniques. EMI/EMC Computational Modeling Handbook is one of the notable books that Professor Ramahi has co-authored.

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.

Prof. George Shaker is an adjunct associate professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo. He also oversees wireless activities in the sensors and devices lab at the UW-Schlegel Research Institute for Aging. Previously, he was with Research in Motion (BlackBerry). He was also with Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been the Principal Scientist and Head of Research at Spark Technology Labs (STL), since its founding in 2011. In 2017, George was selected by the office of the president of NSERC among a group of ten Canadian professors to discuss Canadian research advancement in the Internet of Things (IoT) area at the special NSERC-NRC-MOST meeting in Ottawa. In addition, prof. Shaker serves on the organizational committee of the French-Canadian Bioengineering School.

With more than fifteen years of industrial experience in technology, and about eight years as an adjunct faculty member leading projects related to the application of wireless sensor systems for healthcare, automotives, and unmanned aerial vehicles, Prof. Shaker has many design contributions in commercial products available from startups and established companies alike. A sample list includes: COM DEV \\, Blackberry, Google, Spark Tech Labs, Bionym, Lyngsoe Systems, ON Semiconductors, Ecobee, Medella Health, NERV Technologies, Novella, Thalmic Labs (North), General Dynamics Land Systems, and Omron Technologies.

George has received multiple recognitions and awards, including the NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship (sole winner in the area of Electromagnetics across Canada, 2007-10, first UW student to receive the scholarship in EM), the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2007, 2010), the European School of Antennas Grant at IMST-GmbH (2007), the IEEE AP-S Best Paper Award (2009, 3, first @ UW), the IEEE AP-S Honorable Mention Paper Award (Twice, 2008, 2011), the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Graduate Research Award (2008/2009, first @ UW), NSERC CGS-FSS (2009/2010, sole winner from UW Engineering), the IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship (2009, first UW student to receive the fellowship), and the Electronic Components and Technology Best of Session Paper Award (2010). Two paper he co-authored in IEEE Sensors were among the top 25 downloaded papers on IEEEXplore for several consecutive months (2012/2017). He was the supervisor of the team winning the third best design at IEEE APS 2016, APS 2017 HM paper award, 2018 CVS Best Paper, and two IEEE APS Research Awards

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.

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. 

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.