IEEE CJECE Advisory Board

Rob is Smart Grid Engineer at Itron Inc., a world leader in metering equipment and information management solutions for electric, gas and water utilities. He performs engineering tasks as part of Itron’s Global Solutions Delivery Group. In his role he uses business process re-engineering to develop technical solutions and management processes for the implementation of systems or enterprise wide solutions using Itron’s hardware and software products.

Prior to forming SIMMARIX, an independent Meter Data Management and Consulting Organization, Rob worked for ENMAX Corporation, the electric utility for his home city of Calgary. During his eleven-years at ENMAX, he held numerous positions with increasing responsibility in management, customer service, engineering and contracts management.

Rob is active in the engineering profession. His volunteer activities include IEEE volunteer of 25+ years, APEGA Mentoring Program mentor, speaking with U-Calgary new engineering students about careers and, regularly judges at science fairs and student project/paper competitions.

Dr. Jason Gu received the bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and information science from the University of Science and Technology of China, in 1992, the master's degree in biomedical engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1995, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Alberta, Canada, in 2001.

He is currently a Full Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with Dalhousie University, Canada. He is also a Cross-Appointed Professor with the School of Biomedical Engineering for his multidisciplinary research work. He has over 24 years of research and teaching experience and has authored over 350 conference papers and articles. His research areas include robotics, biomedical engineering, rehabilitation engineering, neural networks, and control. He is a fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada and Canada Academy of Engineering. He has been the Associate Editor of the Journal of Control and Intelligent Systems, Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, Canada, the IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, the International Journal of Robotics and Automation, Unmanned Systems, the Journal of Engineering and Emerging Technologies, and the IEEE Access. Dr. Gu is currently IEEE Canada President for 2020-2021.

Dr. Tom Murad, Country Lead of Engineering & Technology at Siemens Mobility - Canada, a member of Engineering Order of Honour - Professional Engineers Ontario “PEO", is a respected Technology leader, thinker, an award-winning Educator and distinguished speaker on the topics of: Engineering, Technology and Technical talents / skills development and education. An advocate of Innovation and creativity specifically in the Areas of Digitalization, Smart Infrastructure and Industrie 4.0

In 2010 , he Joined Siemens in Canada, prior to his current role he was the Country Lead of Engineering, Technology & Academics for Siemens Canada as well as the founder of the Siemens Canada Engineering and Technology Academy "SCETA", that he established and directed since October 2014. Before that, he was the Head of the “Expert House” and Engineering Director for Siemens Canada’s Industry sector since 2010.

Prior to joining Siemens, Tom was the Senior VP and COO of AZZ- Blenkhorn & Sawle for many Years with an extensive career in Professional Engineering and Executive Management of Innovative Technical Operations including Academic and R&D work in Electrical power, Industrial Controls and Automation. He is also serving as a member of various advisory Boards of Directors in the Industry and Academia.

Dr. Murad holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical & Electronics), and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Power Electronics and Industrial Controls from Loughborough University of Technology in the UK, with a Leadership Program Certificate from Schulich Business School, York University in Ontario, Canada.

Shahram Sean Yousefi is passionate for harmony and his mission in life is to help as many people as possible to enjoy theirs while reaching full personal potential. Shahram’s current focus is solving problems at the intersection of technology, academia, and healthcare. Be it the next approach towards training highly-qualified personnel or tackling human resource challenges in hospitals, Shahram’s philosophy is that communication and compassion are the key ingredients to achieve beyond win-win solutions.

Shahram has 25 years of experience in engineering, technology, teaching, managing teams and projects, as well as public speaking and advising. He received his B.Sc. in electrical engineering from University of Tehran and his PhD in telecom from the University of Waterloo in Canada. He has held positions at the University of Toronto, Canada, Ecole Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, Jilin University, China, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA, and Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, where he is currently a tenured full professor and Associate Dean of Corporate Relations.

Shahram has served as the Editor–in-Chief of the IEEE CJECE journal and has received more than 20 awards and scholarships including the Golden Apple teaching award as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Discovery Accelerator Supplement (NSERC DAS) award.

His research interests include communications, cloud systems, big data, networks, information theory, signal processing, control, algorithms, and machine intelligence in which he holds a number of patents. He co-founded Canarmony Corp. (2014), MESH Scheduling Inc. (2018), and OPTT Inc. (2018) to apply algorithms to make life better and more harmonious. One of Shahram’s patents in the area of data storage was licensed to revolutionize a $500b solid state storage industry. Shahram admires entrepreneurs and advises a number of ventures.

Ahmed Refaey Hussein (S’03-M’07-SM’15) is a Faculty member and the Director of the IoT Research Lab at the ECE department, Manhattan College as well as an Adjunct Research Professor at Western University. Dr. Hussein’s previous positions include: a Sr. Embedded Systems Architect, R ∧ D Group, Mircom Technologies Ltd from 2013-2016; a Postdoctoral Fellow at ECE Department, Western University from 2012-2013; and a Professional Researcher at the LRTS lab, Laval University in the field of wireless communications hardware implementations from 2007-2011.

Prior to joining Laval University, Dr. Hussein was a System/ Core Network Engineer leading a team of junior engineers and technicians in the telecom field in the three prominent companies of Fujitsu, Vodafone, and Alcatel-Lucent. Dr. Hussein received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Alexandria University, Egypt in 2003 and 2005, respectively; and Ph.D. degree from Laval University, Quebec, Canada in 2011.