With my research group at Rutgers University (2016)
ATHINAPETROPULU
Candidate for IEEE Signal Processing Society President-Elect
Building a mindshare of Signal Processing as the innovation engine of Science and Engineering
Voting ends October 1st, 2019
About Me
I am Distinguished Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department, Rutgers University, Piscataway NJ, USA. I received my undergraduate degree from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Northeastern University, Boston MA, USA. During 2010-2016, I was chair of the ECE Department at Rutgers and prior to that, faculty at Drexel University, Philadelphia PA, USA. I have held Visiting Scholar appointments at SUPELEC, Universite’ Paris Sud, France, and the University of Southern California, and since 2017 I am Visiting Research Collaborator at Princeton University.
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Talk at the centennial of the ECE School of the National Technical University of Athens, Greece (2017)
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Tour of the Great Wall, following a plenary talk at the 2018 IEEE Int. Conference on Signal Processing (ICSP), Beijing, China
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Co-Chair (with C. Papadias) of 2018 IEEE SPAWC, Kalamata, Greece
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With the 2018 SPAWC organizing committee
My research interests span statistical signal processing, wireless communications, networking, physical layer security, radar signal processing and bioengineering. I am co-author (with C.L. Nikias) of the book “Higher-Order Spectra Analysis,” published by Prentice Hall. I have published over 350 journal and refereed conference proceedings papers.
HONORS/RECOGNITION
• 2018 AAAS Fellow
• 2019-2020 Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Aerospace & Electronics Systems Society
• 2017-2018 IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the Signal Processing Society
• 2017 Diversity Award by the ECE Department Heads Association (ECEDHA)
• 2012 Great Master, University of Electronics Science and Technology (UESTC), Chengdu, China
• 2012 IEEE Signal Processing Society Meritorious Service Award for exemplary service in technical leadership capacities"
• 2013 Leadership Award, ECE Rutgers
• 2008 IEEE Fellow
• 2005 IEEE Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award
• 1995 Presidential Faculty Fellow (PFF), given by the National Science Foundation and the US White House
IEEE ACTIVITIES
• Member-at-large of IEEE SPS Board of Governors (2004-2005) and (2018-2020)
• Special sessions co-chair, 2020 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Barcelona Spain
• General co-Chair of 2018 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC), Kalamata, Greece
Highlights: SPAWC 2018 introduced an innovative structure, offering immersion to a number of emerging topics at varying degrees of detail. SPAWC 2018 also offered an industrial program, which explored synergies between industry and the workshop themes. SPAWC 2018 had significant public outreach and extensive media coverage.
• Member of the IEEE SPS Fellow Reference Committee (2012-2014)
• Editor-In-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing (TSP) (2009-2011)
• IEEE Signal Processing Society Vice President-Conferences (2006-2008)
Highlights: As chair of SPS Conference Board, I led a broad range of conference activities and policy development. I led the board to approve an initiative and pilots to provide travel grants to ICASSP and ICIP conferences, assisting students and authors from under-developed regions to attend SPS flagship conferences. My effort served as a foundation for the SPS Conference Travel Grant program. I was instrumental in nurturing conference proposals to bring ICASSP to Eastern Europe (Prague 2011), ensuring successful organization of the first ICIP in Africa (Cairo 2009), and encouraging the outreach of SPS conference activities to under-represented regions.
• General Chair of 2005 IEEE ICASSP , Philadelphia PA (attendance: 2,100)
Highlights: ICASSP 2005 introduced a student paper competition, travel grants for students, and a panel on “Women in Signal Processing.” We also brought to the conference a group of 25 female students with their teachers and gave them specially designed talks and demos on SP.
OTHER LEADERSHIP ROLES
• Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Rutgers University (2010-2016)
• President of ECE Department Heads Association (ECEDHA); ECEDHA membership includes 200 ECE chairs from the US and Canada
• Director of the iREDEFINE project, targeting at improving the diversity of faculty in Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments in the US
Statement
It is an honor for me to be a candidate for the position of IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) President-Elect. In addition to meeting the expectations of the position as described by the SPS guidelines, I will put forward initiatives to support the following vision.
Signal Processing and the talent pool
Signal processing (SP) is the brain of most technologies that have changed the course of history, e.g., the wireless phone, radars, virtual reality, robotics, video streaming, just to name a few. It is in the core of tools that have revolutionized our understanding of the world, such as data analytics, data modeling, machine learning. It is the key enabler in the emerging areas of smart and sustainable cities, biologically inspired systems, e-health, cybersecurity, quantum and other new forms of computing, self-driving vehicles, and advanced manufacturing.
While all of us already in signal processing are well aware of the role SP has played and continues to play, the general public cannot easily relate to SP; they either ignore it completely or perceive it as something esoteric. A typical school teacher, for example, has a very vague idea what SP is, thus they are not in a position to get the students thinking about pursuing SP related studies. This in turn means that SP does not tap in all available talent.
On building a mindshare of Signal Processing as the innovation engine of Science and Engineering
IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) is the organization that raises the visibility of SP, acts as a spokesperson of the IEEE SPS community around the world, and sets the vision for the developments in that field. As President-Elect, I will work towards building a mindshare of Signal Processing as an innovation engine of the science and engineering. Together with SPS officers and members we will promote that vision with activities that include social media postings, articles and talks for the non-technical public, student workshops, competitions, as well as summer camps organized by regional chapters and targeting pre-college student audiences. We will create materials for high school educators written so that they are accessible to pre-college students. We will add a public outreach component to our conferences in the form of press releases and sessions that bring together SP experts with the media and the non-technical public. We will keep our conferences and publications affordable and accessible to researchers from developing countries. We will create a structure within the SPS Technical Committees for coming up with white papers on ideas that will be the next hottest trend in the field. We will introduce officers who will advocate the SPS interests to policy makers and organizations that fund research.
Emphasizing on quality and inclusion
We will build on the excellence of SPS publications but also explore new ways to make them the most prestigious and timely venue for researchers and practitioners to submit their work. We will restructure our conferences to engage industry in a meaningful way and foster greater interactions between academics and practitioners.
We will strive to create a welcoming environment for women and other groups that have traditionally experienced bias in our field, so that we can tap into a vast pool of talent that has largely avoided SP. Some countries have been particularly successful in engaging women and traditionally underrepresented minorities to the field. SPS can be the platform where best practices can be expanded at global scale.
News
The IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) annual election will commence on August 15 and end at 12:00 pm Eastern Time (16:00 UTC) on October 1st, 2019. On August 15, members will receive information on how to access their ballot electronically.
One can access information about the candidates on the IEEE Annual Election website.
