Plenary & Keynote Speakers

Dr. Sanjay Ranka
University of Florida, USA
Plenary Speaker

Sanjay Ranka is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Computer Information Science and Engineering at University of Florida. From 1999-2002, as the Chief Technology Officer at Paramark (Sunnyvale, CA), he developed a real-time optimization service called PILOT for marketing campaigns. PILOT served more than 10 million optimized decisions a day in 2002 with a 99.99% uptime. Paramark was recognized by VentureWire/Technologic Partners as a Top 100 Internet technology company in 2001 and 2002 and was acquired in 2002. Sanjay has also held positions as a tenured faculty member at Syracuse University, academic visitor at IBM and summer researcher at Hitachi America Limited.

Research in high performance computing and bigdata science is an important avenue for novel discoveries in large-scale applications. The focus of his current research is the development of efficient computational methods and data analysis techniques to model scientific phenomenon, and practical applications of focus are improvements to the quality of healthcare and the reduction of traffic accidents. A core aspiration of his research is to develop novel algorithms and software that make an impact on the application domain, exploiting the interdependence between theory and practice of computer science

He has coauthored one book, four monographs, 300+ journal and refereed conference articles. His recent coauthored work has received a best student paper runner-up award at IGARSS 2015, best paper award at BICOB 2014, best student paper award at ACM-BCB 2010, best paper runner-up award at KDD-2009, a nomination for the Robbins Prize for the best paper in the Journal of Physics in Medicine and Biology in 2008, and a best paper award at ICN 2007.

He is a fellow of the IEEE, AAAS and AAIA (Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association) and a past member of IFIP Committee on System Modeling and Optimization. He won the 2020 Research Impact Award from IEEE Technical Committee on Cloud Computing. He is an associate editor-in-chief of the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing and an associate editor for ACM Computing Surveys, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Sustainable Computing: Systems and Informatics, Knowledge and Information Systems, and International Journal of Computing. Additionally, he is a book series editor for CRC Press for Bigdata. In the past, he has been an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems and IEEE Transactions on Computers.

He was a general co-chair for ICDM in 2009, International Green Computing Conference in 2010 and International Green Computing Conference in 2011, a general chair for ACM Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology in 2012, and a program chair for 2013 International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium and 2015 High Performance Computing Conference. He was a co-general chair for DataCom 2017 and co-program chair for ICMLDS 2017 and 2018.

His work has received 14,500+ citations with an h-index of 61 (based on Google Scholar). He has consulted for several startups and Fortune 500 companies.

Topic of Keynote: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for Smart Transportation
Plenary Abstract

Dr. Tamer El Maaddawy
United Arab Emirates University, UAE
Keynote Speaker

Dr. Tamer El Maaddawy is a Professor of Structural Engineering at UAE University (UAEU). He worked as a Strategic Initiative Manager at the UAEU Strategy Management Office from 2020 to 2021. He was the Director of the PhD Program at College of Engineering from 2017 to 2021 and Director of the MSc Program in Civil Engineering from 2011 to 2015. Before joining UAEU, Dr. El Maaddawy was working as a Structural Engineer at Halcrow-Yolles, Toronto, Canada. Dr. El Maaddawy earned his PhD from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is registered Professional Engineer (P.Eng) in Ontario, Canada. He is an associate editor of the ASCE Journal of Composites for Construction and an associate member of the ACI 440 Committee. Dr. El Maaddawy is among the Stanford University’s List of top 2% Most Cited Scientists in their Field. He has established an international reputation as an expert researcher and consultant in the field of condition assessment, corrosion aging, and rehabilitation of concrete structures with sustainable composite-based materials.

Topic of Keynote: Rehabilitation of Concrete Structures with Composite-Based Materials

Dr. Hany El Naggar
Dalhousie University, Canada
Keynote Speaker

Dr. Hany El Naggar, Ph.D., P.Eng., is a Professor of GeoStructural/Geotechnical Engineering at Dalhousie University with more than 25 years of experience in civil construction, geotechnical and structural engineering and research in Canada and overseas. He has participated in several geotechnical and structural investigations and is experienced in the analysis and design of foundations and soil-structure interaction of buried infrastructure. Dr. El Naggar and his research team have investigated the SSI effects around buried infrastructure and explored innovative uses of tire derived aggregate (TDA) as a buffer zone to create stress arching and reduce demand on rigid pipes and culverts. They also proposed an earth pressure reduction system using a geogrid reinforced platform bridging system to reduce stresses on buried utilities and studied the effects of high-rise buildings on pre-existing tunnels. Likewise, they conducted several slope stability assessments for high embankments and dams and developed a new sand-coated glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) pile with an enhanced friction performance. Dr. El Naggar’s research findings have been reported in more than 170 technical publications covering both experimental and numerical work in the fields of SSI, resilient buried infrastructure, and concrete pipes. His research work on the seismic performance of corrugated metal culverts led to changing the seismic provisions of the new version of the Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (2019) to include rigorous dynamic analysis for flexible buried structures in high seismicity zones. Besides, his work on the modelling of rigid pipes is featured in the CHBDC (2019) as an example of the best practice in modelling buried concrete structures. These research efforts received worldwide recognition.

Topic of Keynote: Innovative Use of Recycled Materials in Infrastructure Projects

Dr. Hesham El Naggar
University of Waterloo, Canada
Keynote Speaker

Topic of Keynote:

Dr. Abhijit Mukherjee
Curtin University, Australia
Keynote Speaker

Professor Abhijit Mukherjee is the John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University. He is a Civil Engineer, researcher and educator. His research is on sustainable construction. He approaches sustainable construction from three directions- development of new sustainable materials, monitoring health of existing infrastructure and extending life of infrastructure through rehabilitation and retrofitting. His research has made seminal improvement in the methods of manufacturing construction materials and understanding their process of degradation; their use in building structures; and managing lifecycle of structures through monitoring and retrofitting. Professor Mukherjee’s research is published in more than 250 archival journals that are cited more than 18000 times. He works with Main Roads Australia and several other industries to translate his research into practice. His recent research is on self-healing self-sensing concrete.

Topic of Keynote: Is A Self-Healing Self-Sensing Smart Concrete Feasible?