Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Prof. Balaji Ramakrishnan

Director NIOT & Professor, Indian Institute of

Technology Bombay, INDIA

Dr.Balaji Ramakrishnan received his Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University, and his Master's and Ph.D. in Ocean Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. He is currently on deputation as the Director of the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, and is a Full Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Bombay. Previous stays include Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Technology Calicut, and Senior Coastal/Port Engineer at Sogreah Consultants in Dubai/UAE, where he worked on major waterfront development projects across the Middle East and Asia.

He is a recognized expert in ocean, coastal, port, and harbor engineering, with active research interests in the dynamics of waves, tides, and currents, as well as the repair and rehabilitation of marine structures. He has authored 120+ publications and has served as a Principal Investigator in numerous government-sponsored research projects for the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and the Ministry of Shipping.

His numerous honors and awards include the Professor S.P. Sukhatme Excellence in Teaching Award (2024), the Distinguished Alumni Award for Academic and Research Excellence (2022), multiple Marine Engineering and Institution Prizes from the Institution of Engineers India (IEI), the R J Garde Research Award from the Indian Society for Hydraulics (2012), the Maritime Award from the Government of India (2006), and the Best Graduate Student Paper award from the ASME (2002). Furthermore, he actively serves as a consultant for major ports, maritime boards, state government agencies, and private companies.

Prof. BJÖRN W. SCHULLER

Imperial College

LONDON

Björn W. Schuller received his diploma, doctoral degree, habilitation, and Adjunct Teaching Professor in Machine Intelligence and Signal Processing all in EE/IT from TUM in Munich/Germany. He is Full Professor of Artificial Intelligence and the Head of GLAM at Imperial College London/UK, Full Professor and Chair of Embedded Intelligence for Health Care and Wellbeing at the University of Augsburg/Germany, co-founding CEO and current CSO of audEERING – an Audio Intelligence company based near Munich and in Berlin/Germany, and permanent Visiting Professor at HIT/China amongst other Professorships and Affiliations. Previous stays include Full Professor at the University of Passau/Germany, and Researcher at Joanneum Research in Graz/Austria, and the CNRS-LIMSI in Orsay/France. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and Golden Core Awardee of the IEEE Computer Society, Fellow of the BCS, Fellow of the ISCA, President-Emeritus of the AAAC, and Senior Member of the ACM. He (co-)authored 900+ publications (30k+ citations, h-index=83), is Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Digital Health and was Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing amongst manifold further commitments and service to the community. His 30+ awards include having been honoured as one of 40 extraordinary scientists under the age of 40 by the WEF in 2015. He served as Coordinator/PI in 15+ European Projects, is an ERC Starting and DFG Reinhart-Koselleck Grantee, and consultant of companies such as Barclays, GN, Huawei, or Samsung.

Dr. Hugo F. Posada. Quintero

Universityof Connecticut, United States of America

Dr.Hugo F. Posada-Quintero received his B.S. degree in Electronic Engineering from the Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, his M.S. degree in Electronics and Computers Engineering from the Universidad de los Andes, both in Bogotá/Colombia, and his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Connecticut/USA. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Connecticut/USA, where he previously served as an Assistant Research Professor. His research program centers on biomedical signal processing, wearable sensor development, and the interpretation of physiological signals using advanced machine learning models to detect and predict stress, fatigue, pain, and cognitive performance. He has (co-)authored over 100 publications across top-tier biomedical and engineering journals. He serves as a Topic Editor for Frontiers in Pain Research alongside various further peer-review commitments and service to the academic community. His honors include a prestigious doctoral scholarship from the Colombian government, and he has established a highly funded research program, having secured over $6 million in research funding from agencies such as the NIH, the Office of Naval Research, the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology, and the Military Operational Medicine Research Program.

Prof. Monika Agarwal

Indian Institute of

Technology Delhi, INDIA

Dr.Monika Agarwal received her B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering and M.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from REC (now NIT) Kurukshetra/India, and her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi/India. She is a Professor at the Centre for Applied Research in Electronics (CARE) at IIT Delhi/India, holds an affiliation with IIT Delhi Abu Dhabi/UAE, and serves as the Chairperson of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Delhi Section. Previous stays include working at Hughes Software Systems in Gurgaon/India and serving as a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Systems and Control at Uppsala University/Sweden. She is an active Member of the IEEE and Faculty Mentor for the IEEE-OES, IEEE-WIE, IEEE-SPS, and MTS student branches at IIT Delhi. She has authored an extensive publication record in leading IEEE and Elsevier journals, is the Editor-in-Chief of the IETE Journal of Research, Senior Editor of Sādhanā – Academy Proceedings in Engineering Sciences, Associate Editor of the IEEE Signal Processing Letters, and Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing amongst manifold further commitments and service to the community. Her research spans array signal processing, medical signal and image processing, and quantum machine learning. She has served as Principal Investigator or Co-PI in numerous funded research projects exceeding INR 25 Crores, contributing significantly to the deployment of underwater acoustic communication systems and advanced healthcare technologies.

