Big Data and Cloud Computing

Neelanarayanan Venkataraman received his Master of Science in Computer Science from Madurai Kamaraj University, India, in 1995 and his Ph.D. from IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2012. Currently, he is Professor at VIT University, Chennai, India. Before joining VIT University, he worked as Scientist at the Centre for Advanced Computing (CDAC), India, and as Lecturer at Madurai Kamaraj University, India, and its affiliated institutions. His areas of research include distributed computing such as grid and cloud computing, context-aware computing, network management and security, XML-based security technologies, and e-communities. He has initiated several international research collaborations with universities in Europe, Australia, and South Korea as Research Group Coordinator and Chief Investigator at VIT University. He was instrumental in initiating joint research collaboration between VIT University and industries such as CDAC, SET, and DLink. He served as Head of the department in Cyber-Physical Systems between 2019 and 2023. As head of the department, he was responsible for the design and development of curriculum and syllabi for undergraduate and postgraduate specialization programs. He was instrumental in setting cyber-physical systems lab and an industry 4.0 lab at VIT University, Chennai.

Lipo Wang received a bachelor's degree from the National University of Defense Technology (China) and a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University (USA). He is presently on the faculty of the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research interest is artificial intelligence with applications to image/video processing, biomedical engineering, communications, control, and power systems. He has 350+ publications, a US patent in neural networks, and a patent in systems to his credit. He has co-authored 2 monographs and (co-)edited 15 books. He was Keynote Speaker for 36 international conferences. He is/was Associate Editor/Editorial Board Member of 30 international journals, including 4 IEEE Transactions, and Guest Editor for 15 journal special issues. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the International Neural Network Society, IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS), and the IEEE Biometrics Council.

Xavier Fernando is a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. He has (co-)authored over 200 research articles, and two books (one translated into Mandarin), and holds a few patents and non-disclosure agreements. He is the Director of Ryerson Communications Lab. He was an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer and delivered close to over 50 invited talks and keynote presentations all over the world. His research interests are in signal processing for optical/wireless communication systems. He mainly focuses on physical and MAC layer issues. He has a special interest in underground communications systems of cognitive radio systems, visible light communications, and wireless positioning systems.

Ahmed F. Zobaa received his B.Sc. (Hons), M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Power & Machines from Cairo University, Egypt, in 1992, 1997, and 2002, respectively. He received his Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from the University of Exeter, the UK, in 2010. He received the Doctoral of Science from Brunel University London, the UK, in 2017. Currently, he is Reader in electrical and power engineering. His main areas of expertise include power quality, (marine) renewable energy, smart grids, energy efficiency, and lighting applications.