PANELISTS
Kelly McKenna, M.F.A.
Biography
IEEE REACH Sr. Program Manager, IEEE History Center
Kelly McKenna is the IEEE REACH (Raising Engineering Awareness Through the Conduit of History) Sr. Program Manager with the IEEE History Center and is responsible for the program’s development, implementation, and distribution. Kelly works with educators, administrators, IEEE historians and IEEE volunteers on this innovative multimedia journey that provides a different lens for students to think about the consequences of change particularly in relation to the role technology and innovation play in global events and in addressing social problems. Self-described as passionately curious, Kelly aims to bring the same type of elevated inquiry and interest to students through the free resources found in the IEEE REACH program with the goal to improve students’ technological literacy skills and engagement in the diversity of the human experience. Kelly has presented at the United Nations, and at numerous national, regional, and international education conferences in both the STEM and Social Studies disciplines. Based on the success of IEEE REACH, Kelly has co-authored several academic conference papers that highlight how the IEEE REACH program engages students in the social relevance of technology, providing a new STEM education pathway, especially for girls. Kelly has an MFA in Documentary Film from Wake Forest University, a BA in Communication Arts (Broadcasting) from the University of Dayton and holds a certificate in IDM (Inquiry Design Model) from the NCSS and C3 Teachers’ IDM Summer Institute. She received the UNESCO OER Implementation Award for Excellence, 2021 OE Global.
Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, PhD.
Biography
Bozenna Pasik-Duncan received her Master of Science Degree in Mathematics from the University of Warsaw, Ph.D. and D.Sc. – Habilitation doctorate degrees from the Mathematics Department of the Warsaw School of Economics in 1978 and 1986, respectively. She was a faculty member of the Mathematics Department of Warsaw School of Economics from 1970 until 1984. In 1984 she moved to the University of Kansas (KU), where she is Professor of Mathematics, Courtesy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Aerospace Engineering, investigator at the Institute of Information Science. Dr. Pasik-Duncan’s current research interests are primarily in stochastic adaptive control, computational data science, and stochastic analysis with its broad applications that include mathematics of finance, financial engineering, biomedicine, and telecommunications. She is passionate about math and integrating research and STEM education at all levels including K-12 schools, about stochastic systems and control as interdisciplinary field that spans all STEM fields and collaborative efforts in DEIB in research, teaching and service in different communities. She has received numerous awards in recognition of her research, teaching, service and DI. She has been actively involved in IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) in a number of capacities including IEEE CSS Vice President for Membership Activities, Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering, a member of the Award Boards and Boards of Governors of two IEEE Technical Societies and a member of IFAC Technical Board. She is
a strong advocate for Women in STEM and beyond, is a Life Fellow of IEEE; a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal and the IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award; a Fellow of IFAC and a Fellow of AWM .She is inducted to the KU Women’s Hall of Fame and she is Chancellor’s Club Teaching Professor at KU.
Maike Luiken, PhD.
Biography
Maike Luiken, PhD, SMIEEE, IEEE-HKN, FEIC, FCAE, chairs IEEE Planet Positive 2030 – an initiative of the IEEE Standards Association – and the IEEE P7800TM Standards Working Group: Recommended Practice for Addressing Sustainability, Environmental Stewardship and Climate Change Challenges in Professional Practice. She also chairs the Green Hydrogen IEEE SA Industry Connections Program. She co-chairs the IEEE Future Directions SusTech Initiative. Previously, she served as the IEEE VP MGA, 2021, as President, IEEE Canada, 2018-19, and as Chair, Policy Track, IEEE Internet Initiative, 2017-18.
Maike is a longtime advocate for sustainable development and for the deployment and use of technology that is ‘sustainable by design’ to achieve a long-term healthy planetary biosphere.
She is managing director, R&D, at a start-up company, Carbovate Development, and Adjunct Research Professor, Western University, Canada.
Maike’s career spans academia and industry in Canada, USA and Germany: from professor to, in Sarnia, leading the Bluewater Sustainability Initiative, 2006-2013, and serving eight years as Dean, Lambton College: School of Technology, Sustainable Development, and Applied Research. Her strategic leadership and vision led to Lambton College becoming one of the top Research Colleges in Canada.
Her areas of interest and expertise span diverse technical areas from ICT, energy, and water, nanotech to advanced manufacturing. She has particular interest in how progress and deployment of various technologies contributes – or not – to achieving sustainable development.
She is/has been serving on numerous Boards of Directors and Committees, including IEEE and the Canadian Standards Council Steering Committee of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Governance Standardization Collaborative.
