Keynote Talks

Title: MANIPULATION OF RADIATION PERFORMANCES OF FLAT AND CONFORMAL ANTENNAS BY COATING WITH (QUASI-)PERIODIC PATTERNING

Speaker: Prof. Ladislau Matekovits, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications

Biography: Ladislau Matekovits (Senior Member, IEEE) received the degree in electronic engineering from Institutul Politehnic din Bucureşti, Bucharest, Romania, in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree (Dottorato di Ricerca) in electronic engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy, in 1995. Since 1995, he has been with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, first with a Postdoctoral Fellowship and then as a Research Assistant. In 2002, he joined the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, as an Assistant Professor. In 2005, he was appointed as a Senior Assistant Professor. In 2005, he was a Visiting Scientist with the Department of Antennas and Scattering, FGAN-FHR (now Fraunhofer Institute), Wachtberg, Germany. In July 2009, for two years, he has been a Marie Curie Fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia, where he also held a visiting academic position in 2013 and has been appointed as an Honorary Fellow in 2014. In February 2017, he obtained the full professor qualification in Italy. Since 2020, he has been an Honorary Professor with the Polytechnic University of Timisoara, Romania, and an Associate Professor with the Italian National Research Council. He has been invited to serve as a research grant assessor for government funding calls (Romania, Italy, Croatia, Kazakhstan, and Iceland) and as an international expert in Ph.D. thesis evaluation by several universities from Australia, India, Pakistan, and Spain. He has published more than 400 articles, including more than 125 journal contributions, and delivered seminars on these topics all around the world: Europe, USA (AFRL/MITBoston), Australia, China, and Russia. His main research interests include numerical analysis of printed antennas and in particular development of new, numerically efficient full-wave techniques to analyze large arrays, and active and passive metamaterials for cloaking applications. Material parameter retrieval of these structures by inverse methods and different optimization techniques has also been considered. In the last years, bioelectromagnetic aspects have also been contemplated, such as example design of implantable antennas or the development of nano-antennas for example for drug delivery applications. He has been a member of the Organizing Committee of the International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications (ICEAA), since 2010. He was appointed as a member of the National Council for the Attestation of University Degrees, Diplomas and Certificates (CNATDCU), Romania, from 2020 to 2024. He is a member of the International Advisory Committee and the technical program committee member of several conferences. He was a recipient of various awards in international conferences, including the 1998 URSI Young Scientist Award, Thessaloniki, Greece; the Barzilai Award 1998 (Young Scientist Award, granted every two years by the Italian National Electromagnetic Group); and the Best AP2000 Oral Paper on Antennas, ESA-EUREL Millennium Conference on Antennas and Propagation, Davos, Switzerland. He was a recipient of the Motohisa Kanda Award, in 2018, for the most cited paper of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTROMAGNETIC COMPATIBILITY in the past five years. He received the 2019 American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences (ARA) Medal of Excellence in Science; the Ad Astra Award, in 2020; a Senior Researcher for Excellence in Research; the Outstanding Associate Editor Award for IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, in 2020; and one of the scientists with the highest level of scientific productivity (the top 2% in the world) prepared by Stanford University researchers, in 2022. He has been the Assistant Chairperson and the Publication Chairperson of the European Microwave Week 2002, Milan, Italy; and the General Chair of the 11th International Conference on Body Area Networks (BodyNets 2016). He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, IEEE ACCESS, IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, and IET MAP. He serves as a reviewer for different journals.

Title: MEET THE CHALLANGE OF DESIGNING SMALL AND SUPERGAIN ANTENNAS

Speaker: Prof. Ala Sharaiha, University of Rennes, France, Co-Head of the small Antennas team in Microwave Devices Department, IETR Research Laboratory (Institut d'Electronique et des Technologies du numéRique).

Biography: Ala Sharaiha (Senior Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. and Habilitation à Diriger la Recherche (HDR) degrees in telecommunication from the University of Rennes 1, France, in 1990 and 2001 respectively. Currently, he is a Full Professor at the University of Rennes and he Co-Head of the small Antennas team in Microwave Devices Department, IETR Research Laboratory (Institut d'Electronique et des Technologies du numéRique). He has graduated/mentored more than 45 Ph.D. students/postdocs and co-authored with them. He has authored or co-authored more than 550 journal and conference papers, concerning antenna theory, analysis, design and measurements. He holds 15 patents. His published works have been cited over 2500 times in Google Scholar. His current research interests include small antennas, broadband and UWB antennas, reconfigurable antennas, printed spiral and helical antennas, absorbers, innovative materials for antennas and antennas for mobile communications. He was the French delegate member of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EuRAAP) until January 2024 and is a member of the small antennas working group of EuRAAP. He is a senior member of the IEEE and of URSI and a reviewer for the IEEE APS, IEEE AWPL, the IET Letters and the IET Microwave Antennas Propagation. He was the conference Chairman of the 11th International Canadian Conference ANTEM (Antenna Technology and Applied Electro- Magnetics), held at Saint-Malo in France, 2005 as well as the 20th JNM (Journée National Microonde) in 2017.

