GUNTHER

The history of the IEEE(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and its predecessors, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers reflect the electrical industry as we know from its birth. Thomas Edison gave us the electric lamp (1879), Nikola Tesla gave us AC(alternating current for motors and transmission of electricity) in 1887, and Guglielmo Marconi wireless in 1901. These pioneers of “things electrical and wireless “ gave us the world of today and created the IEEE and its predecessors to further explore, implement, and standardize to make it available for us all, globally.

I will focus in this presentation on the birth of the Communication Society as we know it as

COMSOC which I personally helped found in 1962 then known as the IRE Professional

Technical Group on Communications (PTGCS) that became COMSOC, the IEEE Communication Society. That is, who we were, what we were doing during its founding year, 1962, and how it changed the way we today live over the years. COMSOC evolved into creating new ways to communicate on earth and space as well as standardizing the means of communication so we all can communicate with each other, regardless of which company makes the equipment and this is global. Literally, we live with what it created, live every day by it, and evolve forward into the future driven by it.

Biography:

Gunther Karger- Author, speaker, Cyber Columnist and Aerospace Engineer

Gunther Karger, born in 1933 was sent out of Germany in 1939 as a six-year-old boy to Sweden to escape the Holocaust to which he lost his entire family. He survived two foster homes and one orphanage in Sweden then sent to the USA alone and penniless as a 13-year-old war orphan to live in two more foster homes. He graduated from High School, received his BSEE from LSU, and attended further educational programs at the University of Illinois, and graduate courses at Bell Laboratories. Further. He graduated with an MBA from the Alexander Hamilton Institute and multiple financial and investment courses receiving the highest Wall Street accreditations.

Gunther is a multi-disciplinary engineer and a futurist who participated in the creation and evolution of communications over the past half century including open access networks such as the Internet, cellular networks, and intelligence systems. He was the communications engineer and project manager in a special assignment in President John f. Kennedy’s National Security office during the Cold War where he created AFSACS, the Air Force Survivable Airborne Communication System. Gunther was the engineer responsible for the site selection of the Western Union Transcontinental Microwave transmission system(first ever), one of three engineers who developed the first active Communication satellite, Courier 1B.

Gunther Karger served the IEEE in various roles including Professional Groups Coordinator for the Northern New Jersey IRE and later IEEE Section, Editor of the National IRE Professional Technical Group on Communication Systems later becoming the IEEE Technical Group on Communications serving five years. He served as an organizer of the National Communications Symposium which eventually became COMSOC. He also served as IEEE Section Chairman at Cape Canaveral during the Apollo Moon project where he was responsible for the range and space communications planning and was inducted as a Space Pioneer and Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society. Gunther Karger became an executive of a major airline as project manager of the industry’s effort to create V’STOL and STOL aircraft, transferred his knowledge of communication network topology to the creation of a revenue forecasting model and system which he managed for 15 years as director (Eastern Airlines). Gunther Karger, with his wife, Shirley, founded the Discovery Letter, a nationally circulated investment advisory report focused on emerging companies in the communications sector and lectured at investment conferences including Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas, and served as a lecturer aboard major cruise ships in recent years.

He is the author of the books “Thieves on Wall Street”, “Wall Street Fraud” and “My Life-Rising from the Ashes of the Holocaust and Global Society Rising”. Gunther Karger is a Life Senior Member of IEEE, Professional Member of Eta Kappa Nu, and Member for Life of Missile, Range, and Space Pioneers( the people who created America’s space program).

Gunther Karger served in the Air Force during the Korean War 1951-55 President of South Florida Business Economists Association Adviser to the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) 2008-2012 Five-term president of a Miami area civic association Named Outstanding Young Man of America 1967. Gunther Karger is a Holocaust Survivor and is known as a futurist. gunther@ieee.org

Address:United States

MATHINI of Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K.

Biography:

Dr. Mathini Sellathurai, IEEE Fellow, Prof & Dean Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K  

Dr. Mathini Sellathurai is a professor of signal processing and wireless communications and Dean of Science and Engineering at  Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. She has been active in signal processing research for the past 20 years and has a strong international track record in wireless communications. She held visiting positions with Bell-Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, USA, and at the Canadian Communications Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in leading international journals and conferences, given invited talks, and has written several book chapters as well as two research monographs. Her present research includes machine learning and statistical signal processing techniques applied to wireless communications, radar, assistive care, robotics, and hearing aids. She is a recipient of an IEEE Communication Society Fred W. Ellersick Best Paper Award (2005), the Industry Canada Public Service Awards for contributions to Science and Technology (2005), and Awards for contributions to Technology Transfers to Industry (2004). She received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Doctoral Award for her Ph.D. dissertation in 2002. She was an Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING from 2009 to 2014, and from 2015 to 2018, the General Chair of IEEE Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (2016) in Edinburgh, and a member of the IEEE SPCOM Technical Strategy Committee from 2014 to 2019.   Presently, she is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK, for Information and Communications Technologies.  

