Group

Faculty

Mehdi Bennis (full professor)

Dr Mehdi Bennis is a full Professor at the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland, Academy of Finland Research Fellow and head of the intelligent connectivity and networks/systems group (ICON). His main research interests are in radio resource management, heterogeneous networks, game theory and distributed machine learning in 5G networks and beyond. He has published more than 200 research papers in international conferences, journals and book chapters. He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards including the 2015 Fred W. Ellersick Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2016 Best Tutorial Prize from the IEEE Communications Society, the 2017 EURASIP Best paper Award for the Journal of Wireless Communications and Networks, the all-University of Oulu award for research, the 2019 IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee Early Achievement Award and the 2020 Clarviate Highly Cited Researcher by the Web of Science. Dr Bennis is an editor of IEEE TCOM and Specialty Chief Editor for Data Science for Communications in the Frontiers in Communications and Networks journal. Dr Bennis is an IEEE Fellow.

Sumudu Samarakoon (assistant professor)

Sumudu Samarakoon received the B.Sc. degree (Hons.) in electronic and telecommunication engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2009, the M.Eng. degree from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, in 2011 and the Dr. Tech. degree from the University of Oulu, Finland in 2017. He is a member of the research staff with the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu. His main research interests are in heterogeneous networks, small cells, radio resource management, reinforcement learning, and game theory. In 2016, he received the Best Paper Award at the European Wireless Conference and Excellence Awards for innovators and the outstanding doctoral student in the Radio Technology Unit, CWC, University of Oulu.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr Jihong Park

Jihong Park received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering respectively in 2009 and 2016 from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Wireless Communications, University of Oulu, Finland. He was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Electronic Systems in Aalborg University, Denmark in 2017. He was a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Applied Mathematics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, at the Department of Communication Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and at the Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Denmark, respectively in 2013, 2015, and 2016. His research interests include ultra-dense/ultra-reliable/massive-MIMO system designs using stochastic geometry and network economics. His papers on tractable ultra-dense network analysis received the IEEE GLOBECOM Student Travel Grant in 2014, the IEEE Seoul Section Student Paper Contest Bronze Prize in 2014, and the 6th IDIS-ETNEWS (The Electronic Times) Paper Contest Award sponsored by the Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning of Korea.

Dr Anis ElGabli

Anis ElGabli received the B.S. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from University of Tripoli, Tripoli, Libya in 2004. Further, he received the M.Eng. degree from UKM, Kajang, Malaysia in 2006, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 2015 and 2018, respectively from Purdue University, IN, USA, all in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interest is in applying optimization techniques in networking and communication systems. He was the recipient of the 2018 Infocom Workshop HotPOST Best Paper Award. He joined the Center of Wireless communication at the University of Oulu, Oulu Finland, as a Postdoctoral Researcher in September 2019.

Dr Chaouki Ben Issaid

Chaouki Ben Issaid is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center of Wireless communication, the University of Oulu, Finland. He received the Diplôme d’Ingénieur from l’École Polytechnique de Tunisie, La Marsa, Tunisia, in 2013. He obtained his M.Sc. degree in applied mathematics and computational science and his Ph.D. degree in statistics in 2015 and 2019, respectively, from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. His current research interests include efficient Monte Carlo simulations for rare event estimation and distributed optimization.

Dr Hyowoon Seo

Hyowoon Seo (S’12-M’20) received the B.S, M.S and Ph.D degree from School of Electrical Engineering (EE), Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2012, 2014 and 2020, respectively. In 2018, he was a visiting scholar with the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu, Finland. He was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Seoul National University (SNU). He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the CWC, University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests include machine-type communication, Internet-of-Things, physical layer security and privacy, distributed ledger technology, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications, and deep learning. He received a Gold Prize in the 24th Samsung Humantech Paper Award in 2018.

PhD Students

Abanoub m. Girgis

Abanoub M. Girgis received the B.Sc. degree (Hons) in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Thebes Higher Institute of Engineering, Egypt, in 2013, and the M.Sc. degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Ain Shams University, Egypt, in 2018. He is currently pursuing his PhD degree with the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. His research includes, but not limited to, Ultra-reliable low-latency communications, Machine Learning, 5G Communications, massive MIMO, and Signal Processing.

