Organizing Committee | IEEE ICAS 2021

General Co-Chairs

Amir Asif

Concordia University

Canada

Amir Asif

Biography

AMIR ASIF received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, PA, USA, in 1993 and 1996, respectively. He has been a Professor of electrical and computer engineering with Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada, since 2014, where he is now the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science. Previously, he was a Professor of electrical engineering and computer science with York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, from 2002 to 2014 and the faculty of CMU, where he was a Research Engineer from 1997 to 1999. He has authored more than 150 technical contributions, includ-ing invited ones, published in international journals and conference proceedings, and a textbook Continuous and Discrete Time Signals and Systems (Cambridge Univ. Press). He works in the area of statistical signal processing and communications. His current projects include error-resilient, scalable video compression; time-reversal, array imaging detection; genomic signal processing; and sparse, block-banded matrix technologies. He is a member of the Professional Engineering Society of Ontario. He was on the editorial boards of numerous journals and international conferences, including Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS OF SIGNAL PROCESSING (2014–2018) and the IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING LETTERS (2002–2006, 2009–2013). He has organized four IEEE conferences on signal processing theory and applications. He was the recipient of the several distinguish-ing awards including the York University Faculty of Graduate Studies Teaching Award in 2008; York University Wide Teaching Award (Full-Time Senior Faculty Category) in 2008 from York University; the FSE Teaching Excel-lence Award (Senior Faculty Category) from York’s Faculty of Science and Engineering in 2004 and 2006; and the CSE Mildred Baptist Teaching Excellence Award from York’s Department of Computer Science and Engin-eering in 2003 and 2006.

Affiliation(s)

Concordia University

Canada

Arash Mohammadi

Concordia University

Canada

Technical Program Chair

Yingxu Wang

University of Calgary

Canada

Yingxu Wang

Biography

Dr. Yingxu Wang is professor of cognitive informatics, brain science, software science, and denotational mathematics. He is the founding President of International Institute of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICIC). He is a Fellow of ICIC, a Fellow of WIF (UK), a P.Eng. of Canada, and a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM. He has been visiting professor (on sabbatical leaves) at Oxford University (1995), Stanford University (2008 | 2016), UC Berkeley (2008), and MIT (2012), respectively. He has been a full professor since 1994. He is the founder and steering committee chair of the annual IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICCI*CC) since 2002. He is founding Editor-in-Chiefs of International Journal of Cognitive Informatics & Natural Intelligence; International Journal of Software Science & Computational Intelligence; Journal of Advanced Mathematics & Applications; and Journal of Mathematical & Computational Methods, as well as Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on SMC - Systems. He has served as chair or co-chair of 19 IEEE or other int’l conferences and a member of IEEE Selection Committee for Senior Members in 2011.

Dr. Wang’s publications have been cited for 30,000+ times according to Google Scholar. According to Research Gate statistics, his research profile has reached top 2.5 per cent worldwide, top one to 10 (timely vary in the range) at the University of Calgary, and the most read work in neural networks. He is the recipient of dozens international awards on academic leadership, outstanding contributions, best papers, and teaching in the last three decades.

Cross appointments and affiliations:

President, The International Institute of Cognitive Informatics and Cognitive Computing (ICIC)
Director, Lab for Computational Intelligence, Cognitive Systems, Denotational Mathematics, and Software Science
Professor (Brain Science), The Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI)
Theoretical & Empirical Software Engineering Research Center

Graduate student employment:

New PhD students are welcome on exploratory and innovative projects such as: a) Cognitive robotics; b) Deep machine learning; c) Cognitive systems; d) Software science theories; and e) Industry-sponsored projects.

Both theoretical (mathematical) and experimental (programming/MATLAB) skills are expected for strong candidates. Due to numerous applications, Dr. Wang regrets if a timely correspondence might not be sent.

Affiliation(s)

University of Calgary

Canada

Technical Program Vice-Chairs

Lucio Marcenaro

University of Genova

Italy

S. Farokh Atashzar

New York University

United States

S. Farokh Atashzar

Biography

S. FAROKH ATASHZAR is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at New York University (NYU). He received his Ph.D. in 2016 and has recently joined NYU. His research interests include areas of applied computer science, robotics, Neurorehabilitation robots, neuroscience, smart prostheses, and human-robot augmentation. Prior to joining NYU, Atashzar was a senior postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Bioengineering, Imperial College, University of London, UK, sponsored by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada. From February 2017 to August 2018, he served as a postdoctoral research associate at Canadian Surgical Technologies and Advanced Robotics (CSTAR) center. His many awards include the highly-competitive Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS) in 2013 and an NSERC PostDoctoral Fellowship (PDF) in 2018. He was ranked among the top 5 applicants in Canada for the 2018 NSERC PDF competition in the Electrical and Computer Engineering sector. Atashzar has served as the lead guest editor for two special issues: (a) “Intelligent Human-Robot Interaction for Rehabilitation and Physical Assistance,” in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, and (b) Autonomy and Intelligence in Neurorehabilitation Robotic and Prosthetic Technologies," in the Journal of Medical Robotics Research. He is the publication co-chair of the 2020 International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR), Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA. Atashzar is a general chair of the Symposium on “Advanced Bio-Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Assistive and Neurorehabilitation Systems” at the 2019 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP2019).

