Ian F. Akyildiz received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981 and 1984, respectively. Currently, he is the President and CTO of the Truva Inc. since March 1989.
He also serves on the Advisory Board of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates since June 1, 2020. He is also an Adjunct Professor with the University of Helsinki since 2021, University of Iceland since 2020, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) since 2019. Dr. Akyildiz is also a Visiting Distinguished Professor with the Shiv Nadar University, SSN College of Engineering, Chennai, India since October 2019.
Dr. Akyildiz was the Megagrant Research Leader and Advisor to the Director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, in Moscow, Russia, (2018-2020). He was an Adjunct Professor with the University of Cyprus (2017-2020). He is the Ken Byers Chair Professor Emeritus in Telecommunications, Past Chair of the Telecom group at the ECE and the Director of the Broadband Wireless Networking Laboratory between (1985-2020) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Akyildiz had many international affiliations during his career. He established many research centers in Spain, South Africa, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia, India, Cyprus, etc.
He is the Founder and Editor in Chief of the newly established of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies (ITU-J FET) since August 2020. Dr. Akyildiz is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Computer Networks Journal (Elsevier) (1999-2019), the founding Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Ad Hoc Networks Journal (Elsevier) (2003-2019), Physical Communication (PHYCOM) Journal (Elsevier) (2008-2017), and Nano Communication Networks (NANOCOMNET) Journal (Elsevier) (2010-2017). He is an IEEE Fellow (1996) and ACM Fellow (1997) and received numerous awards from IEEE and ACM and other professional organizations, including Humboldt Award from Germany.
He is a former editor for IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (1996-2001), Kluwer Journal of Cluster Computing (1997-2001), ACM-Springer Journal for Multimedia Systems (1995-2002), for IEEE Transactions on Computers (1992-1996) as well as for ACM-Springer Journal of Wireless Networks (WINET) (1995-2005). He served as a guest-editor for several special issues of various journals between 1988-2001 including “Networks in Metropolitan Areas” in October 1992 and “Mobility and Resource Management in Next Generation Wireless Systems” in October 2001 for IEEE Journal of Selected Areas in Communications.
He was the technical program chair of the 9th IEEE Computer Communications Workshop in 1994. In 1995, he co-launched the ACM MobiCom (International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking), which is now the premier conference in the broad field of wireless networking, and he was the Technical Program Chair for MobiCom’96 and MobiCom’02. He was also Technical Program Chair for IEEE INFOCOM’98 (Computer Networking Conference) and IEEE ICC’2003 (International Conference on Communications). He is the Co-Founder of the ACM SenSys (Sensor Systems) Conference and General Co-Chair of the ACM SenSys’03, which took place in Los Angeles in November 2003. He was the General Chair for Third Med Hoc (Mediterranean Conference on Ad Hoc Networks), in Bodrum, Turkey, June 2004, and the General Chair of the IFIP Networking’07 Conference in Atlanta, May 2007.
In order to help and boost the research activities in the Black Sea region countries, in 2013 he established the IEEE BlackSeaCom Conference (International Black Sea Conference on Communications and Networking), whose first edition took place in Batumi, Georgia. Similarly, to help to connect the Balkan countries to the Western research world, he launched the BalkanCom conference in Tirana, Albania in 2017. He is also the Founder of the ACM NanoCom (International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication), which he launched in May 2013 with the goal of accelerating the nanoscale computing, communication and networking research activities.
He gives keynote speeches at many international conferences, delivers distinguished seminars and teaches tutorials/classes worldwide. He currently serves on the advisory boards of several research centers, journals, conferences and companies.
His current research interests are in 6G/7G Wireless Systems, TeraHertz Communication, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces, Nanonetworks, Internet of Space Things/CUBESATs, Internet of BioNanoThings, Molecular Communication and Underwater Communication. According to Google Scholar as of August 2021, his h-index is 130 and the total number of citations to his papers is 130+K.
CURRENT ADDITIONAL AFFILIATIONS
- United Nations, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva, Switzerland
ITU Journal on Future and Evolving Technologies (ITU J-FET)
Founding Editor-in-Chief
(2020 – Present) - Technology Innovation Institute (TII), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Advisory Board Member
(2020 – Present) - University of Helsinki, Finland
Adjunct Professor
(2021 – Present) - University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Adjunct Professor
(2020 – Present) - Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway
Research Professor
(2019 – Present) - University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Adjunct Professor
(2017 – Present)
PAST AFFILIATIONS:
- Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow Russia
Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems
Megagrant Leader and Advisor to Director of IITP-RAS
(2018 – 2020) - SSN College of Engineering, Chennai, India
Distinguished Visiting Professor
(2019 – 2022) - Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Ken Byers Chair Professor in Telecommunications (Retired)
(1985 – 2020) - King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Advanced Wireless Networking Group
Consulting Chair Professor
(2012 – 2016) - Tampere University of Technology, Tampere, Finland
Nano Communications Center
Finland Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro)
(2012 – 2016) - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
NaNoNetworking Center in Catalunya
Honorary Professor
(2007 – 2017) - University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Advanced Sensor Networks Lab
Honorary Professor
(2009 – 2012) - University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany
Research Scientist
(1981-1985) - Grundig Academy, Nurnberg, Germany
Teaching for German Department of Labor
(1983-1985) - University of Maryland European Division, Heidelberg, Germany
Teaching USA Armed Forces Members
(1983-1985)