Prof. Benjamin W. Wah
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellow of IEEE; Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery

Biography:

Wah was born in Hong Kong and graduated from Queen Elizabeth School, Hong Kong. He received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Columbia University, USA, then furthered his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, obtaining an MS in Computer Science and a PhD in Databases.[1] Wah began his teaching career in Purdue University in 1979. He later joined the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1985, which he served until his retirement at the end of 2011. In 1985-2011, he was the Franklin W. Woeltge Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. In 2008-2009, he also served as Director of the Advanced Digital Sciences Center in Singapore, a US$50 million research center established by the University of Illinois in Singapore in collaboration with the Singapore government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research. In 1998–1999, Wah was Chair Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and in that year received an Exemplary Teaching Award. From 1999 to 2003, he served as Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at CUHK. Between 2009-2019, he served as Provost of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Wah is an expert on non-linear programming, multimedia signal processing and artificial intelligence. He has published numerous research articles in top professional journals, such as Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Trans. in Computers, IEEE Trans. on Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, IEEE Trans. on Parallel and Distributed Technology, IEEE Trans. on Software Engineering, Journal of Global Optimization, Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. He is also the author of two books, and Editor-in-Chief of Wiley's Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering (published in 2008), and has contributed to many edited books and book chapters. He has served on many journal editorial boards. He also holds many Endowed Professorships and Honorary Professorships in leading universities in the United States of America and in Asia. Professor Wah was elected President of IEEE Computer Society in 2001. He was a member of the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong between 2005 and 2009 and Chairman of its Engineering Panel between 2006 and 2009. He has been a member of the HK Research Grants Council since 2011. Professor Wah has received numerous honors and awards for his distinguished academic and professional achievements, including the Tsutomu Kanai Award, the W. Wallace McDowell Award, and the Richard E. Merwin Distinguished Service Award, all from the IEEE Computer Society, the Pan Wen Yuan Foundation Outstanding Research Award, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal. In 2011, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. He has been elected: Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.

 

 

Prof. Graziano Chesi
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Fellow IEEE

Biography:

Graziano Chesi joined the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Hong Kong in 2006, where he is now a full professor. He received the Laurea in Information Engineering from the University of Florence in 1997 and the PhD in Systems Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2001. He was a visiting PhD student at the University of Cambridge, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo, an assistant professor at the University of Siena, and a specially appointed professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

He served as associate editor for various journals, including Automatica, the European Journal of Control, the IEEE Control Systems Letters, the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, and Systems and Control Letters. He also served as guest editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control, and Mechatronics.

He founded the Technical Committee on Systems with Uncertainty of the IEEE Control Systems Society. He also served as chair of the Best Student Paper Award Committees of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and the IEEE Multi-Conference on Systems and Control.

He authored the books “Homogeneous Polynomial Forms for Robustness Analysis of Uncertain Systems” (Springer 2009) and “Domain of Attraction: Analysis and Control via SOS Programming” (Springer 2011). He was elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for contributions to control of nonlinear and multi-dimensional systems upon evaluation by the IEEE Control Systems Society.

 

Prof. Jixin Ma,
Director of the Centre for Computer and Computational Science
University of Greenwich, U.K

Biography:

Dr Jixin Ma is a Professor in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, at the University of Greenwich, U.K. He is the Director of the Centre for Computer and Computational Science, and the Director of School’s PhD/MPhil Programme. Dr Ma is also a Visiting Professor of Beijing Normal University, Auhui University, Zhengzhou Light Industrial University, and City University of Macau.
Professor Ma obtained his BSc and MSc of Mathematics in 1982 and 1988, respectively, and PhD of Computer Sciences in 1994. His main research areas include Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering and Information Systems, with special interests in Temporal Logic, Temporal Databases, Reasoning about Action and Change, Case-Based Reasoning, Pattern Recognition, Graph Matching and Information Security. He has been a member of British Computer Society, American Association of Artificial Intelligence, ICIS/IEEE, and Special Group of Artificial Intelligence of BCS. Professor Ma has been the Editor of several international journals and international conference proceedings, and Program Chair/Invited Keynote Speakers of many international conferences. He has published more than 150 research papers in international journals and conferences.

 

 

Prof. Nikolaos M. Freris
Vice Dean of International College
University of Science and Technology of China, China

Biography:

Nick Freris is Professor in the School of Computer Science at USTC, and Vice Dean of the International College. He received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in 2005, and the M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, the M.S. degree in Mathematics, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering all from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 2007, 2008, and 2010, respectively.

His research lies in AIoT/CPS/IoT: machine learning, distributed optimization, data mining, wireless networks, control, and signal processing, with applications in transportation, power systems, sensor networks, and robotics. Dr. Freris has published several papers in high-profile conferences and journals held by IEEE, ACM, and SIAM and holds four patents. His research has been sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, Anhui Dept. of Science and Technology, Tencent, and NSF, and was recognized with the USTC Alumni Foundation Innovation Scholar award, the IBM High Value Patent award, two IBM invention achievement awards, and the Gerondelis foundation award.

Previously, he was with the faculty of NYU and, before that, he held senior researcher and postdoctoral researcher positions at EPFL and IBM Research, respectively. Dr. Freris is a Senior Member of IEEE, ACM, and CCF, as well as a member of SIAM.