Affiliation(s)

New York University

United States

Special Sessions Co-Chairs

Mark Coates

McGill University

Malika Meghjani

Singapore University of Technology and Design

Singapore

Malika Meghjani

Biography

MALIKA LEGHJANI is an Assistant Professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). She received her PhD degree in Computer Science from McGill University, Canada in early 2017. Before joining SUTD, she was a Research Scientist and Technical Lead at Autonomous Vehicle Lab within Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). She was awarded SMART Postdoctoral Fellowship for her research propos-als on “MultiClass Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand System” and “Context and Intention Aware Planning under Uncertainty for Self-Driving Cars”. Her work on “Multi-Target Rendezvous Search”, was nominated as the finalist for the best paper award at IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). A start-up proposal based on her work, titled, “Multi-Agent Rendezvous on Street Networks”, won her the NSERC Canadian Field Robotics Network, Strategic Network Enhancement Initiative Award. For her contributions to IEEE, she was recognized with the IEEE Larry K. Wilson Regional Students Activities Award and the IEEE Can-ada Women in Engineering Award. She is also the recipient of the McGill Scarlet Key Award for her contribu-tions to the McGill community. She became the first Google Anita Borg Scholar from McGill University, Canada. Malika is also actively involved in international program committees for IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Inter-national Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS) and International Symposium on Multi-Robot and Multi-Agent Systems (MRS).

Affiliation(s)

Singapore University of Technology and Design

Singapore

Local Arrangements Co-Chairs

Warren Gross

McGill University

Canada

Farnoosh Naderkhani

Concordia University

Canada

Finance Chair

Fabrice Labeau

McGill University

Canada

Fabrice Labeau

Biography

Fabrice Labeau received the Ph.D. degree from the Communications and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium.,From 1996 to 2000, he was with the Communications and Remote Sensing Laboratory, UCL. He has held several administrative and management positions at McGill University, including the Associate Department Chair, the Associate Dean, the Interim Chair, and the Acting Dean. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, McGill University, where he holds the NSERC/Hydro-Québec Industrial Research Chair with Interactive Information Infrastructure for the Power Grid. He is also the Associate Director for operations of SYTACom with the Interuniversity Research Center Grouping 50 professors and 500 researchers from ten universities in the province of Quebec, Canada. His research interests include applications of signal processing to healthcare, power grids, communications, and signal compression. He has authored more than 175 refereed articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings in these areas. He is currently the Associate Dean for the Faculty Affairs with McGill’s Faculty of Engineering. He is the Junior Past President of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, the President-Elect of the IEEE Sensors Council, and the Past Chair of the Montreal IEEE Section. He was a recipient of the McGill University Equity and Community Building Award (team category), in 2015, and the 2008 and 2016 Outstanding Service Award from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. (Based on document published on 30 September 2019).

Affiliation(s)

McGill University

Canada

Publicity Co-Chairs

Lina Karam

Arizona State University

United States

Lina Karam

Biography

LINA KARAM is currently a full professor in the School of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering, Computer Engineering Director, and the Director of the R&D Image, Video, and Usability (IVU) Lab at Arizona State University. Dr. Karam is an IEEE Fellow, a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, NASA Technical Innovation Award, the Intel Outstanding Researcher Award, the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Best Journal Paper Award, and the IEEE Phoenix Section Outstanding Faculty Award. Her industrial experience includes image and video processing and compression development at AT&T Bell Labs (Murray Hill), multi-dimensional data processing and visualization at Schlumberger, and collaborations on computer vision, machine learning, image/video processing, compression, and transmission projects with various industries including Intel, Qualcomm, Google, NTT, Motorola, Freescale, General Dynamics, and NASA. Dr. Karam has served on several journal editorial boards, several conference organization committees, and several IEEE technical committees. She recently served as the General Chair of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing. She cofounded the International Conference on the Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX). She is currently serving on the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Board of Governors and the IEEE Publications Board as the IEEE WIE Liaison. She is a member of the Foundation and Trends in Signal Processing Journal Editorial Board and of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Senior Editorial Board. She is also a member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Image, Video & Multidimensional Signal Processing Technical Committee, and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society’s DSP Technical Committee.

Affiliation(s)

Arizona State University

United States

Marcelo Bruno

ITA

Brazil

Publications Co-Chairs

Svetlana Yanushkevich

University of Calgary

Canada

Neda Nategh

University of Utah

United States

Workshop Chair

Marina L. Gavrilova

Full Professor

University of Calgary

Canada

Marina L. Gavrilova

Biography

Prof. Gavrilova holds Full Professor with Tenure appointment at the Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Canada. Prof. Gavrilova research interests lie in the areas of machine intelligence, biometric recognition, image processing and GIS. Prof. Gavrilova publication list includes over 150 journal and conference papers, edited special issues, books and book chapters, including World Scientific Bestseller of the Month (2007) – “Image Pattern Recognition: Synthesis and Analysis in Biometric,” Springer book (2009) “Computational Intelligence: A Geometry-Based Approach” and IGI book (2013) “Multimodal Biometrics and Intelligent Image Processing for Security Systems”. She has received support from CFI, NSERC, GEOIDE, MITACS, PIMS, Alberta Ingenuity, NATO and other funding agencies. She is an Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Computational Sciences Springer Verlag Journal series and on Editorial board of seven journals.

