Technical Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC)
Election for Technical Committee Chair
Ballot:
2009.
TCCC is holding an election for the position of TC Chair for the term of 2008 through
Position statements from each candidate are enclosed. Please vote for no more than one
candidate:
Candidates for TC Chair:
________ Kevin Curran
________ Hrishikesh Gossain
________ Mehrdad S. Sharbaf
________ Burkhard Stiller
OR ________ (write-in candidate)
Your Signature:
(Signature not necessary for email returns.)
Your Name (please print):
Your IEEE CS Membership Number:
Only IEEE CS members are eligible to vote. Your membership number is required for a
valid ballot.
Please email (highly preferred), fax, or mail your ballot to John Daniel at:
Email: jw.daniel@computer.org
Fax:
+1 202 728 0884
Mail:
1828 "L" Street, NW, Suite 1202, Washington, DC 20036-5104, USA
Ballots must be received at the IEEE Computer Society
no later than 20 May 2008
______________________________________________________________________
Candidate for TCCC Chair
Kevin Curran BSc (Hons), PhD, MBCS CITP, SMIEEE, MACM, MIEE, FHEA
Computing and Intelligent Systems Department
University of Ulster
E-mail: kj.curran@ulster.ac.uk
Position Statement
The IEEE Communications Society’s prestigious reputation is without equal in the field of
computer communications the world over. A core aspect of the society is the Technical
Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) which aims to provide members with a forum
promoting technical discussions and interactions on topics in the general area of communications.
I believe that I can contribute as a TCCC chair due to my strong track record in research
publications within the field of computer communications and networks. I also believe myself to
be a team player, easy to get on with, hard working, diligent and fair. These traits can be seen as
desirable in a TCCC chair. I am constantly aware that there are more gifted researchers working
in this field however I do believe that my hard working and sense of fair play would forever serve
to strengthen the TCCC, energize each new member, seek out new opportunities and arrange
innovative tutorials. I believe that I am practical and I would strive to seek where changes could
be suggested to the committee to support each members research activity in a bid to offset the
bureaucratic duties that are increasingly placed upon us by our host institutions.
Bio
Kevin Curran is a senior member of the IEEE and has published over 300 research papers to
date and 5 books in the field of distributed computing especially emerging trends within networks,
dynamic protocol stacks and middleware. He has also been involved in attracting UK, European
Union and other international grants. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for research
and enterprise and is listed in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Dictionary of International
Biography and Who’s Who in the World. Dr Curran is the team leader of the Ambient Intelligence
group at the University of Ulster. He is the Editor in Chief of the forthcoming International Journal
of Ambient Computing and Intelligence (IJACI) from IGI Global. He is also a member of the
Editorial Committee of 15+ journals and numerous IEEE international conferences. Dr. Curran
also has a track record of successfully initiating technology spinout companies. He is a regular
contributor to local and national radio and TV news and documentaries especially with the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) where he has contributed regularly to network, security and
general internet related issues which make the news from time to time.
______________________________________________________________________
Candidate for TCCC Chair
Hrishikesh Gossain
Position Statement
Technical Committee in Computer Communications (TCCC) is a unique forum which can provide
the framework and direction to make the dream of anytime, anywhere come true.The area of
Computer Communications has been and will be an evolving field. We now envision a futuristic
scenario with not only infrastructure and cellular systems, but also with mobile ad hoc and sensor
networks and their co-existence.In addition to addressing the technical aspects of designing,
implementing, and evaluating upcoming communication systems, I believe that the TCCC should
also address the critical issues related to capacity planning, system scalability, interference
modeling, power save, reliability, and security. The global collaboration between academia and
industry communities across multiple disciplines is fundamental to promote innovation. If elected,
I will promote international activities including conferences, workshops and symposiums where
the research community can share their results and open up new opportunities for collaboration
and innovation. I will encourage the knowledge sharing between different standards organization
and encourage more collaboration between the research community and the industry
practitioners. I believe that it is important to periodically examine, and expand or consolidate
when appropriate, the conferences, symposiums, and workshops currently sponsored by TCCC
or co-sponsored with other technical committees, to ensure broader participation and to reflect
the changes in the field. In addition, I will also seek innovative and effective ways to maintain the
technical leadership of our TCCC members and promote more interaction and collaboration.
