Mohamed-Slim Alouini - Biography#

Mohamed-Slim Alouini was born in Tunis, Tunisia. He received her “Diplôme d’Ingénieur " and “Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies" (DEA) in Electronics with Highest Honors, both in September1993 from the Ecole Nat. Superieure Telecom. (TELECOM Paris-Tech), Paris, France, and the University Pierre & Marie Curie (Sorbonne University), Paris, France, respectively. He then received his Master degree in Electrical Engineering in September 1995 from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Atlanta, Georgia, USA before earning his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, California, in 1998. He also received the Habilitation degree from the Université Pierre & Marie Curie (Sorbonne University), Paris, France, in 2003. Dr. Alouini served as a faculty member from 1998 to 2004 in the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, then from 2004 to 2009 in the Texas A&M University at Qatar, Education City, Doha, Qatar before joining King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Makkah Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a Professor of Electrical Engineering (EE) in 2009, with courtesy appointments in the Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences (AMCS) as well as Statistics (STAT) programs.

Dr. Alouini is a world renowned expert in the area of wireless communication and networking and his current research interests include design and performance analysis of diversity combining techniques, MIMO techniques, multi-hop/cooperative communications systems, optical wireless communication systems, cognitive radio systems, wireless data center communications, UAV communications, and multi-resolution, hierarchical and adaptive modulation schemes.

Dr. Alouini has published more than 500 journal papers on the above subjects and he is the co-author of the best-selling textbook Digital Communication over Fading Channels published by Wiley. The impact of his work has continued to grow as evidenced by the enormous number of citations to his publications. It was not surprising that he was elected to the Fellow grade of the IEEE in 2009, rather early in his career. With more than 46,000 citations, and an h-index of 78 by Google Scholar, it is not surprising that Dr. Alouini was been selected several times by the Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge as a Highly Cited Researcher. The nominee has had sustained remarkable contributions to wireless communications theory, practice, mentorship of students, and academic and professional service and leadership. He has been serving as an editor in three major IEEE journals (IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing).

Dr. Alouini has also won several awards in his career. For instance, he recently received the 2016 Recognition Award of the IEEE Communication Society Wireless Technical Committee, the 2016 Abdul Hameed Shoman Award for Arab Researchers in Engineering Sciences, and the Inaugural Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Science & Technology Achievement Award in Engineering Sciences in 2017. Other recognitions include his selection as (i) Fellow of the African Academy of Science in 2018 and Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2019, (ii) IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Communication Society and IEE Vehicular Technology Society, (iii) member for three times in the annual Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge list of Highly Cited Researchers as well as the Shanghai Ranking/Elsevier list of Most Cited Researchers, and (iv) a co-recipient of best paper awards in eleven IEEE conferences (including ICC, GLOBECOM, VTC, PIMRC, ISWCS, and DySPAN).

It should be noted that several of his group members (MS graduates, PhD graduates, and Postdocs) were very successful, and went for PhD (for MS graduates) or Post-Doctoral (for PhD graduates) studies in top world-class universities such as Harvard, Caltech, UT Austin, U Southern California, U Michigan, U of Illinois, U British Columbia, Mc-Gill University, Imperial College, TU Berlin, Univ of Sydney, etc.. or secured faculty positions in the west or in top universities in their home countries such as Korea University (South Korea), Hanyang University (South Korea), New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA), University of Victoria (Canada), York University (Canada), University of Glasgow (UK), University of Qatar (Qatar), Yildiz Technical University (Turkey), INPT-Rabat (Morocco), ITU-Lahore (Pakistan), IIIT-Delhi (India), King Fahd University of Petroluem and Minerals (KFUPM), Effat University (Saudi Arabia), Al-Faisal University (Saudi Arabia), etc.. In addition, many of his students and post-doctoral fellows received prestigious awards during their studies or tenure in his research group. For instance, his recent December 2018 PhD graduate Qurrat-Ul-Ain Nadeem was selected in September 2018 as one of the 2018 Marconi Society Paul Baran Young Scholars (first time occurring from a developing country), which is viewed by many as the most prestigious award for researchers in Telecommunications under the age of 28. In addition, last year, his post-doctoral fellow Dr. Ahmed Bader won in March 2017 the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Young Professionals (YPs) Best Innovation Award at the Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC'2017), San Francisco, USA. Recently, his post-doctoral fellow Dr. Abderrahman Trichili was selected to attend the 69th Lindau Nobel Meeting in June 2019.