SYMPOSIUM ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR ACCESS SYSTEMS AND NETWORKS

Symposium Co-Chairs
Masaaki Katayama, Nagoya University (katayama@nuee.nagoya-u.ac.jp)
Tarek El-Bawab, Jackson State University (telbawab@ieee.org)

Masaaki Katayama was born in Kyoto, Japan in 1959. He received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Osaka University, Japan in 1981, 1983, and 1986, respectively, all in Communication Engineering. He was an Assistant Professor at Toyohashi University of Technology from 1986 to 1989, and a Lecturer at Osaka University from 1989 to 1992. In 1992, he joined Nagoya University as an associate professor, and has been a professor since July 2001. He also had been working at the College of Engineering of the University of Michigan from 1995 to 1996 as a visiting scholar. Prof. Katayama has published more than 100 journal papers and 150 international conference papers on the topics of physical and media-access layers of radio communication systems. His current research projects include, Software Defined Radio, Reliable Robust Radio Control with multi-dimensional coding and signal processing, Power-Line Communications, Visible Light Communications, Next Generation Mobile Communications, and Satellite Communications. He received the IEICE (was IECE) Shinohara Memorial Young Engineer Award in 1986. Prof. Katayama is a fellow of IEICE,  a member of SITA and Reliability Engineering Association of Japan. He is also a senior member of IEEE. In IEEE, he has served as Secretary of Asia Pacific Technical Subcommittee (1996-1997),   Executive Committee of IEEE Nagoya Section (2003-2004), Counselor of IEEE Student Branch of Nagoya University (2006- ), organizing member of ComSoc conferences including ISPLC and PIMRC, and TPC member of ComSoc conferences including IEEE GLOBECOM and IEEE ICC.

Tarek El-Bawab is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Computer Engineering, Jackson State University, USA. His areas of interest include optical networks and WDM, network architectures, performance analysis, and next-generation switching/routing. Prior to Jackson State, he was with Alcatel USA where he served as the project manager of the optical networking project of the Network Strategy Group (NSG). Before this, he was in optical-networking and WDM research for eight years with a number of institutions: Alcatel-USA Corporate Research Center, the Department of Electrical Engineering at Colorado State University (USA) and the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering at the University of Essex (UK). Prior to this he was system design engineer with Dar Al-Handasah Consultants (Cairo head office) and telecommunication lead engineer in Greater Cairo Metro project, where he was in charge of network design and implementation. Dr. El-Bawab has more than 60 publications and patents in the fields of Telecommunications and optical networking. His book "Optical Switching" is the most comprehensive resource in its subject. He serves as member of technical committees, and as organizer and chair of a number of IEEE and SPIE conferences. He is Senior IEEE member and member of the IEEE communication, computer, electron device, Lasers and Electro-Optics and engineering management societies. He has a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, and a B.A. in History, from Ain Shams University, Egypt. He holds an M.Sc. in Telecommunications and Information Systems from the University of Essex, U.K, and an M.Sc. in Solid State Science from the American University in Cairo. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University.