JENNIFER

Wireless communication technologies have been widely used in our daily lives. Due to its high
capacity and low cost, wireless networks are deployed in various public and private places. The
wireless nature allows numerous mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, smart appliances, and the
Internet of Things) to connect to each other and even to the world through the Internet without
restrictions. In addition to their widespread usage of communication, we find that commercial WiFi
can be exploited as a useful sensing modality. The widespread availability, cost-effectiveness, and
non-intrusive nature of WiFi enable contactless sensing, providing a versatile and unobtrusive
solution for innovative health monitoring and promoting well-being in nonclinical settings. This talk
will first introduce our WiFi-based activity recognition system, which is one of the few works that
first exploited Channel State Information (CSI) measurements from existing WiFi infrastructure for
activity recognition. Along this direction, I will introduce a personalized fitness assistant system that
utilizes CSI of WiFi signals for effective exercise monitoring and assessment at a relatively coarse-
grained level. The system leverages CSI to provide workout statistics and dynamic evaluations. A
Deep Neural Network (DNN) model is employed for workout recognition and individual
identification tasks. The study investigates the impact of factors such as the sensitive region between
WiFi transceivers and ambient interference on system performance. Next, I will take a deeper look at
estimating fine-grained vital signs (e.g., breathing rate and heartbeats) during sleep using minute
WiFi signal changes. Our approach demonstrates the feasibility of contactless, continuous, and fine-
grained monitoring of vital signs without any additional cost. We show that vital signs can be
captured using only one AP and a single WiFi device, which can be extended to non-sleep scenarios.
We further show that the system can distinguish different sleep events and track sleep postures to
provide insights into sleep quality. The sensing capability in wireless networks offers convenience
and potential for various mobile sensing application scenarios, benefiting users in maintaining their
healthy daily routines.

Biography:

Dr Yingying (Jennifer) Chen, IEEE Fellow, NAI Fellow, AIAA Fellow, Professor and Department Chair  Rutgers University.

Yingying (Jennifer) Chen is a Professor and Department Chair of Electrical and Computer
Engineering (ECE) and Peter Cherasia Endowed Faculty Scholar at Rutgers University. She is the
Associate Director of Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB). She also leads the Data
Analysis and Information Security (DAISY) Lab. She is a Fellow of IEEE and a Fellow of National
Academy of Inventors (NAI). She is also an ACM Distinguished Member. Her research interests
include Applied Machine Learning in Mobile Computing and Sensing, Internet of Things (IoT),
Security in AI/ML Systems, Smart Healthcare, and Deep Learning on Mobile Systems. She is a
pioneer in RF/WiFi sensing, location systems, and mobile security. Before joining Rutgers, she was a
tenured professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and had extensive industry experiences at Nokia
(previously Lucent Technologies). She has published 3 books, 4 book chapters and 240+ journal
articles and refereed conference papers. She is the recipient of seven Best Paper Awards in top ACM
and IEEE conferences. She is the recipient of NSF CAREER Award and Google Faculty Research
Award. She received NJ Inventors Hall of Fame Innovator Award and is also the recipient of IEEE
Region 1 Technological Innovation in Academic Award. Her research has been supported by many
funding agencies including NSF, NIH, ARO, DoD and AFRL and reported in numerous media
outlets including MIT Technology Review, CNN, Fox News Channel, Wall Street Journal, National
Public Radio and IEEE Spectrum. She has been serving/served on the editorial boards of IEEE
Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

(TWireless), IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN) and ACM Transactions on Privacy and
Security (TOPS). For more information, please refer to her homepage at:
http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/ .

Technically Speaking, Inc

Women have contributed to telecommunications and its underlying technology in many ways. Pioneers who laid the foundation for computer technology that has facilitated the efficiency and usability of telecommunications as we know it today include Ada Byron Lovelace and Admiral Grace Murray Hopper. Seminal accomplishments in wireless technologies were made by Mary Texanna Loomis, Hedy Lamarr, Joan Curran, Erna Schneider Hoover, Anita Longley, Yvonne Brill, Gladys West, Martine Rothblatt, Arlene Joy Harris, and Andrea Goldsmith. Each woman’s accomplishments will be described and then perspective will be provided on how their contributions provided service to humanity in the context of the United Nation goals.