Maike obtained degrees from the Technical University Carolo-Wilhelmina of Braunschweig, Germany, (Staatsexamen HL, Mathematics and Physics) and the University of Waterloo, Canada (PhD, Physics).
Her work is being recognized as a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Her awards include the 2023 IEEE Canada Wally S. Read Outstanding Service Award and the 2023 IEEE MGA William W. Middleton Award for Distinguished Service. She also received the IEEE Standards Association Managing Director’s Special Recognition in 2023.
Mariela Cerrada Lozada, PhD.
Biography
Mariela Cerrada Lozada, IEEE Senior member, is a full professor with the Mechatronics career and GIDTEC research group, since 2017 at the Salesian Polytechnic University (Universidad Politécnica Salesiana UPS) in Cuenca, Ecuador. She is Systems Engineering with focus in Control Systems and received the Master Science degree in Control Engineering, both from University of Los Andes (Universidad de Los Andes ULA), in Mérida, Venezuela. She received the Ph.D. degree in Automatic systems from National Institute of Applied Sciences (Institut National des Sciences Appliquées INSA) in Toulouse, France. She was with the Control Systems Department at the University of Los Andes (Universidad de Los Andes ULA) from 1994 to 2016. She moved to Salesian Polytechnic University in Ecuador in 2014 after being awarded twice with the fellowship Prometeo from 2014 to 2017, as a researcher of the Group of Research and development of Industrial Technologies (GIDTEC). She also is a member of the Technical Committee on Manufacturing Plant Control of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), member of the executive committee of IEEE Ecuador section, representing the Industrial Engagement Committee for the years 2022 and 2023, as well as chair of the joint Industry Applications & Reliability chapter.
Her main line of research and development focuses on the applications of machine learning for the detection and diagnosis of faults in industrial processes. Due to her extensive research trajectory, she has been recently awarded/recognized with:
- Top cited woman for Scientist in Ecuador, SENESCYT Recognition 2024.
- Stanford University’s Top 2% Scientists ranking in the 2021 and 2022 editions.
- Distinguished Researcher of the IEEE Ecuador Section in 2020.
- Knowledge and Technology Transfer in 2022 and 2023
- Best Industry-University Collaboration by the Corporación Ecuatoriana para el Desarrollo de la Investigación y la Academia (CEDIA) in 2021.
- Industry Solutions Award 2021 from the Industrial Engineering and Operations Management Society.
- 2022 edition of 50 Women in Robotics you need to know about.
Jyotika Athavale, PhD.
Biography
Jyotika is a Director, Engineering Architecture at Synopsys, leading quality, reliability and safety research, pathfinding and architectures for data centers and automotive applications. Prior to Synopsys, she was Lead Technologist, Functional Safety Architecture at NVIDIA. Prior to NVIDIA, Jyotika was Principal Engineer (Director) at Intel Corporation leading corporate-wide RAS and Functional Safety architectures.
Jyotika also serves as the 2024 President of the global IEEE Computer Society, overseeing overall IEEE-CS programs and operations.
She leads and influences several international standardization initiatives in the area of RAS/safety in IEEE, ISO, SAE and IEC. Jyotika led the development of the IEEE 2851-2023 standard on Functional Safety Data Format for Interoperability. She now chairs the IEEE P2851.1 standardization initiative on Functional Safety interoperability with reliability. For her leadership in international safety standardization, Jyotika was awarded the 2023 IEEE SA Standards Medallion. And for her leadership in service, she was awarded the IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Award in 2022.
Jyotika is an appointed member (Industrial Expert) of the Board of Studies for the Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology at VJTI, Mumbai. She is also recognized as a Distinguished Alumna by the same university – her alma mater. She has authored patents and many technical publications in various international conferences and journals. Jyotika has also pioneered & chaired international workshops and conferences in the field of dependable technologies.
Ruth Lewis, MsC.
Biography
Ruth Lewis, Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical), Graduate Diploma Digital Communications, Master of Strategic Foresight, National Engineering Register
Director of Technology Foresight Consulting
Ruth is an experienced strategic IT consultant, academically qualified futurist and professional engineer based in Melbourne, Australia, having worked across many industries, sectors and technologies with a particular focus on the innovative and ethical use of technology in business and in society. Her expertise is in introducing new technologies to business, creating managed services and creating innovative governance models within organisations. Ruth’s passion is to work towards the ethical and sustainable development and use of technology for the good of society, enabling her clients to make wise and informed decisions and investments today to enable their preferred futures. Ruth is the Chair of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) Standards Committee, a contributor to many ethically aligned AI technical standards, and was awarded the IEEE SA 2022 Standards Medallion for leadership in promoting the development of IEEE technology and society standards.