Bio
Hrishikesh Gossain is a Senior Systems Staff Engineer in Mesh Networks Product Group at
Motorola Inc. He received his PhD degree in computer science and engineering from the
University of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he won the honorable Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation
Award for the year 2004/2005. Earlier he received his BE degree in Electronics Engineering from
Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, India, where he was undergraduate gold-medalist of
the college. He is the recipient of 2007 and 2006 Outstanding Performance Award, Motorola
Corporate Standards for his contribution to IEEE 802.11 standards body. He has several
approved and pending patents in the areas of wireless and mobile networks, access network
design, QoS, and e-media and authored several journal and conference papers in the same. He
has served as a Guest Editor to Wireless Communication Magazine and as a TPC member to
several international conferences. He has previous work experience with Nortel Networks in
Richardson, Texas and the Center for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), India.
______________________________________________________________________
Candidate for TCCC Chair
Mehrdad S. Sharbaf
Sharbaf & Associates
E-mail-msharbaf@ieee.org
Position Statement
The mission statement of the Technical Committee on Computer Communications is to provide
its members with a forum that promotes technical discussions and interactions on topics in the
general area of Computer Communications, as well as to give them the opportunity to broaden
their professional contacts through interactions with peers. If elected, I will promote the mission
statement of the committee, and enhance the TCCC’s goal to promote global and international
technical activities. To make TCCC more useful to its members, it has to present technical
knowledge to its members more efficiently through an active web site. I will establish the TCCC
to act as a bridge between the research community and the industry practitioners. I also would
like to promote the TCCC’s goal, to provide the members with a vehicle through which they can
contribute to and influence the direction of research and engineering in computer communication
discipline.
Bio
Mehrdad S. Sharbaf background included more than fifteen year's experience in industry and
academic environments, focusing on system integration, reengineering information processing,
hardware infrastructure, designing information technology, perform systems-level trade studies,
design review preparation and system testing, consulting, researching, teaching, and training.
Academically, Mehrdad has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering emphasizing in
computer communications networking, and working on his Ph.D. degree in information systems
discipline at Nova Southeastern University. He has gained more than 15 years of teaching
experience at various educational institutions such as UCLA Extension, Loyola Marymount
University (LMU), CSULB, CSULA, DeVRY University, and National University. Prior to
establishing his consulting business, Mehrdad spent more than 11 years as a senior staff at
Teledyne Electronics Technologies. At Teledyne he received a corporate award for reengineering
information process within manufacturing environment to achieve business objectives. He is the
founder of Sharbaf & Associates firm. His consulting firm is specializing in Enterprise Network
Design, Network Security, and Strategy Management Technology and Innovation. He is an active
senior member of IEEE Society, and participating in various events. His research interests are in
computer systems security, computer communications networking, quantum information networks,
quantum cryptography, and quantum information processing. Mehrdad also is a member of ACM,
and AIS.
______________________________________________________________________
Candidate for TCCC Chair
Prof. Dr. Burkhard Stiller
University of Zürich, Switzerland
Lab Director Department of Informatics, IFI and Communication Systems Group
CSG
Position Statement
The work TCCC has performed in recent years includes a number of areas within the networking
domain, which are essential and highly important for a future research as well as operations
perspective. Thus, the fostering of TCCC of research conferences, the education of students
(master level as well as Ph.D. level), and an open idea and information exchange between
interested people from academia, industry, and SMEs will be the key. Communications and
networking in terms of wired and wireless technologies determines the major pillar for today’s
information technology-driven society, which can be seen by starting at ATMs for cash withdraws
and not ending at pure data communications for distributed simulations of weather or earthquake
scenarios.
Therefore, it is a great privilege and honor to be nominated for the position of the TCCC chair.
Taking the next steps of communications and networking into account, the TCCC shall try to
focus on 2 to 3 areas of interest in the short term. Of course, since technology shifts happen
frequently and fast, an ongoing consideration and careful technology-watch has to be
implemented within TCCC to be able to detect early trends and changes. Nevertheless, as a
starting point the telecommunications and Internet convergence has to be supported by the right
set of mechanisms. These ones include besides pure technology-internal areas, such as access
management, accounting, and security support (authentication, authorization, and electronic
identity provisioning), also technology-operational areas, such as management functions for an
efficient network operation, traffic management functionality, and operations dimensions of
converged networking infrastructures.
