Filippo Campagnaro & Francesco Maurelli, New YP-BOOST Laureates, Roberto Petroccia, OES Liaison for the YP-BOOST Program
Introduction by Roberto Petroccia, OES Liaison for the YP-BOOST Program
I am very happy to share with you that the IEEE OES Young Professional (YP) BOOST Program is getting up to speed with four YP BOOST laureates active each year. Two new laureates have recently been selected and will be active for 2023-2024. They will join Amy and Mehdi that were selected at the end of 2021 and active for 2022-2023. The YP-BOOST program aims at helping selected YPs in their career development and engagement with the leadership of the OES society and maritime scientific and technological community at large. The two new YP BOOST laureates active in 2023-2024 are Filippo and Francesco. We are very happy to have them on-board and, as you can read in what follows, they have strong ties with OES and will quickly start taking part in leadership meetings and actively contributing to society activities. Two new YP BOOST candidates will be selected at the end of 2023 to serve in 2024-2025 and the application process will open in October-November 2023. I would like to invite all of you to visit the OES YP webpage (https://beacon.ieeeoes.org/young-professionals/), learn more about this program and apply to engage more within the OES society and give a boost to your career development and networking.
New YP-BOOST Laureates 2023-2024
Filippo Campagnaro
What does a countryman do in the Oceanic Engineering Society? My name is Filippo Campagnaro, and the literal translation of my family name is “countryman.” I grew up in a small town 15 miles from Venice, in countryside, where I now live with my wife. I eat the eggs picked up from my grandmother’s hens, my uncle’s homemade salami, the vegetables I grow in my own garden and drink the wine made by my parents. I practice traditional sports (palo della cuccagna, among the others) and enjoy local feasts. So, how did I fall into the IEEE OES community?
When I was a teenager, I did not have any Internet connections at home as the rural area I was living was not covered by any provider. Therefore, I decided to study computer engineering and telecommunications both at the high school and at the University, because I was very curious about this technology that I could not use due to “geographical issues.” During the University courses I attended a seminar on underwater network, where some PhD students and post doc fellows presented the challenges of the underwater environment and their experimental activities, that I found very interesting, so I decided to do both my bachelor Thesis in 2012 and my master Thesis in 2014 in underwater communications. During my thesis activities I was amazed by the work performed by these young researchers, that were often going to sea trials in all parts of the world, from Hawaii to Norway, coming back very tired and enthusiastic, with many stories to tell about their adventures. Their job was looking amazing, thus I decided I wanted to be part of the crew, joining scientific expeditions and sea experiments (that I did, counting more than 15 field tests in rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans). Moreover, the challenges imposed by the underwater acoustic, optical and electromagnetic channels, where there are still many unresolved problems, provide lots of new stimuli for research activities. Indeed, the fact that it is easier to establish a communication link from the Earth to the Moon, or even to Mars, than making reliable underwater communication links in the middle of the oceans, in my opinion, is something astonishing, don’t you think so?
Therefore, immediately after my Master Thesis, I have satisfied my desires by joining the SIGNET lab at the University of Padova, doing research and experimentation in underwater communications, and a few months later (May 2015) I had the opportunity to attend my first IEEE/OES OCEANS conference, in Genova, Italy, presenting my first proceeding in front of the IEEE/OES community. This allowed me to attend many nice presentations and visit the exhibition hall, where almost all the devices that I had previously studied in the brochures and manuals to perform my research were exhibited. This gave me the possibility to ask all curiosities I had about those sophisticated devices, often learning from those speeches details that are complementary with my literature surveys. Afterwards, I was so enthusiastic about this experience that I have kept attending the OCEANS conferences and other OES-supported events: in the last 8 years I attended 9 OCEANS and 4 UComms conferences, one Breaking the Surface workshop and one European Robotic League student competition.
During my PhD, I was selected for the OCEANS 2019 Marseille student poster competition, where I could present my research work to a large audience and exchange ideas with other students and fellows. Since then, many things changed: I got married, finished my PhD, and became a staff member (research assistant professor) at the University of Padova. But something has not changed: my curiosity and my willing of doing experimentation and sea trials. My research focuses on underwater multimodal acoustic optical and electromagnetic communications, with specific interest on underwater sensor networks. Given the big problems caused by sea pollutants and climate change, I am also very involved in low-cost dense sensor deployments to monitor aquatic biodiversity, water quality, and predict floods in coastal areas, such as the Venice lagoon.
I am very glad that I have been selected for the OES YP BOOST program 2023-2024, that I see as an entry point to this community, and I hope to provide OES with my contribute giving, hopefully, helpful suggestions and guidance to young fellas. I recommend young researchers to be curious and satisfy your wishes, doing something more than just follow your advisor’s suggestions (that you need to pursue, by the way). I leave you with a final (perhaps foregone) citation, considered by many people a sort of hymn to research: “Consider your origin: you were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.” Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy – Inferno Canto XXVI:85-142
Francesco Maurelli
Since I was a kid, the sea fascinated me: so majestic, yet mysterious with its wide range of ecosystems. We know more about the Moon surface than about the depths of the Oceans. And they are so important for human life: every second breadth comes from the Oceans! Joining my passion for innovation and technology, I was so excited to start a PhD in marine robotics quite a few years ago. I was working on autonomous driving for my Master thesis when I received an offer to start a PhD in Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, focusing on intelligent localization. Just before starting, I traveled to Japan for the World Esperanto Congress, and I had the possibility to visit JAMSTEC. The visit confirmed I made the right choice: I felt so excited to start exploring the oceans, using and developing advanced technologies in AI and robotics, to make pieces of plastic and metal to actually do something useful on their own.
Looking at the various aspects related to oceans, science and technology are inevitably entangled. From ocean measurements and sensing to field intervention, energy harvesting, marine waste reduction, the progress in marine systems has made significant advancements. Globally, we are in the process of the fourth industrial revolution. Robotics and autonomous systems have become a key component for so many industry sectors and significant progress has been made in marine systems as well. During my research activities, I focus on making marine robots smarter, equipping them with high level autonomy: from sensor data processing to intelligent planning in challenging environments. I had the opportunity and the pleasure to perform field activities in many different environments, including Scottish lochs, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea.
I strongly believe that smart autonomous marine robotic systems represent a key enabler to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. I am very keen in supporting the OES to play a central role in the UN Ocean Decade activities.
As a professor at Constructor University (Bremen, Germany – formerly Jacobs University), I also put a great emphasis on student activities and involve both undergraduate and postgraduate students in marine robotics.
The team Black Pearl I supervised at the RAMI Competition 2022, winning the Best Rookie Award and scoring third place.
When I am not working with robots or with students, I like to play the piano. Bach, Mozart, Chopin and many other great composers are incredible life coaches. I am very much an international person, feeling that the EU first and then the overall world is my Motherland. For this reason, I speak the international language Esperanto, which was created some 125 years ago with the goal of having a neutral tool to overcome language barriers. “Today, within the welcoming walls of Boulogne-sur-Mer, there meet not Frenchmen with Englishmen, not Russians with Poles, but people with people” were deeply touching words at the first World Esperanto Congress in 1905, before two world wars teared Europe and the world in pieces. I feel that the Oceanic Engineering Society does work towards the same direction as well: joining people via common technical interests, fostering international collaboration in mutual respect. As an Italian living abroad, I have developed a very essential survival skill: the ability to cook some fine vegetarian and vegan dishes. Let me know if you pass by Bremen!
I am very honored to have been selected for the OES YP BOOST Program 2023-2024 and I am looking forward to contribute, to network and to inspire young scientists in a field which is as demanding as rewarding. We’ll be in touch! 😊
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.