Tamara AlShammari

Tamara AlShammari received the B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering in 2012 from The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan, where she was a top student at class. She also received the M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2014 from Oregon State University, Oregon, USA. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree at University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. Her current research interests include Bayesian learning, information heterogeneity in multi-agent networks, machine learning, and convex optimization.

Chen-Feng Liu

Chen-Feng Liu received the B.S. degree from National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2009, and the M.S. degree in communications engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, in 2011. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. In 2012, he joined Academia Sinica as a Research Assistant. In 2014 and 2016, he was a Visiting Researcher with the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, and the University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA, respectively. His research interests include mobile edge computing, ultra-reliable low latency communications, software-defined networking, and green communications.

Mohamed Khairy

Mohamed received the B.Sc. degree from the Electrical Engineering department of Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, in 2013, and the M.Sc. degree in Communication and Information Technology from Nile University, Giza, Egypt in 2016. He is currently pursuing the PhD degree with the University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland. His research interests include, but not limited to, ultra-reliable low-latency communications, vehicular networks and intelligent transportation systems, and 5G communications.

Hamid Shiri

Hamid Shiri received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Telecommunications in 2009 and 2012 respectively, from the University of Tabriz, Iran. He was research assistant at the Department of Telecommunications Engineering of the University of Tabriz from 2013 to 2018. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Oulu in 2016. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Center for Wireless Communications at the University of Oulu. His research interests include ultra-reliable low-latency communications, machine learning, distributed optimization, signal processing, compressed sensing, network coding, and adaptive filtering.

Mounssif Krouka

Mounssif Krouka received his B.Sc degree from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IGEE ex- INELEC), Boumerdes University, Boumerdes, Algeria in 2015. He received his M.Sc degree in Wireless Communications Engineering (WCE) from University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland in 2018. His research interests include Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications, IIoT, Wireless controlled networks, Machine Learning.

Syed Tamoor-ul-Hassan (co-supervised)

Syed Tamoor-ul-Hassan received his BS in Telecommunication Eng from National University of Computer and Emerging Science, Islamabad, Pakistan in 2009 and MS in Communication Systems Engineering from Linköping University in 2011. From 2010-2011, he was a Research Engineer with Ericsson developing receiver models for LTE and enabling fast packet retransmission for LTE network. Prior to joining Center for Wireless Communications (CWC) in 2013 as a doctoral researcher, he was associated with 4MWireless (ublox) and Novel Mobile Radio Research (NOMOR) organization for the development of LTE network protocol stack. Since Sep 2017, he is an experienced PDU baseband developer at Ericsson.

Dinesh Manimel Wadu

Dinesh Manimel Wadu received his B.Sc. (Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, in 2015 and M.Sc. degree in wireless communication engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland by the end of 2019. He was a research assistant (part-time) at the University of Oulu, Finland from 2018 to 2019 and he has almost three years of industry exposure in Sri Lanka. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Oulu, Finland. His research interests include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning improvements in the perspective of communication, and wireless channel predictions.

Formerly co-Supervised Doctoral Students

  • Mohammed S. Elbamby, Nokia Bell-Labs, Member of technical staff, Helsinki, Finland

  • Trung Kien Vu, NOKIA, OULU, Finland

  • Muhammad Ikram Ashraf, Nokia Bell-Labs, Helsinki, Finland

  • Sumudu Samarakoon, Postdoctoral researcher, Univ. of Oulu, Finland

  • Omid Semiari, Assistant professor, Georgia State Univ, USA.

  • Meryem Simsek, INTEL, USA

  • Petri Luoto, MEDIATEK, Oulu, Finland

  • Ejder Bastug, Nokia Bell-Labs, Member of technical staff, Paris, France

  • Francesco Pantisano, Joint Research Center (JRC), Ispra, Italy.

  • Carlos H. Lima, Assistant professor in Sao Paolo, Brazil

Affiliated Students and Faculty

  • Walid Saad: Walid Saad received his Ph.D degree from the University of Oslo in 2010. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech, where he leads the Network Science, Wireless, and Security (NetSciWiS) laboratory, within the Wireless@VT research group. His research interests include wireless networks, game theory, machine learning, cybersecurity, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cyber-physical systems. From 2015 – 2017, Dr. Saad was named the Steven O. Lane Junior Faculty Fellow at Virginia Tech. He currently serves as an editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, and IEEE Communications Tutorials & Surveys.

