Ian F. Akyildiz
Georgia Institute of Technology
Biography: F. Akyildiz is the Ken Byers Chair Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Fellow, and received numerous other awards from IEEE, ACM, and several universities around the world. He is one of the most influential scientists in wireless communications and is the founder of the fields of nanocomputation and nanocommunications. His papers have received close to 100k citations and his h-index is 108 as of December 2017.
His current research interests are in Nano-Scale Communications, 5G Cellular Systems, Software Defined Networking and Wireless Sensor Networks in Challenged Environments.
Ian F. Akyildiz received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981 and 1984, respectively. Currently, he is the Ken Byers Chair Professor in Telecommunication and the Chair of the Telecommunications Group with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Director of the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory.
Since 2013, Dr. Akyildiz is a FiDiPro Professor (Finland Distinguished Professor Program (FiDiPro) supported by the Academy of Finland) at Tampere University of Technology (TUT), Department of Communications Engineering, Finland, and the founder of the NCC (Nano Communications Center).
Since 2008, Dr. Akyildiz is an Honorary Professor with the School of Electrical Engineering - Telecom BCN at Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, and the founder of the N3Cat (NaNoNetworking Center in Catalunya).
Since 2011, he is also a Consulting Chair Professor with the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Between 2009 and 2012, he was an Honorary Professor with the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and the founder of the Advanced Sensor Networks Lab.
He has held visiting professorships at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI), Ecole Nationale Superieure Telecommunications in Paris, France, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain, and Universitat Illes Baleares, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
He is the Editor-in-Chief of Computer Networks (Elsevier) Journal since 2000, the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Ad Hoc Networks Journal (Elsevier) in 2003, the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Physical Communication (PHYCOM) Journal (Elsevier) in 2008, and the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Nano Communication Networks (NANOCOMNET) Journal (Elsevier) in 2010.
He is a past editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (1996-2001), Kluwer Journal of Cluster Computing (1997-2001), ACM-Springer Journal for Multimedia Systems (1995-2002), IEEE Transactions on Computers (1992-1996) and ACM-Springer Journal of Wireless Networks (WINET) (1995-2005).
He guest-edited several special issues for various journals between 1988-2001. He was the technical program chair of the "9th IEEE Computer Communications" workshop in 1994, for ACM MOBICOM'96 (Mobile Computing and Networking) conference, IEEE INFOCOM'98 (Computer Networking Conference), as well as IEEE ICC'2003 (International Conference on Communications). He was the General Chair for the premier conference in wireless networking, ACM MOBICOM 2002. He was the Co-Founder and General Co-Chair of the ACM SenSys (Sensor Systems) Conference in Los Angeles, November 2003. He was the General Chair of the Third Med Hoc (Mediterrenean Conference on Ad Hoc Networks), in Bodrum, Turkey, June 2004 and the General Chair of the IFIP Networking'07 Conference in Atlanta, May 2007.
Dr. Akyildiz serves on the advisory boards of several research centers, journals, conferences and publication companies.
He is the author of an advanced textbook on "Wireless Mesh Networks" published by John Wiley and Sons in February 2009.
He is the author of an advanced textbook on "Wireless Sensor Networks" published by John Wiley and Sons in August 2010.
Dr. Akyildiz is an IEEE FELLOW (1996) with the citation: "For contributions to performance analysis of computer communication networks".
Dr. Akyildiz is an ACM FELLOW (1997) with the citation: "For fundamental research contributions in: finite capacity queueing network models; performance evaluation of Time Warp parallel simulations; traffic control in ATM networks, and mobility management in wireless networks".
He also received the following awards:
"Don Federico Santa Maria Medal" for his services to the Universidad of Federico Santa Maria in Chile in 1986.
Served as a National Lecturer for ACM from 1989 until 1998 and received the ACM Outstanding Distinguished Lecturer Award for 1994.
1997 IEEE Leonard G. Abraham Prize award (IEEE Communications Society) for his paper entitled "Multimedia Group Synchronization Protocols for Integrated Services Architectures" published in the IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC) in January 1996.
2002 IEEE Harry M. Goode Memorial award (IEEE Computer Society) with the citation "for significant and pioneering contributions to advanced architectures and protocols for wireless and satellite networking".
2003 Best Tutorial Paper Award (IEEE Communications Society) for this paper entitled "A Survey on Sensor Networks" published in the IEEE Communications Magazine, August 2002.
2003 ACM SIGMOBILE Outstanding Contribution Award for his "pioneering contributions in the area of mobility and resource management for wireless communication networks", September 2003.
2004 Georgia Tech Faculty Research Author Award for his "outstanding record of publications of papers between 1999-2003", April 2004.
2005 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award from School of ECE, Georgia Tech, April 2005.
Georgia Tech Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award for his 20+ years service and dedication to Georgia Tech and producing outstanding PhD students.
2009 ECE Distinguished Mentor Award by the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Honors Committee.
Best Paper Award for "Interferer Classification, Channel Selection and Transmission Adaptation for Wireless Sensor Networks" in the Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks (AHSN) symposium at IEEE ICC, in June 2009.
Best Paper Award for "Deployment Algorithms for Wireless Underground Sensor Networks using Magnetic Induction" in the IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom), in December 2010.
2010 IEEE Communications Society Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks Technical Committee (AHSN TC) Technical Recognition Award with the citation: "For pioneering contributions to wireless sensor networks and wireless mesh networks", in December 2010.
2011 IEEE Computer Society W. Wallace McDowell Award for pioneering contributions to wireless sensor network architectures and communication protocols, in May 2011.
2011 TUBITAK (Turkish National Science Foundation) Exclusive Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of scholarship/research at international level.
Humboldt Research Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, November 2013.
ACM MSWIM Reginald A. Fassenden Award with the citation:"For pioneering contributions for modeling and analysis of cellular and multihop wireless communication systems", September 2014.
2017 IEEE ComSoc TCCN Recognition Award by the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks (TCCN) with the citation:"for pioneering contributions to spectrum sensing, spectrum sharing algorithms and communication protocols for cognitive radio networks", December 2017.
His current research interests are in Nanonetworks, 5G Cellular Networks, Software Defined Networking, Terahertz Band Communication, and Underground and Underwater Sensor Networks.