Karen Tovar Parra, Eng.
Biography
Karen is an AI & Machine Learning Scientist at Datasite, with an engineering background from the University of Costa Rica and specialized studies in Machine Learning in Europe and Argentina. Over four years, she has focused on applying AI in medicine, biomedical engineering, and materials science, leading to publications in respected journals. Her work has been presented at major conferences, including the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Annual Conference in Sydney. As a member of Women in Engineering, Karen has championed diversity by encouraging young women to pursue STEAM careers and mentoring the next generation of female tech leaders.
Morgan Kiani, PhD.
Biography
Morgan Kiani (S’05–M’05–SM’17) has been a faculty member in the Engineering Department at Texas Christian University since 2011 and is a full professor at TCU now. Her research, scholarly activities, teaching, and service in the engineering department at TCU, across IEEE OUs and IES have allowed her to empower individuals to engage in activities that promote access to education, clean green energy and healthy living locally and globally. She has been an influential member of the WIE and she introduces resources that can help women set higher education and career goals in STEM fields. She loves the power that education can put in people’s hands and wants to help create more resources through local community, research and advocacy. Her belief in open source’s potential and online education to drive innovation encourages her to dedicate time and effort to promoting collaboration, sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusivity within open-source and online education. Kiani represents IES in IEEE Smart Village and she has been an active member of IEEE Smart Village Governing Leadership Board. She is a member of the IEEE Humanitarian Technology Board Partnership Committee, IEEE Education Activities Faculty Resources Committee, and the IEEE Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion too.
Milos Manic, PhD.
Biography
Dr. Manic is a Professor with the Computer Science Department and Director of VCU Cybersecurity Center at Virginia Commonwealth University. He completed over 50 research grants in AI/ML in cyber and energy and intelligent controls. He authored over 200 refereed articles, has given over 50 invited talks around the world, authored over 200 refereed articles in international journals, books, and conferences, holds several U.S. patents and has won 2018 R&D 100 Award for Autonomic Intelligent Cyber Sensor (AICS), one of top 100 science and technology worldwide innovations in 2018.
He is an inductee of US National Academy of Inventors (senior class of 2023, member class of 2019), and a Fellow of Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (specialty in AI & Cybersecurity). He holds Joint Appointment with Idaho National laboratory.
He is an IEEE IES President (2024-2025), after serving in multiple IES officer positions, IEEE Fellow (for contributions to machine learning based cybersecurity in critical infrastructures), recipient of IEEE IES 2019 Anthony J. Hornfeck Service Award, 2012 J. David Irwin Early Career Award, 2017 IEM Best Paper Award, associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IEEE Open Journal of Industrial Electronics Society, and IEEE IES Senior Life AdCom member. He served as AE of Trans. on Industrial Electronics, was a founding chair of IEEE IES Technical Committee on Resilience and Security in Industry, and was a General Chair of IEEE ICIT 2023, IEEE IECON 2018 (record breaking, over 1,100 participants), IEEE HSI 2019.
Zhaojun S. Li, PhD.
Biography
President of IEEE Reliability Society
Dr. Li is professor with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Western New England University in Springfield, MA, USA. Dr. Li’s research interests include quality and reliability engineering, AI/ML, data analytics, applied statistics, and operations research. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington. He is an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer and Caterpillar Six Sigma Black Belt (SSBB). He is serving on editorial boards for IEEE Transactions on Reliability and IEEE Access Reliability Society Section. He is a senior member of IISE and IEEE. He has served as a board member of IISE Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division and IEEE Reliability Society. Dr. Li is currently the President of the IEEE Reliability Society 2022-2024.
Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan, PhD
Biography
Sampathkumar Veeraraghavan is a renowned technologist known for his innovations in addressing global humanitarian and sustainable development challenges. Prior to serving as the 2021 HAC Chair, Sampath was the 2019-2020 IEEE SIGHT Chair, leading the program to record-breaking growth through high-impact, technology-driven sustainable programs benefiting members in 115+ countries. In 2020, Sampath was an expert in the Broadband Commission working group on school connectivity co-chaired by UNESCO, UNICEF and ITU to drive “GIGA,” a Global School Connectivity Initiative. He is the founder and president of “The Brahmam,” a humanitarian program delivering next-generation social innovations to achieve sustainable development goals and benefit marginalized communities. He currently works as a senior technology and program management leader with Alexa Artificial Intelligence Group at Amazon. Sampath was recently accredited with the 2020 IEEE Theodore W. Hissey Outstanding Young Professional Award.
