WICE/ WIE Program

Mathini Sellathurai, PhD (Fellow, IEEE), is a Professor of Signal Processing and Wireless Communications with 25 years of research leadership in AI enabled wireless systems and healthcare technologies. She has held visiting positions at Bell Laboratories (USA) and the Canadian Communications Research Centre. She has published over 250 peer reviewed papers and two research monographs and has received major honours including the IEEE ComSoc WIE Mentorship Award (2022), the Fred W. Ellersick Best Paper Award (2005), and multiple Industry Canada awards. Professor Sellathurai has served as Editor of IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (2009–2018), General Chair of IEEE SPAWC 2016, and as a member of the IEEE History and ComSoc History Committees. She is an Invited Fellow of the Asia Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association and the Women’s Engineering Society (UK).

Baek-Young CHOI is a Professor of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and Computing at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), where she has served since Fall 2025. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Prior to joining Missouri S&T, she served on the faculty at the University of Missouri–Kansas City from 2005 to 2025. She also held positions at Sprint’s Advanced Technology Laboratory and the University of Minnesota Duluth. Her research broadly spans networking and communications, with particular emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), network and cloud systems, and cybersecurity. She has authored five books and published more than 150 papers in leading journals and conferences. Her work has received multiple Best Paper, Best Video, and Best Poster awards. She has delivered keynotes, tutorials, and numerous invited talks, and has served in leadership roles for international conferences and workshops, including general chair and technical program co-chair. Dr. Choi has been a visiting faculty fellow with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and Korea Telecom’s Advanced Institute of Technology (KT-AIT). She has served as an associate editor for several journals, including the IEEE Internet of Things Journal, Computer Networks (Elsevier), Telecommunication Systems (Springer), and IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine.  She currently serves as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine, and a member of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Finance Committee. She is a Senior Member of ACM and IEEE. She previously served as Chair of Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) and the Sister Societies Committee, and as a member of GLOBECOM/ICC Technical Content (GITC) Committee of IEEE ComSoc.

Edith C.H. NGAI is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Hong Kong. Before joining HKU in 2020, she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research interests include Internet-of-Things, edge intelligence, and smart cities. She was a VINNMER Fellow awarded by Swedish Governmental Research Funding Agency VINNOVA in 2009. Her co-authored papers received a Best Paper Award in QShine 2023, Best Paper Runner-Up Awards in IEEE IWQoS 2010 and ACM/IEEE IPSN 2013, and Best paper candidate in ACM BuildSys 2024. She was an Area Editor of IEEE Internet of Things Journal from 2020 to 2022. She is currently an Associate Editor in IEEE Transactions of Mobile Computing, IEEE Network, and Computer Networks. She served as a program chair in ACM womENcourage 2015 and a TPC co-chair in IEEE SmartCity 2015, IEEE GreenCom 2022, IEEE/ACM IWQoS 2024, IEEE CloudCom 2025, and ACM/IEEE SEC 2026. She received a Meta Policy Research Award in Asia Pacific in 2022. She was selected as one of the N²Women Stars in Computer Networking and Communications in 2022. She is a Distinguished Lecturer in IEEE Communication Society in 2023-2024. She is an ACM Distinguished Member in 2025. 

Susana SARGENTO is a Full Professor in the University of Aveiro and a senior researcher in the Instituto de Telecomunicações, where she is leading the Network Architectures and Protocols group. She was a visiting PhD student in Rice University (2000-2001), and a Guest Faculty in Carnegie Mellon University (2008). Susana has been leading and involved in several European projects, CMU and MIT-Portugal projects, and in several PRR agendas on Autonomous Mobility, Space, Two-wheels vehicles, Tourism and different Testbeds. Her main research interests, with more than 500 publications, are in the areas of self-organized networks, Intelligent Transportation Systems, 5G and beyond networks and services, with 2 large-scale communication and sensing platforms, in Porto and Aveiro, with Aveiro TechCity Living Lab. Susana has co-founded a vehicular networking company in 2012, Veniam (www.veniam.com), she is the winner of the 2016 EU Prize for Women Innovators, the winner of Femina 2020 prize in Science, and one of the nominated of Prize ACTIVA Inspiring Women 2021. She was the co-coordinator of the national initiative of digital competences in the research axis INCoDe.2030, belonged to the evaluation committee of the Fundo200M (www.200m.pt), and is one of the Scientific Directors of CMU-Portugal Programme. She regularly acts as an Expert for European Research Programmes. Since June 2024, Susana has been a member of the board of directors of Martifer SA, as an independent member, and since July 2024 she has been appointed as President of the Scientific Council of the Instituto de Telecomunicações.

Aliye Özge KAYA is a Senior Research Scientist and Distinguished Member of Technical Staff with Nokia Bell Labs. She received the B.Sc. and Dipl-Ing. degrees in electrical and information technology engineering from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the Wireless Information Networks Laboratory (WINLAB), Rutgers University, NJ, New Brunswick, USA and the M.B.A. degree from the Columbia Business School. Her current research interests include applying artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to wireless communications systems. She holds eleven granted patents.