Prof. Gavrilova received numerous awards and her research was profiled in newspaper and TV interviews, most recently being chosen together with other five outstanding Canadian scientists to be featured in National Museum of Civilization, National Film Canada production, and on Discovery Channel Canada.

Opportunities for graduate students in two Laboratories directed by Prof. Gavrilova and the list of projects currently available is found in Biometric Technologies Laboratory (BTLAB) and Spatial Analysis Research in Computational Science Lab (SPARCS).

For all questions regarding Transactions on Computational Science Journal, Springer-Verlag, please send your request to: [email protected]

Affiliation(s)

Full Professor

University of Calgary

Canada

Industry Liaison Co-Chairs

Mohammad Faghani

Pricewaterhouse Coopers

Canada

Morgan Kernohan

Canadian Pacific

Canada

Award Chair

Saif Zahir

University of British Columbia

Canada

Special Track 1 Co-Chairs

Dario Farina

Imperial College London

United Kingdom

Mahdi Tavakoli

University of Alberta

Canada

Special Track 2 Co-Chairs

Deepa Kundur

University of Toronto

Canada

Deepa Kundur

Biography

DEEPA KUNDUR is currently the Chair of the Division of Engineering Science and a Professor and the Director of the Centre for Power & Information, The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Toronto. From January 2003 to December 2012, she was a faculty member with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, and from September 1999 to December 2002, she was a faculty member with the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Toronto. She is an author of more than 200 journal and conference papers. Her research interests lie at the interface of cyber security, signal processing, and complex dynamical networks. She is also a recognized authority on cyber security issues and has appeared as an expert in popular television, radio, and print media. She has participated on several editorial boards and is currently on the Advisory Board of IEEE Spectrum. She is currently the General Chair for the 2018 GlobalSIP Symposium on Information Processing, Learning and Optimization for Smart Energy Infrastructures and the TPC Co-Chair for IEEE SmartGridComm 2018. Recently, she was also the Symposium Co-Chair for the Communications for the Smart Grid Track of ICC 2017, the General Chair for the Workshop on Communications, Computation and Control for Resilient Smart Energy Systems at ACM e-Energy 2016, the General Chair for the Workshop on Cyber-Physical Smart Grid Security and Resilience at GLOBECOM 2016, the General Chair for the Symposium on Signal and Information Processing for Smart Grid Infrastructures at GlobalSIP 2016, the General Chair for the 2015 International Conference on Smart Grids for Smart Cities, the General Chair for the 2015 Smart Grid Resilience (SGR) Workshop at IEEE GLOBECOM 2015, and the General Chair for the IEEE GlobalSIP’15 Symposium on Signal and Information Processing for Optimizing Future Energy Systems.,Professor Kundur's research has received best paper recognitions at numerous venues including the 2015 IEEE Smart Grid Communications Conference, the 2015 IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference, the 2012 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical & Computer Engineering, the 2011 Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Research Workshop, and the 2008 IEEE INFOCOM Workshop on Mission Critical Networks. She has also been the recipient of teaching awards at both the University of Toronto and Texas A&M University. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

Affiliation(s)

University of Toronto

Canada

Mohammad Al Janaideh

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Canada

Special Track 3 Co-Chairs

Giuseppe Franze

University of Calabria

Italy

Walter Lucia

Concordia University

Canada

Special Track 4 Co-Chairs

Chun Wang

Concordia University

Canada

Anjali Awasthi

Concordia University, Canada

Anjali Awasthi

Biography

ANJALI AWASHTI is Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair (Tier-II) in Connected Sustainable Mobility Systems at Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE), in Concordia University, Montreal. She received a PhD in industrial engineering and automation from INRIA Rocquencourt and University of Metz, France. Prior to Concordia, Dr. Awasthi worked at University of British Columbia and University of Laval where she was involved in several projects on industrial applications of operations research. In France, she was involved in many European projects aimed at improving urban mobility in cities, city logistics and on cybernetic transportation systems. Her areas of research are modeling and simulation, data mining, Information Technology and decision making, sustainable logistics planning, quality assurance in supply chain management and sustainable supply chain management. Dr. Awasthi has more than 10 years of industry and research experience in these areas and authored several journal and conference papers on these topics. She is currently serving as the Education Chair for CORS (Canadian Operations Research Society), is a senior member of ASQ (American Society for Quality), associate of LSRC (Loyola Sustainability Research Center), and regular member of CIRRELT (Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur les Reseaux d'Entreprise, la Logistique et le Transport). She is also the recipient of Eldon Gunn service award offered at 60th CORS Annual conference, Halifax, Canada in 2018.

Affiliation(s)

Concordia University, Canada

Special Track 5 Co-Chairs

Usman Khan

Tufts University

United States

Hoi-To Wai

Chinese University of Hong Kong

China