Speaker I: Prof. Houbing Herbert Song, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, United States, IEEE Fellow, AAIA Fellow, ACM Distinguished Member

Houbing Herbert Song (M’12–SM’14-F’23) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, in August 2012.

He is currently a Professor, the Founding Director of the NSF Center for Aviation Big Data Analytics (Planning), the Associate Director for Leadership of the DOT Transportation Cybersecurity Center for Advanced Research and Education (Tier 1 Center), and the Director of the Security and Optimization for Networked Globe Laboratory (SONG Lab, www.SONGLab.us), University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD. Prior to joining UMBC, he was a Tenured Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, FL. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (TAI) (2023-present), IEEE Internet of Things Journal (2020-present), IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2021-present), and IEEE Journal on Miniaturization for Air and Space Systems (J-MASS) (2020-present). He was an Associate Technical Editor for IEEE Communications Magazine (2017-2020). He is the editor of ten books, the author of more than 100 articles and the inventor of 2 patents. His research interests include cyber-physical systems/internet of things, cybersecurity and privacy, and AI/machine learning/big data analytics. His research has been sponsored by federal agencies (including National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, US Department of Transportation, and Federal Aviation Administration, among others) and industry. His research has been featured by popular news media outlets, including IEEE Spectrum, IEEE GlobalSpec's Engineering360, IEEE Transmitter, Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Security Magazine, CXOTech Magazine, Fox News, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, and New Atlas. 

Dr. Song is an IEEE Fellow (for contributions to big data analytics and integration of AI with Internet of Things), an Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA) Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Member (for outstanding scientific contributions to computing), and a Full Member of Sigma Xi. Dr. Song has been a Highly Cited Researcher identified by Web of Science since 2021. He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker (2020-present), an IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Distinguished Lecturer (2024-present), an IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) Distinguished Lecturer (2023-present) and an IEEE Systems Council Distinguished Lecturer (2023-present). Dr. Song received Research.com Rising Star of Science Award in 2022, 2021 Harry Rowe Mimno Award bestowed by IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, and 10+ Best Paper Awards from major international conferences, including IEEE CPSCom-2019, IEEE ICII 2019, IEEE/AIAA ICNS 2019, IEEE CBDCom 2020, WASA 2020, AIAA/ IEEE DASC 2021, IEEE GLOBECOM 2021 and IEEE INFOCOM 2022.

Speaker II: Prof. Yonghui Li, The University of Sydney, Australia, ARC Future Fellow, IEEE Fellow 

Yonghui Li received his PhD degree in November 2002. Since 2003, he has been with the Centre of Excellence in Telecommunications, the University of Sydney, Australia. Li is now a Professor and Director of Wireless Engineering Laboratory in School of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of Sydney. He is the recipient of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship in 2008 and ARC Future Fellowship in 2012. He is an IEEE Fellow for contributions to cooperative communications technologies.

His current research interests are in the area of wireless communications, with a particular focus on IoT, machine to machine communicaitons, MIMO, millimeter wave communications, channel coding techniques, game theory, machine learning and signal processing. Li holds a number of patents granted and pending in these fields.

Professor Li is an editor for IEEE transactions on communications, IEEE transactions on vehicular technology and guest editors for several special issues of IEEE journals, such as IEEE JSAC, IEEE IoT Journals, IEEE TII, IEEE Communications Magazine. He currently serves as the Specialty Chief Editor, Frontiers Signal Processing Journal. He received the best paper awards from IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2014, IEEE PIMRC 2017, and IEEE Wireless Days Conferences (WD) 2014.

He has published one book, more than 200 papers in premier IEEE journals and more than 200 papers in premier IEEE conferences. His publications have been cited more than 13000 times, with an h-index of 56. Several of his papers have been included as ISI high cited papers by ESI Web of Science, defined as top 1% of papers in the field. Several of his papers have been the top most 10 most cited papers in the respective journals since the year it was published. He has been listed as AMINER AI2000 Most Influential Scholars in the field of Internet of Things (IoT).

Li has attracted more than $8 million in competitive research funding over the past 10 years, including more than 10 ARC grants. He has participated in $500 Millions Australia national demonstration project “Smart Grid Smart City” and designed last mile access networks.

He is the founder and director of IoT undergraduate major at the University of Sydney.

Speaker III: Prof. Quanxin Zhu, Hunan Normal University, China, IEEE Senior Member

Professor Quanxin Zhu obtained his Ph.D. degree from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China in 2005. Currently, he holds the position of a professor at Hunan Normal University and has been awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany. Professor Zhu is recognized as a Distinguished Professor of Furong Scholars in Hunan Province and is also acknowledged as a Leading Talent of Scientific and Technological Innovation in Hunan Province. Additionally, he serves as the Deputy Director of the Key Laboratory of Computing and Stochastic Mathematics under the Ministry of Education. In recognition of his outstanding contributions to research, Professor Zhu has been honored as a Highly Cited Scientist worldwide for the period 2018-2022. Furthermore, he is an esteemed Senior Member of IEEE and acts as Lead Guest Editor for several international journals. He assumes the role of Associate Editor for six prestigious international SCI journals including IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering. Notably, Professor Zhu was awarded first prize in the category "Hunan Natural Science Award" in 2021 while being listed among the top two percent scientists globally for 2020-2022. His exceptional work has earned him numerous accolades such as receiving the Annual Chinese "One Hundred The Most Influential International Academic Paper" Award in 2011 and being recognized by Elsevier as one of China's most cited researchers from 2014 to 2022. With extensive expertise in his field, Professor Zhu actively contributes to academia by serving as a reviewer for over fifty other reputable journals while having authored or co-authored more than three hundred journal papers.