Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Walid Saad has received the 2023 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications and the Katherine Johnson Young Author Best Paper Award. 

Saad is a professor in the D.C. Metro Area and the Next-G Wireless faculty lead at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. In addition, Saad is a member of the Wireless@VT research group.

The Katherine Johnson Young Author Best Paper Award honors the author(s) of an especially meritorious paper dealing with a subject related to the Society’s technical scope and who, upon the date of submission of the paper, is less than 30 years of age. Saad served as a mentor and co-author to the young authors Migzhe Chen and Zhaohui Yang. This is the third time that Saad has co-authored a publication to win this young author award, with previous award years being 2019 and 2021.

Saad is a firm believer in giving students the freedom to explore bold research questions that are significant and interesting to them.

“As a faculty member, there is nothing more rewarding than witnessing the success of my young students and advisees and seeing their work recognized by prestigious international awards,” said Saad. “Empowering students to carve their own path fosters passion and encourages out-of-the-box thinking leading to high-impact research outcomes that not only benefit their academic pursuits, but also contribute to society at large.”

The second award in the lineup for Saad from IEEE is the Marconi Award, which is one of the most prestigious academic awards in the field of telecommunications.  It is awarded annually and was established by the IEEE Communications Society in 2003.  Each year, the IEEE Communications Society selects the only one excellent paper from all papers published in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in the past three years based on the originality, practicability, timeliness and clarity of the paper jointly. This is the first time that a Virginia Tech faculty member has received this distinguished award.

The winning paper from 2021 focuses on the topic of federated learning over wireless networks. Saad’s research on federated learning, digital twins, and artificial intelligence has continued and even spans into the idea of making AI more sustainable. 

Read more about Walid Saad. 

About the IEEE Communications Society
The IEEE Communications Society promotes technological innovation and fosters creation and sharing of information among  the global technical community. The Society provides services to members for their technical and professional advancement and forums for technical exchanges among professionals in academia, industry, and public institutions.