The Speakers of 2021

Prof. serving/served as Honorary/Visiting Professor for several elite Universities including Imperial College London (UK), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Hyderabad (India), and Tsinghua University (China).

With over 112,400 citations, a g-index of 322, and an h-index of 145, he is the highest cited computer scientist in Australia and one of the world's Top 30 cited authors in computer science and software engineering.

He served as the founding Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (TCC). Dr. Buyya is recognized as a "Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher" for five consecutive years since 2016, a Fellow of IEEE and Scopus Researcher of the Year 2017 with Excellence in Innovative Research Award by Elsevier, and "Lifetime Achievement Awards" from two Indian universities for his outstanding contributions to Cloud computing and distributed systems. He has been recently recognised as the "Best of the World", in Computing Systems field, by The Australian 2019 Research Review.

Dr. Buyya has contributed to the creation of high-performance computing and communication system software for PARAM supercomputers developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), India. He has pioneered Economic Paradigm for Service-Oriented Distributed Computing and demonstrated its utility through his contribution to conceptualisation, design and development of Grid and Cloud Computing technologies such as Aneka, GridSim, Libra, Nimrod-G, Gridbus, and Cloudbus that power the emerging eScience and eBusiness applications. He has been awarded, over $8 million, competitive research grants from various national and international organisations including the Australian Research Council (ARC), Sun Microsystems, StorageTek, IBM, and Microsoft, CA Australia, Australian Dept. of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (DIISR), and European Council.

Dr. Buyya has authored/co-authored over 850 publications. Since 2007, he received twelve "Best Paper Awards" from international conferences/journals. He has co-authored five text books: Microprocessor x86 Programming (BPB Press, New Delhi, India, 1995), Mastering C++ (McGraw Hill Press, India, 1st edition in 1997 and 2nd edition in 2013), Object Oriented Programming with Java: Essentials and Applications (McGraw Hill, India, 2009), Mastering Cloud Computing (Morgan Kaufmann, USA; McGraw Hill, India, 2013; China Machine Press, 2015), and Cloud Data Centers and Cost Modeling (Morgan Kaufmann, USA, 2015). The books on emerging topics that he edited include, High Performance Cluster Computing (Prentice Hall, USA, 1999), High Performance Mass Storage and Parallel I/O (IEEE and Wiley Press, USA, 2001), Content Delivery Networks (Springer, Germany, 2008), Market Oriented Grid and Utility Computing (Wiley Press, USA, 2009), and Cloud Computing: Principles and Paradigms (Wiley, USA, 2011). He also edited proceedings of over 25 international conferences published by prestigious organisations, namely the IEEE Computer Society Press (USA) and Springer Verlag (Germany).

He has co-founded five IEEE/ACM international conferences: CCGrid, Cluster, Grid, e-Science, and UCC (Utility and Cloud Computing) and served as the Chair of their inaugural meetings. He has presented over 600 invited talks (keynotes, tutorials, and seminars) on his vision on IT Futures and advanced computing technologies at international conferences and institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Prof. Valentina E. Balas is currently Full Professor in the Department of Automatics and Applied Software at the Faculty of Engineering, “Aurel Vlaicu” University of Arad, Romania.

She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Electronics and Telecommunications from Polytechnic University of Timisoara. Dr. Balas is author of more than 270 research papers in refereed journals and International Conferences. Her research interests are in Intelligent Systems, Fuzzy Control, Soft Computing, Smart Sensors, Information Fusion, Modeling and Simulation.

She is the Editor-in Chief to International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms (IJAIP) and to International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering (IJCSysE), member in Editorial Board member of several national and international journals and is evaluator expert for national, international projects and PhD Thesis. Dr. Balas is the director of Intelligent Systems Research Centre in Aurel Vlaicu University of Arad and Director of the Department of International Relations, Programs and Projects in the same university.

She served as General Chair of the International Workshop Soft Computing and Applications (SOFA) in eight editions 2005-2018 held in Romania and Hungary. Dr. Balas participated in many international conferences as Organizer, Honorary Chair, Session Chair and member in Steering, Advisory or International Program Committees. She is a member of EUSFLAT, SIAM and a Senior Member IEEE, member in TC – Fuzzy Systems (IEEE CIS), member in TC - Emergent Technologies (IEEE CIS), member in TC – Soft Computing (IEEE SMCS).

Prof. Shukla obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York, Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo), USA. She moved to Harvard University for her Postdoctoral research. She is a fellow of the University of Birmingham India Institute UK, member of the National Environmental Science Academy (NESA), India. She is also associated with Nanostructures Engineering and Modelling Laboratory. In addition, Center & Professor-in-charge of the water innovation center (WICTRE) at IIT Bombay.

Sateesh K. Peddoju is an Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. He is the Senior Member of ACM and Senior Member of IEEE, and recipient of Cloud Ambassador Award from AWS Educate, IBM SUR Award, Microsoft Educate Award, university merit scholarship, best teacher award in his previous employment, best paper/presentation awards, and travel grants.