Andrew F. Laine, D.Sc.
Biography
Andrew F. Laine received his D.Sc. degree from Washington University (St. Louis) School of Engineering and Applied Science in Computer Science, in 1989 and BS degree from Cornell University (Ithaca, NY). He was a Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL) from 1990-1997. He joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 1997 and served as Vice Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University since 2003 – 2011, and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (2012 – 2017). He is currently Director of the Heffner Biomedical Imaging at Columbia University and the Percy K. and Vida L. W. Hudson Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Radiology (Physics).
He has served on the program committee for the IEEE-EMBS Workshop on Wavelet Applications in Medicine in 1994, 1998, 1999, and 2004. He was the founding chair of the SPIE conference on “Mathematical Imaging: Wavelet Application in Signal and Image Processing” and served as co-chair during the years 1993-2003. Dr. Laine has served as Chair of Technical Committee (TC-BIIP) on Biomedical Imaging and Image Processing for IEEE EMBS 2004-2009 and has been a member of the TC of IEEE Signal Processing Society, TC-BISP (Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing) 2003-present. Professor Laine served on the IEEE ISBI (International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging) steering committee, 2006-2009 and 2009 – 2012. He was the Program Chair for the IEEE EMBS annual conference in 2006 held in New York City and served as Program Co-Chair for IEEE ISBI in 2008 (Paris, France). He served as Area Editor for IEEE Reviews in BME in Biomedical Imaging since 2007-2013. He was Program Chair for the EMBS annual conference for 2011 (Boston, MA). Professor Laine Chaired the Steering committee for IEEE ISBI, 2011-2013, and Chaired the Council of Societies for AIMBE (American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers). He was the General Co-Chair for IEEE ISBI in 2022. Finally, he served as the IEEE EMBS Vice President of Publications 2008 – 2012 and was the President of IEEE EMBS (Engineering in Biology and Medicine Society) 2015 and 2016. He currently serves as the Chair of the Membership Committee for IAMBE (International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineers). He is a Fellow of IEEE, AIMBE and IFMBE.
John Allen, PhD.
Biography
John Allen is the Founder and President of Product Safety Consulting. The company is in its 36th year. Over the last 38 years John has obtained worldwide Certifications on a diverse list of product categories including lighting, consumer electronics, small and large electrics, medical, laboratory, industrial controls, machinery, gas appliances, Robotics, ITE, New and Innovative and many more. John also has been doing Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessments for over 15 years and serves as a senior advisor on product safety to a number of global companies. John is also deeply involved in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Product Safety Engineering Society (PSES) since 1985. He is Past Chair of the PSES Chicago Chapter, past Chair for the PSES’s flagship Symposium ISPCE 2015, has held various positions on the Board of Governors including a term as President (2017-2019) and President again 2024-2025. John created and developed Compliance 101 and is and Chairman of the Compliance 101 Technical Committee. The Mission of the IEEE’s PSES is to transfer knowledge to Designers and Compliance Engineers and make it easy to understand. John often speaks on Certifications to various Trade Associations and Chamber of Commerce and various IEEE Conferences.
Gustavo Giannattasio, Eng.
Biography
Fil dr Arnold Pears
Arnold Pears, Eng.
Biography
Juan Manuel Ramirez-Cortes , PhD.
Biography
Juan Manuel Ramirez-Cortes received the B.Sc. degree from the National Polytechnic Institute, Mexico, the M.Sc. degree from the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics (INAOE), Mexico, and the Ph.D. from Texas Tech University, all in electrical engineering. From 1982 to 2007 he was with University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico, in several academic and administrative roles as faculty member, Department Chair, Dean of the Engineering School, and Academic Secretary. Since 2007 he has been at INAOE, Puebla, Mexico, where he has served as Electronics Department Chair, Research Director, and currently Titular Researcher at the Electronics Department. Dr. Ramirez is an appointed member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, and he is currently serving as Society President for the period 2023-2024. He is member of the Mexican National Research System CONACYT, level 2. His research interests include signal and image processing, biometry, instrumentation, digital systems, and computational intelligence techniques.
MARTIN JESPER LARSSON , PhD.
Biography
MARTIN JESPER LARSSON
Degrees:
Doctorado en Antropología Social, University of Manchester.