Title: FILLING THE "TERAHERTZ GAP" BY NONLINEAR OPTICS

Speaker: Prof. Qi Feng, Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of THz Imaging Laboratory

Biography: Professor Qi Feng did bachelor study in Zhejiang University and got master and PhD degrees from Katholieke Unversiteit Leuven, Belgium in 2005, 2011 respectively. He joined RIKEN, Japan in 2011. Between 2014 and 2015, he worked in Goethe University, Germany and University of Birmingham, UK. Then, he came back to his hometown and built THz Imaging Laboratory. He is in charge of several national projects, and now he is the head of Key Laboratory of Imaging and Sensing, Liaoning Province. He is also the committee member of: Key Laboratory of THz Technology, Ministry of Education; Key Laboratory of Opto-Electro Signal Processing, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Key Laboratory of Meta-Materials and Microwave Technology, Guangdong Province. His research interests include microwave，laser and radar. Now the THz Imaging Lab. works both on electronics and photonics and a set of components like THz/IR sources and detectors、high-performance THz lenses and high-gain THz antennas have been developed, several in-house high-resolution THz imaging algorithms, have been realized. He has published over 130 research papers, including 15 invited talks in international and national conferences. He has served TPC and session chairs for a set of international and national conferences, including ICC，IRMMW-THz etc. He got the Best Paper Award in GSMM 2014.

Title: UNIPOLAR TRANSISTOR OPERATION – A FLUID DYNAMIC ANALOGY

Speaker: Prof. Gheorghe Brezeanu, National University of Science and Technology Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania

Biography: Gheorghe Brezeanu (Life Member, IEEE) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the Electronics and Telecommunications Faculty of the University "Politehnica" of Bucharest, Romania, in 1972 and 1981, respectively. He has been with the same Faculty since 1972, focusing on the development of semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. In 1992 he became a full Professor at the Department of Electronics Architecture, Circuits and Devices, within the Electronic and Telecommunications Faculty, teaching "Electronic Devices", "Basic Electronic Circuits" and "Low-Power, Low-Voltage Analog ICs". He was Scientific Chairman of the Faculty between 1996 and 2012 and has been Director of the Ph.D. School between 1996 and 2012. He is also Head of the Microsystems Master Program. His main area of research includes physics, modelling and fabrication of power and sensor devices on Si and SiC, and design and electrical characterization of low power analog ICs. He founded the Advanced Study Semiconductor Devices and Circuits Laboratory in 1995. This group was focused on research activities regarding design, fabrication and modelling of silicon carbide and diamond devices for snssors and power applications. He is the author or co-author of 19 books and more than 210 papers published in technical WOS journals and WOS and IEEE conference proceedings. He also holds 5 patents. Prof. Brezeanu was Chairman of the Electron Devices Society Romania Chapter from 1996 to 2008. He is a life member of the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

Title: UNLOCKING FRONTIERS: INNOVATIONS AND ADVANCEMENTS IN MEASUREMENT AND SIMULATION TECHNIQUES SHAPING TODAY'S GLOBAL RESEARCH LANDSCAPE

Speaker: Prof. Angelica Baylon, ERO Director, MAAP Philippines

Biography: Professor Angelica Baylon holds 4 Master’s & 2 Ph.D. degrees, all earned with distinctions & grants. Her expertise is on Chemistry, Maths, Physics, Educational, and Business Administration, Shipping Business Management, Bioethics, Global Public Health, MET & Sustainability. She is actively involved in Research, Instruction, Productivity and Extension Services (RIPES). As one of the scientific experts, she is recognized in the Philippine Men & Women of Science and in the Specialized Philippine reference for experts and scientists. She collaborated with scholars spreading over global regions (the Asia Pacific and Oceania, the Americas, Europe, and Africa) for international research cooperation. Her papers are cited in Google scholars, the web of science, and semantic scholars as she conducts researches on a wide spectrum, of topics. She is an editorial board member, paper contributor, and paper reviewer of reputable maritime journals like TRANSNAV, Poland; JEMS, Turkey; and JMTE, Romania. A regular member of the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP), she accomplished 2 NRCP funded research projects that largely contributed to the adoption of significant policies for the Philippine Maritime Industry. she is a recipient of numerous global awards like the IAMURE Outstanding Asian Research Leadership Award and the Royal Institute of Singapore lifetime Research Fellowship, to cite a few. In the maritime, she is Vice Chair of the Expert Group 3 on Recruitment, Career Development and Job Transitions of APEC –SEN or the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation for Seafarers Excellence Network ; Secretary-General of both Nautical Institute (NI) and Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology (IMarEST); Board of Director of Asian Marine Educators Association (AMEA) and a Fellow TRANSNAV of Gydnia Maritime University and NI Poland As MAAP is an institutional member of the International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU), Prof. Baylon as research partner, had contributed to three IAMU & Nippon Foundation funded projects namely SDiMET or Sustainable Development in MET ; GECAMET or Gender Equality and Cultural Awareness in MET which earned for MAAP the Top 2 rank in the First-ever Higher Education Internationalization Award . She is member of the IAMU working group of the Peer Assisted Evaluation Scheme (PAES) project and currently involve in two IAMU funded projects. Prof. Baylon, a MAAP pioneer Executive Maritime Dean & Director for Research & Extension Services, is currently a pioneer External Relations Director of MAAP. She is also the PAEPI Global Chair and President Emeritus.