Sateesh has publications in reputed journals like IEEE TIFS, IEEE Access, IEEE Potentials, MTAP, WPC, IJIS, and PPNA, and conferences like ACM MobiCom, IEEE TrustCom, IEEE MASS, ACM/IEEE ICDCN, and ISC. He is the co-author of the book “Security and Storage Issues in the Cloud Environment” and co-editor of the book “Cloud Computing Systems and Applications in Healthcare”. Sateesh is serving as a reviewer for IEEE TCC, IEEE TSC, IEEE Access, MTAP, COSE, COMNET, JNCA, and CLUS. He is the Program Chair for IEEE MASS 2020 and founding Steering Committee Chair for SLICE 2018. He is on board for IEEE SLICE, IEEE DSEA, IEEE MASS, IEEE ATC, IEEE SmartComp, IEEE iNIS, and IoTSMS. He has received grants from NMHS, MEITY, Railtel, MHRD, DST, IBM, Samsung, CSI, Microsoft.

Sateesh is involved in various committees including he being the Coordinator for Communications sub-group of IoT Security Workgroup constituted by MEITY, Government of India, expert member in CERT-Uk (Cyber Security Guidelines) committee constituted by Dept of IT, Government of Uttarakhand, and he is the Expert Member of NSM Group on Application Development, National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) (Area: Geophysics and Oil Exploration). He has been into many other committeess including Board of Studies (BoS) for many universities.

CELESTINE IWENDI is a visiting Professor with Coal City University Enugu, Nigeria and Associate Professor with Bangor College of Central South University of Forestry and Technology, China. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, United Kingdom. Other assignments include Adjunct Professor Delta State Polytechnic, Nigeria. His past assignments include Senior Researcher, WSN Consults Ltd United Kingdom, Electronics and Sensor Researcher, University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, Lead Electronics Engineer, Inscentinel Ltd United Kingdom, Electronics Engineer, Nitel Nigeria and College Lecturer, Federal Girls Technical College, Uyo, Nigeria. He received his PhD in Electronics from University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom, MSc from Uppsala University, Sweden, MSc from Nnamdi Azikiwe Nigeria and BSc from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria.

His research interests include artificial intelligence, internet of things, wireless sensor networks, network/cybersecurity, machine learning, data networks, etc. He has authored over 60 peer-reviewed articles. He has served as a chair (program, publicity, and track) on top conferences and workshops. He has delivered over 20 invited and keynote talks in five countries.

Research Interests: Designing and analyzing algorithms for Bioinformatics, Combinatorics, Data Mining, and Networks.

Sheng-Lung Peng is a full Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. He received the BS degree in Mathematics from National Tsing Hua University, and the MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science and Information Engineering from the National Chung Cheng University and National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, respectively. His research interests are in designing and analyzing algorithms for Bioinformatics, Combinatorics, Data Mining, and Networks. Dr. Peng has edited several special issues for journals, such as Soft Computing, Journal of Internet Technology, Journal of Computers and MDPI Algorithms. He is also a reviewer for many journals such as IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, Theoretical Computer Science, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Journal of Modelling in Management, Soft Computing, Information Processing Letters, Discrete Mathematics, Discrete Applied Mathematics, Discussiones Mathematicae Graph Theory, and so on. He published more than 100 international conferences and journal papers.

Dr. Anand Nayyar is currently working in Graduate School, Faculty of Information Technology- Duy Tan University, Da Nang, Vietnam. A Certified Professional with 75+ Professional certificates from CISCO, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Beingcert, EXIN, GAQM, Cyberoam and many more. Published 100+ Research Papers in various National International Journals (Scopus/SCI/SCIE/SSCI Indexed) with High Impact Factor. Published 50+ Papers in International Conferences indexed with Springer, IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library. Member of more than 50+ Associations as Senior and Life Member including IEEE, ACM. He has authored/co-authored cum Edited 30+ Books of Computer Science. Associated with more than 500+ International Conferences as Programme Committee/Chair/Advisory Board/Review Board member. He has 10 Australian Patent and 1 Indian Design to his credit in the area of Wireless Communications, Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Image Processing. He is currently working in the area of Wireless Sensor Networks, IoT, Swarm Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Drones, Blockchain, Cyber Security, Network Simulation and Wireless Communications. Awarded 30+ Awards for Teaching and Research—Young Scientist, Best Scientist, Young Researcher Award, Outstanding Researcher Award, Excellence in Teaching and many more. He is acting as Associate Editor for Wireless Networks (Springer), Computer Communications (Elsevier), IET-Quantum Communications, IET Wireless Sensor Systems, IET Networks, IJDST, IJISP, IJCINI. He is acting as Editor-in-Chief of IGI-Global, USA Journal titled “International Journal of Smart Vehicles and Smart Transportation (IJSVST)”.

Dr. Ramadan is an associate professor in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT), Mobile Computing, and Computational Intelligence. He got his Ph.D. from Computer Engineering from Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, Texas, USA.

He has work experience for more than 27 years. He has industrial experience as an executive manager for a software development “Ibda” and “Smartec” companies. He also worked at Bank of America Securities, Dallas, TX, US, for three years. He is leading various research groups in the fields of IoT and Computational Intelligence. He is an author of more than 125 journal and conference articles in the field of IoT, Sensor Networks, Mobile Computing, and Computational Intelligence. He also served as a general chair, co-chair, and TPC for several conferences and Journals .