Biography:

SPEAKERS:  Jill Tietjen, PE, Fellow SWE, and Margaret J. Lyons, P.E., Fellow SWE, Technically Speaking, Inc., Colorado

Jill S. Tietjen, PE, is an author, international speaker, and electrical engineer. After more than 45 years in the electric utility industry, her professional focus is now on women’s advocacy, worldwide. She speaks internationally on the accomplishments of women, nominates women for awards, and continues to write books (14 published to date). Tietjen serves as the series editor for the Springer Women in Engineering and Science series. She has been inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame, and the National Academy of Construction. Tietjen is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

She is a Fellow and Life Member of the Society of Women Engineers and was its President in 1991-1992. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and a registered professional engineer in Colorado.

Margaret J. Lyons, P.E., has more than 30 years of experience in wireless communications, including two-way radio, paging, and microwave radio systems engineering and consulting. She spent her career at RCC Consultants, Inc. There her early work included supporting the RF engineers as well as programming and IT support for the nascent computer systems in the engineering department. Over the course of her career, Lyons provided systems engineering design and implementation services for analog and digital paging, Itinerant Mobile Telephone Service (IMTs, the US precursor to cellular systems), cellular telephone/data systems (1G through 5G), conventional single frequency repeater systems, and complex private multi-channel trunked radio systems across the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Her support to these industries continued through employment with V-COMM L.L.C. and Jacobs, until her retirement in 2021.

Lyons is a Fellow and Life Member of the Society of Women Engineers and has served on its Board of Directors. She is a Senior Member of IEEE. She earned her BS in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and is registered as a professional engineer in seven states.

Victor of Bell Labs / Stevens Institute of Technology

To be provided later

Biography:

Dr Victor B. Lawrence, IEEE Fellow, Stevens Institute of Technology

 Dr Victor Lawrence has improved transmission for the modern Internet, made high-speed connections more available, and stimulated the growth of the global Internet. His work has advanced data encoding and transmission, modem technology, silicon chip design, ATM switching and protocols, DSL, speech and audio coding, and digital video.

Lawrence spent much of his career at Bell Laboratories where he manipulated data for faster and more reliable travel over telephone lines. He streamlined signal travel while using less bandwidth, and his chipsets formed the heart of voice-band modems and DSL technologies which both use telephone lines. Lawrence was the lead engineer of AT&T's 2.4kbps full duplex modem, and his innovations pushed modems to 56kbps. Lawrence helped turn the Internet into a global industry useful for more than simple text-based functions. He developed methods of including more information in a signal, facilitating the introduction of digital video and radio, and worked in the development of high-definition and digital television.

Born in Ghana, Lawrence received B.Sc., DIC, and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of London. Lawrence is now on the faculty of Stevens Institute of Technology. An advocate of bringing Internet access to the world's poorest countries, Lawrence has spearheaded efforts to lay high-capacity fiber optic cable along the west coast of Africa.

Tim

Will cover the key conferences organized under the banner of ComSoc.

Biography:

Tim Weil, ISO 27001 CSMA/Auditor/Trainer, SecurityFeeds LL, Colorado

Tim Weil worked for twenty-five years earlier in the Washington DC area providing network engineering, program management, and information security compliance for federal agencies and international companies. Since returning to Colorado in 2010 he has worked as an Information Security Manager for the US Antarctic Program and US Department of Interior. Recently he established an ISO 27001 line of business for multiple companies and provided ISO 27001 training and auditing to commercial clients. He earned a BA in Sociology from Immaculate Heart College (1976) and taught in Los Angeles public schools. He later completed undergraduate studies in Computer Science at California State University Chico (1986) and earned an MSc in Computer Science from John Hopkins University (1990). He is actively involved in Information Security-related research and enjoys mentoring next-generation IEEE members.

Tim has been very active with IEEE sections, and regions taking leadership roles and organizing activities for the OUs. He was General Chair Greentech2013, Section Chair Washington DC (2009), Denver section (2013), and supported ComSoc NAB as VDL coordinator. He was patron chair and advisor for multiple Globecom conferences from 2007-2022 and is the General Chair for ICC 2024. He has been a part of IEEE 1609 Standards Working Group – Wireless Access for Vehicular Environments (member since 2008-10) and Contributor and co-editor of the ANSI Role-Based Access Control Standards (updated in 2011).

Tim was the Section Coordinator for IEEE Milestone History Recognition – "Virginia Smith HVDC Substation" and an Author / Editor of Engineering and Technology History Wiki (ETHW) – 50-Year History of the Washington DC Section.