Prof. Rabul Hussain Laskar

National Institute of Technology Silichar, INDIA

Dr.Rabul Hussain Laskar received his B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from REC Silchar (presently NIT Silchar), his M.Tech. in Signal Processing from IIT Guwahati, and his Ph.D. in Speech Signal Processing from NIT Silchar, all in India. He is a Professor in the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering and the lead of the signal processing research group at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Silchar in Assam/India. Previous stays include roles as Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, and Lecturer, spanning over two decades of dedicated academic service at NIT Silchar. He is a Fellow of the IETE, a Fellow of the IEI, and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He (co-)authored 160+ publications (200+ citations, h-index=9) across journals, conferences, and book chapters, alongside holding 6 granted patents. He served as General Chair of the International Symposium Frontiers of Research in Speech and Music (FRSM) and has co-edited book volumes for Springer, amongst manifold further commitments and service to the community as an active reviewer and Technical Program Committee member. He served as Principal Investigator or Co-PI in multiple major Indian R&D projects, and is a grantee of national funding agencies such as the DST, SERB, MeitY, and BARC-BRNS.

Dr. Tamer R. Omar

California State Polytechnic University, USA

Dr.Tamer R. Omar received his Ph.D. from the Electrical Engineering department at Iowa State University/USA. He is an Associate Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and the Head of the Frontier Technologies Cybersecurity Research Lab at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona/USA, and currently serves as the Secretary of the Computing and Information Technology Division at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) amongst other academic commitments. Previous experience includes over 25 years in both academia and industry serving in diverse roles across the engineering and technology systems domains. He has (co-)authored numerous technical publications-including in the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology-with a specialization in broadband wireless networks, software-defined networks, cybersecurity in IoT, and big data systems. He serves as a project lead and principal investigator for manifold research initiatives, including the 5G Self-Healing Network Simulator, the Remote Pilotless Vehicle Command Center, and Disaster Recovery using Software Defined Radios, alongside developing pedagogical research and guiding students in autonomous systems and wireless network security.

Dr. Nagarajan Ganapathy

Indian Institute of

Technology Hyderabad,

INDIA

Dr. Nagarajan Ganapathy received his doctoral degree (Ph.D.) from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), India. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT Hyderabad), India, Warden of Hostel Bhabha at IIT Hyderabad, and a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Research Ambassador amongst his academic affiliations. His primary research focus encompasses Clinical Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Healthcare, Affective Computing, the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Wearable and Smart Sensors, and Behavioural Informatics. He is a Member of the IEEE and has (co-)authored numerous publications in leading scientific venues—including IEEE Sensors Letters, IEEE Access, and the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems—amongst manifold further commitments and service to the community. He serves as Principal Investigator and collaborator on diverse interdisciplinary research projects, utilizing deep learning and multimodal biosignals for cognitive load assessment, automated human activity recognition, and emotion detection.

Dr. Feroz Ali

Senior Lead Sr. AI Researcher, Qualcomm XR Research

Dr. Feroz Ali received his doctoral and master's degrees, specializing in Computer Vision and Machine Learning, from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay in Mumbai/India. He is currently a Lead Senior AI Researcher at Qualcomm XR Research, driving advanced research and development in generative AI, computer vision, and deep learning technologies. His core research expertise lies in visual question answering, virtual reality algorithms, facial avatar generation, and domain adaptation. Previous stays include his extensive academic tenure as a researcher at IIT Bombay, as well as an industrial R&D role focusing on video analytics for surveillance at Cisco Systems. He has (co-)authored multiple impactful publications in premier venues, including the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI) and the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV), as well as key international conferences like ICVGIP. His foundational work on maximum margin metric learning for person re-identification and the theoretical analysis of the null Foley-Sammon transform has provided key insights into advancing robust visual recognition and spatial computing systems. Within the industry, his current contributions at Qualcomm continue to leverage his deep expertise in complex generative AI and computer vision frameworks to shape next-generation extended reality (XR) architectures.

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