  • Tengchan Zeng: Tengchan Zeng received his BS in Automation from the Beijing Jiaotong University in 2016. He is currently a PhD student at the Bradley department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. His research interests include graph theory, wireless networks, resource allocation and optimization.

  • Gilsoo Lee: Gilsoo Lee received his BS and MS in Electronic Engineering from Sogang University, South Korea. He is currently a PhD student at the Bradley department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. His research interests include resource management, online optimization, and game-theoretic approaches with application to fog computing and energy-harvesting wireless networks.

  • Mohammad Mozaffari: Mohammad received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Iran and his MS in Electrical Engineering from University of Calgary, Canada. He is currently a PhD student at the Bradley department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. His research interests include wireless communications and statistical signal processing with focus on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communications and networking, localization, and GPS signals.

  • Qianqian Zhang: Qianqian received her BS in Telecommunication Engineering with Management from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing. She is currently a PhD student at the Bradley department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include machine learning, millimeter wave communications, game theory, and smart cities.

  • Cristina Perfecto: Cristina received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Telecommunication Engineering from UPV/EHU in 2000 where she is currently a college associate professor at the Department of Communications Engineering. Her research interests lie on millimeter wave communications and in the application of machine learning in 5G networks. She is currently working towards her Ph.D. focused on the application of multidisciplinary computational intelligence techniques in radio resource management for 5G.

  • Ramy Amer: Ramy received his MSc degree in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt, in 2016. Ramy is currently a PhD student at CONNECT centre, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Since 2016, he is pursuing his PhD degree in wireless communication, especially, wireless caching. His research interests include cross-layer design, Cognitive Radio, Energy Harvesting, Stochastic Geometry,

  • Hyesung Kim: Hyesung Kim received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2012 from Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the Yonsei University. He was a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC), University of Oulu. His research interests include radio resource management, edge caching, mean-field game theory, blockchain, UAV-to-ground, and V2X communications. His paper on mean-field game theoretic edge caching for ultra dense networks received the IEEE Seoul Section Student Paper Contest Bronze Prize in 2017.

  • Hyowoon Seo: Hyowoon Seo received the B.S. and M.S degrees in Electrical Engineering in 2012 and 2014, respectively, from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with KAIST and now visiting CWC, University of Oulu, Finland, for joint research. His research interests in the past focused on information theory, cryptography, compressed sensing and currently focus on mm-wave communications, V2X communications, and distributed ledger technology. He received the Gold prize in 24th Samsung Humantech paper award.

  • Xianfu Chen: Xianfu Chen received his Ph.D. degree in Signal and Information Processing, from the Department of Information Science and Electronic Engineering at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in March 2012. He is currently a Senior Scientist with the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Oulu, Finland. His research interests cover various aspects of wireless communications and networking, with emphasis on network virtualization, software-defined radio access networks, green communications, centralized and decentralized resource allocation, and the application of machine learning to wireless communications. He is an IEEE member.

Collaborators

  • Professor Walid Saad, (Virgina Tech, VA, USA) .

  • Professor H. Vincent Poor (Princeton University, NJ, USA) .

  • Professor Mérouane Debbah (SUPELEC, France) and Huawei R&D (Paris, France) .

  • Dr. Xianfu Chen, VTT, Finland.

  • Dr Cristina Perfecto, UPV/EHU, Spain.

  • Professor Javi Del Ser, TECNALIA Research Professor, UPV/EHU, Spain.

  • Professor Seong-Lyun Kim, Yonsei University, South Korea.

  • Professor Zhu Han (University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA) .

  • Professor Giuseppe Caire (Technical University of Berlin, Germany) .

  • Professor Dusit Niyato (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) .

  • Professor Ismail Guvenc (North Carolina State Univ, USA).

  • Professor Wan Choi, KAIST, South Korea.

  • Professor Tansu Alpcan, University of Melbourne, Australia.

  • Dr. Stefan Valentin, Huawei R&D, France.

  • Professor Nicola Marchetti, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

  • Professor Majid Butt, University of Glasgow, Scotland.