KIT

Biography:

Dr. Katherine Grace August  (Dr. Kit August): IEEE ComSoc History Committee Vice Chair

Kit received her MS in Computer Science MIS at Marist College Poughkeepsie, NY, and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at NJIT. She was a Whitaker Scholar at ETH Zurich and a Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Labs in Advanced Communications Technologies, active in human factors, accessibility, accommodation, rehabilitation, learning, language, hearing, speech technologies, virtual reality, search, signal processing, wireless, communication technologies, standards, and patents. She has three recent book chapters and an IEEE IC Whitepaper. Google Citations: 3472. 18 US Patents, 50 international Patents.

Besides the  IEEE ComSoc History Committee, she is also involved in  IEEE Humanitarian Technologies Board 2023, Taenzer Grant Ad-Hoc Committee, IEEE SA DIITA Transparent Design for Wellbeing and Accessibility in Technology Workstream and a new Standards PAR P3386 Standard for Defining and Inferring User Accessibility Needs for Applications including Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence Systems, Workgroup P2933 TIPPSS.  With IEEE New Jersey Coast she supports PACE activities and the WIE group.

Host: Dr Zafar Taqvi, Chair R5 History Committee, University of Houston Clear Lake

Co-Host: Dr Sabia Abidi, Chair GBS WIE Committee, Rice University

Biography:

Co-Host: Dr Sabia Abidi, Ph.D.

Rice University, Houston, TX

sza2@rice.edu

Dr Sabia Abidi is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the bioengineering department at Rice University and has taught courses in Systems Physiology, Troubleshooting of Clinical Lab equipment, and Senior Design. She has a doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. Her investigations utilized in vitro 3-D polymer scaffolds and notch ligand functionalized microbeads to scale up the production of T cells for therapeutic use. She also completed postdoctoral research at NYU School of Medicine utilizing microbiological techniques for malaria research to characterize a unique Plasmodium phenotype – a triggering of parasite death at high densities. Before her appointment at Rice,  Dr Abidi worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT where she researched using microfluidics for the diagnosis and treatment of red blood cell-related diseases. She has 10 journal publications and 3 patent applications and has been awarded funding from NASA, Brown Foundation, and Kern Family Foundation to pursue teaching-based initiatives. She is committed to mentorship and STEM outreach through IEEE WIE, Big Brother/Big Sister, and serving as a judge for Rice-related and Future City competitions.

Host: Dr Zafar Taqvi, z.taqvi@ieee.org

Zafar Taqvi, BSc & MSc(Tech) Allahabad University, Ph.D. (EE-U of H)- is an Adjunct Engineering Faculty/Research Fellow at the University of Houston Clear Lake and a consultant in engineering analysis. Dr Taqvi has worked for the aerospace industry at NASA Johnson Space Center for 41 years, developing requirements and specifications, trade analysis, testing, evaluation, integration, and verification of advanced communication systems for space projects (space shuttle, International Space Station) in various positions. He was also the wrist manager of the Boeing Multi-use Remote Manipulator System (MRMS) project for NASA/Johnson Space Center.

He concurrently taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Houston System for 39 years. Dr Taqvi has held various local, national, and international volunteer positions with IEEE, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aeronautics (AIAA), the International Society of Automation (ISA), and Clear Lake Council of Technical Societies (CLCTS). His leadership role in pursuing and enhancing the professional objectives of the institute, not only earned him the Outstanding Member Award by the IEEE region but also twice to his section as the Outstanding Small Section Award internationally by IEEE/MGA.

He received the Donald Beckman Education Award and Distinguished Service award from ISA, and the Third Millennium Award & Medal and Regional Professional Leadership Award twice by IEEE. He was ISA’s Director of the Robotics and Expert Systems Division, Director Telemetry Division, V/P Automation and Technology, and Chairman A&T Advisory Board, and IEEE’s Aerospace Society Board member and Director of International Operations. He was a member of the IEEE Communication Society North American Region (NAR) Board and NAR Distinguished Speaker Coordinator, Past chair, and Treasurer of Galveston Bay Section. He also chaired the Ethics Committee on IEEE EMBS. Currently, he is the chair of the IEEE Region 5 History Committee. He chairs the IMEKO Technical Committee on Measurement on Robotics (TC17) and is a member of the Supervisory Committee of the  Confederation (IMEKO).

Dr Taqvi is a Life Fellow of ISA, an Associate Fellow of AIAA, a Life Senior member of IEEE, and is a member of five honor societies- Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. He is also a Distinguished Toastmaster and a past District Lt Governor of Toastmasters International District 56.