Maestría en Antropología Social, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social.
Licenciatura en Derecho, Stockholms Universitet.
Areas of interest:
antropología de los negocios, antropología aplicada, desarrollo sustentable, estudios de ciencia y tecnología, antropología visual.
My work revolves around economic, social and environmental development in public and private spheres, which includes various discussions on cultural aspects of the negotiation, formulation, implementation and evaluation of projects and labor processes, as well as discussions on their political, economic and social contexts.
For my research, anthropological reflexivity and the use of different kinds of (audio)visual methods is very important.
ISRAEL CEDILLO LAZCANO , PhD.
Biography
Degrees:
Doctorado en Derecho, The University of Edinburgh.
Maestría en Gobernanza y Globalización, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla.
Maestría en Estudios Antropológicos de México, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla.
Licenciatura en Derecho, Universidad de las Américas, Puebla.
MIEMBRO DEL SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INVESTIGADORES (SNI) Candidato
Areas of interest:
propiedad intelectual, derecho bancario, inteligencia artificial, fintech, comercio electronico
FRANCISCO GABRIEL RODRIGUEZ GONZALEZ , PhD.
Biography
FRANCISCO GABRIEL RODRIGUEZ GONZALEZ
Degrees:
Doctorado en Ciencias Administrativas, EGADE Business School Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Maestría en Administración y Dirección de Empresas, EGADE Business School Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Licenciatura en Administración, Universidad del Valle de México Campus Tlalpan.
MIEMBRO DEL SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INVESTIGADORES (SNI) Candidato
Areas of interest:
kaizen, mejora continua, operaciones, industria 4.0, calidad
EDWIN GONZALEZ MEZA, PhD.
Biography
EDWIN GONZALEZ MEZA
Degrees:
Maestría en Arquitectura, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Doctorado en Construcción y Tecnologías Arquitectónicas, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
Maestría en Tecnologías de la Arquitectura, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla .
Licenciatura en Arquitectura, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
MIEMBRO DEL SISTEMA NACIONAL DE INVESTIGADORES (SNI) Nivel 1
Areas of interest:
parametricismo, estructuras ligeras, diseño computacional, fabricación digital, inteligencia artificial.
LAURA HELENA PORRAS HERNÁNDEZ, PhD.
Biography
LAURA HELENA PORRAS HERNÁNDEZ
Degrees:
Doctorado en Tecnología Educativa, Concordia University .
Maestría en Tecnología Educativa, Concordia University
Licenciado en Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad de las Américas Puebla.
Areas of interest:
tecnología educativa, comunidades virtuales, procesos cognoscitivos y afectivos, desarrollo de recursos humanos, integración de la tecnología a la práctica docente
Manuel Delgado-Restituto PhD.
Biography
Manuel Delgado-Restituto (Senior Member, IEEE) received the M.S. degree in physics and the Ph.D. degree (with honors) on physics-electronics from the University of Seville, Seville, Spain, in 1988 and 1996, respectively. He is a Senior Researcher with the Microelectronics Institute of Seville, Spain, where he currently heads a research group on low-power medical microelectronics and works in the implementation of silicon microsystems to understanding biological neural systems, the development of neural prostheses and brain-machine interfaces, the design of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) transceivers and the realization of RFID transponders with biomedical sensing capabilities.
He has coauthored two books, more than 20 chapters in contributed books, and about 200 articles in peer-review specialized publications. From 2006 to 2007, he was an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-II: Express Briefs and from 2008 to 2011, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems-I: Regular Papers. From 2011 to 2013, he was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief and from 2014 to 2015, the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems. He has served as general co-chair or technical program co-chair at different IEEE and SPIE international conferences, including general co-chair of ISCAS 2020 and technical program co-chair of ISCAS 2022. From 2016 to 2018, he was vice president for publications of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, where he also served as president-elect (from 2020 to 2021) and president (from 2022 to 2023).
Fernando Guarín, PhD.
Biography
Dr. Fernando Guarín is an IEEE Lifetime Fellow, Senior Past President of EDS, Chair of IEEE’s Smart Village (ISV) Board of Governors and Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Electron Device Society since 2005. He has served EDS in many capacities including Chapter Chair for Mid-Hudson Valley, member of the IEEE’s EDS Board of governors, Chair of the EDS Education Committee, and Secretary for EDS. Dr. Guarin was the EDS President 2018-2019. He earned his BSEE from the “Pontificia Universidad Javeriana”, in Bogotá, Colombia, the M.S.E.E. degree from the University of Arizona, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University, NY. Over the span of his career, he made several key contributions to semiconductor reliability and physics-based aging models.
