Call for PhD Forum Abstracts

bio:

Prof. Mérouane Debbah is Chief Researcher, AI Cross-Center Unit and of the AI and Digital Science Research Center at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a leading global research center dedicated to pushing the frontiers of knowledge. He is responsible for carrying out advanced research in AI and Telecommunications. Through his core areas of research across 5G, 6G, Machine Learning, Random Matrix Theory, and Game Theory, he is focused on making the planet safer and pushing the limits of innovation.

Prof. Debbah’s research over the years has spanned fundamental mathematics, algorithms, statistics, information, and communication sciences.

Before assuming his current role, Prof. Debbah was jointly the Director of the Huawei Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab as well as the Lagrange Mathematical and Computing Research Centre in Paris, France. He has managed eight EU projects and more than 24 national and international projects.

Previously, he was a Full Professor at CentraleSupélec, Gif-sur-Yvette in France. In addition, he held the role of Director of the Alcatel-Lucent Chair on Flexible Radio. This was the first industrial chair in telecommunication in France – established through leveraging close ties between CentraleSupélec and Bell Labs. He started his career at Motorola Labs, Saclay, France.

Research.com, a leading academic research portal that ranks the world’s top scientists across different categories and serves as a global benchmark, placed Prof. Debbah at number 180 on its 2022 list of Top 1,000 Scientists in Electronics and Electrical Engineering. Also, with a H-index of 76 in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, and a H-index of 64 in Computer Science, he ranked number one in France for the former category.

Prof. Debbah was also named a 2022 AI 2,000 Most Influential Scholar in Internet of Things for his outstanding contributions in the field between 2012 and 2021. The AI 2,000 Most Influential Scholar Annual List (https://aminer.cn/ai2000) includes 2,000 of the world’s top research scholars from the fields of artificial intelligence over this decade (2020-2029).

He is also the recipient of the 2022 IEEE Communications Society Outstanding Paper Award for his scientific paper “Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces vs. Relaying: Differences, Similarities, and Performance Comparison.” The work concerns the analysis of Large Intelligent Surfaces, which is a key technology for the next generation 6G system.

Furthermore, he received the ERC Grant MORE (Advanced Mathematical Tools for Complex Network Engineering). He is an IEEE Fellow, a EURASIP Fellow, a WWRF Fellow, a Louis Bachelier Fellow, and a SEE Membre Émérite. He has received more than 20 best paper awards including the SEE Blondel Medal, the IEEE Radio Communications Committee Technical Recognition Award, the IEEE Communications Society Young Author Best Paper Award, and the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award.

Prof. Mérouane Debbah holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, France. He also earned an MSc and a BSc in applied physics from the same institute. He holds more than 30 patents and is a published author of a book, 25 book chapters, 250 journal papers, and 400 conference papers. He has to his credit 47,000 citations and was named Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher for 2018-2021.

bio:

Dr Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar is Chief Research Officer at the Secure Systems Research Centre at the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a cutting-edge UAE-based scientific research Centre and Adjunct Research Professor at Khalifa University. In this role, he is responsible for carrying out advanced research that is driving end-to-end security and resilience in cyber physical and autonomous systems of systems (swarm of drones). These includes secure technologies in silicon, edge and mobile and cloud platforms working with open-source ecosystems (Dronecode, RISC-V, Linux, Apache, ROS) and research institutions across USA, Europe, and UAE.

Thakkar’s career is punctuated by industry firsts and successes that have strengthened revenue, profit, and competitive advantage for Fortune 500 firms, as well as reach labs, start-ups, and entrepreneurial divisions.

Thakkar is a hands-on leader with an invaluable blend of strategy development and tactical execution; an implementer and dedicated "doer'' who delivers corporate vision by building, leading, mentoring, and supporting highly effective, diverse, and collaborative advanced development, engineering/software engineering teams across different geographies.

Before taking on his current role, Thakkar was Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President of Engineering and Technology at the company, now Digital14, a cyber- security leader based in the UAE. In this capacity, he was instrumental in developing an engineering organization of 500 people from a start-up team in four geographical locations, delivering two generations of innovative secure smartphones and applications, and a secure VPN appliance that contributed significantly to the company's annual revenue.

In prior roles, he served as Chief Solutions Architect at Qualcomm Data Technologies, and as the Chief Technology Officer in the Personal Computing Group and as Vice President and Fellow at HP’s Emerging Computing Lab. Earlier in his career, Ticky Thakkar completed 21 years at INTEL Corporation in roles including INTEL Fellow and Chief Systems Architect - Mobile Systems Technologies.

Thakkar holds a PhD and an MSc, both in Computer Science, from the University of Manchester. He also earned a BSc in Computer Science and Statistics from University College London. He holds 87 patents and has published 33 papers and over 5000 citations in Google Scholar.