Dr. Sasitharan Balasubramaniam (male), is currently an Acting Director of Research at the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group, Waterford Institute of Technology and also an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Department of Electrical and Communication Engineering of the Tampere University of Technology. Dr. Balasubramaniam completed his Bachelors of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1998 and 2005, respectively. He also completed his Masters of Engineering Science (Computer and Communication Engineering) from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, in 1999. After the completion of his PhD, he joined the TSSG as a postdoctoral research fellow, and was later promoted to Research Unit Manager.
The main research interests of Dr. Balasubramaniam lies in Biologically inspired Nanoscale Communications, which also includes molecular communications. In this area he has developed communication models for calcium signalling, bacterial nanonetworks, as well as microfluidic communications. His research interests recently moved towards nanoscale communications within the brain, and this includes modelling the communication within the cortical micro columns as well as implanting nanoscale wireless optogenetic devices that can stimulate single neurons. The aim of this research is to target new forms of Brain-Machine Interfaces that can link machines to stimulations of single neurons. Dr. Balasubramaniam has published 44 peer reviewed journal publications, 66 conference proceedings, 2 book chapters, and has edited a number of special issues in the area of molecular communications and the Internet of (Bio) Nano Things. The citations to this work is at 2289, according to Google Scholar, with an h-index of 22.
Dr. Balasubramaniam co-founded a new workshop series called Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) Molecular and Nano Communication (MoNaCom), which ran from 2011 – 2013, and most recently he co-founded the ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication (ACM NanoCom). In 2014, he was the Technical Program Committee co-chair, and in 2015 he was the General Chair of ACM NanoCom. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Internet of Things journal, Editor of Elsevier Nano Communication Networks, and Editor of Digital Communication Networks. He also serves as a technical program committee member for a number of conferences (e.g., IEEE INFOCOM, IEEE MASS, IEEE LCN). Dr. Balasubramaniam is also a grant reviewer for National Science Foundation, Academy of Finland, as well as the Agence Nationale De La Recherche.
Dr. Michael Taynnan Barros (male), First Time FET Participant, is currently an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral research fellow associated with the TSSG, WIT. Michael received his Ph.D. in Telecommunication Software at the Waterford Institute of Technology in 2016, M.Sc. degree in Computer Science at the Federal University of Campina Grande in 2012 and B.Tech. degree in Telematics at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Paraiba in 2011. He has published over 40 research papers in diverse journals such as IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, and conferences in the area of wireless communications, optical communications, ad-hoc networks, as well as molecular and nano scale communications. He is also a reviewer for many journals and participated as technical program committee and reviewer for various international conferences. In 2017, he was the Technical Program Co-chair for the 3rd International Workshop on Nanoscale Computing and Communications (NsCC), held in conjunction with the NEW2AN conference, the chair of the 5GPPP Network Management, QoS and Security Working Group and the Chair of the 2nd Network Management, QoS and Security for 5G Networks held in conjunction with the EuCNC. His research interests include Internet-of-things, Terahertz communications, Nano networks and Molecular Communications.
Daniel Perez Martins (male), First Time FET Participant, was born in Salvador-BA, Brazil, 1985. Currently, he is a researcher associated with the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group, Waterford Institute of Technology. Daniel received his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering at the Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG-Brazil-2013) and B.Sc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the University Center Jorge Amado (Unijorge-Brazil-2009). During his Master, he was associated with Institute for Advanced Studies in Communications (Iecom) where worked on a R&D project to identify the acoustical noise's source at an industrial environment using Sound Signal Processing and Stochastic Processes techniques. His experiences concentrates on Mathematical Modeling of Telecommunications Systems, Signal Processing and Analysis, Computer Networks and Molecular Communications. He is also a reviewer for the Nano Communications Networks and for the IEEE Internet of Things journals. His research interests include Bacteria-Based Nanosystems, Synthetic Biology and Molecular Communications.
Frances Cleary (Female) First Time FET Participant, is currently Research Unit Manager for the Mobile Ecosystem and Pervasive Sensing (MEPS) Research Unit in TSSG, Waterford Institute OF Technology. Since joining WIT/TSSG Frances has worked in the following main thematic research areas (as task leader, work package leader and project manager/coordinator): Pervasiveness in converged telecommunications, user-centric paradigm for seamless mobility in Future internet, federated testbed management and Embedded software quality assurance and testing. Frances has multiple years of experience as a EU Project coordinator of SecCord and Effectsplus EU FP7 CSA funded research projects that relates to trust and security (responsible for security research project clustering, leading to increased collaboration, dissemination, networking strategic research agenda’s, roadmapping and research to industry translation. Frances has also successfully Project coordinated and actively lead the Cybersecurity & Privacy (CSP) Forum initiative www.cspforum.eu funded via the EU FP7 SecCord project, this project focused on EU research collaboration, networking and clustering activities of funded EU trust and security research projects. With 12 years’ experience of working in EU funded research projects, Frances also over the past 2 years has specifically been focusing on smart and connected mobility research topics and has a direct interest in urban mobility, transport and automotive related research thematic areas (e.g. ADAS, MaaS, intelligent/Smart transport and mobility and the adoption and use of ICT technologies to intelligent transport systems, physical Internet). Frances recently actively worked on the EU H2020 funded project called DISCOVERY http://discoveryproject.eu/ , that specifically focused on international cooperation supporting dialogues between Europe and North America (US and Canada). Here she actively contributed to working group activities relating to funding mechanisms and Cybersecurity, fostering cooperation in collaborative ICT Research & Innovation, and she contributed to the annual Transatlantic ICT Forum. Currently France’s unit has expertise relating to Pervasive sensing, Embedded Systems Communications and Bio-Nano Communications. The Unit specifically focuses on new innovations and application of new emerging technologies in the health vertical.