Dr. Fernando Guarin worked in the semiconductor industry as individual contributor and team leader for over 42 years. From 1980 until 1988 he worked in the Military and Aerospace Operations division of National Semiconductor Corporation. In 1988 he joined IBM’s microelectronics division where he worked in the reliability physics and modeling of Advanced Bipolar, CMOS and Silicon Germanium BiCMOS technologies. In 2015 he retired from IBM’s Semiconductor Division at the Senior Member of Technical Staff level. Most recently he was the leader of the team qualifying GlobalFoundries RF 5G technology offerings. He retired in July 2022 as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff from Global Foundries, New York where he led the reliability teams responsible for the qualification of 5G and SiGe technologies.
Victor Grimblatt, PhD.
Biography
Victor Grimblatt has an engineering diploma in microelectronics from Institut Nationale Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG – France) and an electronic engineering diploma from Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria (Chile). He got his PhD on Electronics in 2021 from University of Bordeaux. He is currently R&D Group Director and General Manager of Synopsys Chile.
He has published several papers in IoT, EDA, Smart Agriculture and embedded systems development.
Since 2012 he is chair of the IEEE Chilean chapter of the CASS. He has been part of several conferences TCP (ISCAS, ICECS, LASCAS) and Steering Committees. He is member of the IEEE CASS Board of
Governors for the period 2021 – 2023. He founded the Electronics for Agrifood SIG at CASS and chairs it.
He was Chair of LASCAS Steering Committee from 2018 to 2022. He is CASS representative at the IEEE Climate Change TAB.
He was President of the Chilean Electronic and Electrical Industry Association (AIE) from 2017 to 2021.
From 2006 to 2008 he was member of the “Chilean Offshoring Committee” organized by the Minister of Economy of Chile.
In 2010 he was awarded as “Innovator of the Year in Services Export”. In 2022 he was awarded as “IEEE/AIE Best Engineer” in Chile. In 2023 he was awarded as IEEE R9 Outstanding Engineer”
Victor’s research areas are EDA (Electronic Design Automation), Climate Change, and Smart Agriculture
Kamal Al-Haddad, PhD.
Biography
Kamal Al-Haddad (S’82-M’88-SM’92-F’07, LF’20) received the B.Sc.A. and M.Sc.A. degrees from the University of Québec à Trois-Rivières, Canada, in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute National Polytechnique, Toulouse, France, in 1988. Since June 1990, he has been a Professor with the Electrical Engineering Department, École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS), Montreal, QC, Canada where he has been the holder of the senior Canada Research Chair in Electric Energy Conversion and Power Electronics since 2002. He is a Consultant and has established very solid link with many Canadian and international industries working in the field of power electronics, electric transportation, aeronautics, and telecommunications. He successfully transferred and implemented dozens of technologies to Canadian and international compagnies. His fields of interest are in highly efficient static power converters, harmonics and reactive power control using hybrid filters, voltage level multiplier, resonant and multilevel converters including the modeling, control, and development of prototypes for various industrial applications in electric traction, renewable energy, power supplies for drives, telecommunication, etc. Prof. Al-Haddad is a member of the Academy of Sciences and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a fellow member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is IEEE IES President 2016-2017, Associate editor of the Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IES Distinguished Lecturer and recipient of the 2014 IEEE IES Dr.-Ing. Eugene Mittelmann Achievement Award. He has been elected the IEEE 2023-2024 division VI director. Professor Al-Haddad is the recipient of the 2023 IEEE Medal in Power Engineering.
Alan Chong, PhD.
Biography
Alan Chong is an Associate Professor Teaching, in the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP) and the Director of the Engineering Communication Program at the University of Toronto, where he has taught undergraduate students across all disciplines for over 20 years. His teaching practice is informed by the belief that strong and clear communication underlies successful engineering and technological practices, and that communication instruction must be deeply embedded within specific engineering disciplinary contexts. Reflecting this belief, his teaching and research focuses on best practices for integrating discipline specific communication instruction into core engineering curricula. Additionally, he examines studies prominent failures in communication to the non-experts and the public about science, using them as teaching cases in his courses on Science Communication. Currently, his research focuses on the role that Generative AI can play in student and industry communication practices, and the challenges and opportunities the technology presents to student learning. He also currently serves as the President of the IEEE Professional Communication Society, and is a Fellow of the Canadian Engineering Education Association.