In this context, the TCCC should focus on mechanisms and management approaches for wired
and wireless networking technologies, which will make these converged infrastructures easier to
manage. Second, there is a clear demand from “application domains” to intensify the direct
support and benefit of such mechanisms and management approaches for applications of
communications. There is a high probability that in a number of application domains the set of
services offered on top of these converged networks will be only possible due to these novel
service management paradigms. Of course, a general approach is always the path to research
for, however, it may be quite specific to some sectors, such as e-health, where security and
service management are absolutely interrelated, while in infotainment accounting and
management for
good qualities are highly interrelated. Thus, such an outline of tasks to be address will make
TCCC relevant to industry professionals. Therefore, TCCC should try to develop new initiatives or
support workshops in those areas focusing on communication infrastructures in specific domains,
where an impact of new communication approaches will be high.
Bio
Prof. Dr. Burkhard Stiller received his diploma degree in computer science and his doctoral
degree from the University of Karlsruhe, in 1990 and 1994, respectively. From 1991 until 1995 he
has been a Research Assistant at the University of Karlsruhe, being on leave in 1994/95 for a
one-year EC Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory, UK.
From November 1995 he has been with the Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory, TIK
of ETH Zürich. He was appointed Assistant Professor for Communication Systems at ETH in
1999 and held that post until September 2004. Burkhard Stiller held additionally from April 2002
until August 2004 a Full Professor Chair at the University of Federal Armed Forces Munich
(UniBwM), where he headed the Information Systems Laboratory IIS and had a part-time
appointment with ETH Zurich. Since September 2004 Prof. Dr. Burkhard Stiller holds the
Communications Full Professor Chair at the University of Zürich, Department of Informatics, IFI
and is associated with the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering
(DITET) of the ETH Zürich. He participated in or managed several national research projects
within Germany, Switzerland, and the UK as well as European IST projects, such as Akogrimo,
Daidalos, EC-GIN, Daidalos II, MMAPPS, Moby Dick, CATI, M3I, ANAISOFT, DAMMO,
DaCaPo++, BioLANCC, and F-CSS. Bilateral industrial collaborations include the BioLANCC,
DAMMO, and DAMMO II projects.
Prof. Stiller organized a.o. the DSOM'99 (Distributed Systems — Operations and Maintenance)
work-shop as PC Co-chair in Zürich and he served as the general chair for the Networked Group
Communications (NGC’03) and Internet Charging and QoS Technologies (ICQT’03) Workshop in
September 2003 in Munich. He was a.o. PC Chair of the IEEE LCN'03 Conference in Bonn,
General Chair of the 30th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (IEEE LCN’05). More
recent he was the TPC Co-chair for NOMS 2006 (10th IEEE/IFIP Network and Operations
Symposium), the TPC Co-chair of KiVS 2007 in Berne, of the IEEE ICC Symposium on Network
Services and Operations 2007, Glasgow, and General Co-chair of the IEEE BoD Workshop 2006,
San Francisco. Recently, he was the General Co-chair of the IEEE BoD Workshop 2008,
Salvador, Brazil. He performed as a reviewer for numerous journals (e.g., IEEE
JSAC, Computer Communications, Netnomics) and conferences (e.g., ACM SIGCOM,
Globecom, IEEE Infocom).
Prof. Stiller’s main research interests include charging and accounting for IP-based networks,
economics of IP services, grid services, auctions for services, communication protocols in the
Internet, biometric access control, Quality-of-Service aspects, peer-to-peer systems, network
management, and supporting functions for wireless access networks including biometrics. He
published well over 70 research and survey papers on these areas in leading IEEE journals
(IEEE JSAC, IEEE Network) and others (e.g., ACM CCR, Netnomics, Computer
Communications), IEEE conferences (e.g., IEEE/IFIP NOMS and IM, LCN) and others, and
workshops (e.g., IEEE LANMAN, QofIS, Networking, and Global Grid Forum). Finally, he edited a
number of special issues for journals, serves as an editorial board member in Netnomics, PIK,
JNMS, and CMS, and served as an editor on books in the areas of network management and
Quality-of-Service.