ICNP 2015 Ph.D. Forum Keynotes
9:00 a.m. Apurv Bhartia from Cisco Meraki
Title: Improving Spectrum Efficiency in Wireless Networks
Abstract
With the proliferation of wireless enabled devices, the information being transmitted on the wireless spectrum has increased manifolds. This explosive growth of wireless traffic has created spectrum crisis. It is imperative to develop techniques to significantly improve wireless spectrum efficiency. In this talk, I'll give a brief overview of three complementary techniques that I worked on during my PhD to enhance spectrum efficiency: (i) sending more information per transmission, (ii) sending more transmissions per spectrum, and (iii) selecting the right spectrum for transmission.
More specifically, in (i) we develop a novel routing protocol, O3, which jointly optimizes network coding, opportunistic routing, and rate limiting. This allows us to send more information per transmission by harnessing network coding gain in wireless networks, which are inherently prone to loss. In (ii), we attempt to extend the MIMO benefits to multi hop wireless networks by developing DM+, which is the first practical distributed MIMO routing protocol that optimizes spatial multiplexing, routing, and rate limiting in the presence of interference. Finally in (iii), we design systems to address spectrum selection at two different granularities: (a) selecting an appropriate channel to transmit a frame, and (b) mapping symbols to subcarriers (within a channel) according to their importance.
Speaker Bio
Apurv Bhartia is currently an engineer at Cisco Meraki, where he is working on improving performance in enterprise wireless networks. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin in 2014, where he worked under the supervision of his advisor, Professor Lili Qiu. The title of his dissertation was ‘Improving Spectrum Efficiency in Wireless Networks’. His main research interests involve systems and networks, and more specifically in analysis, design and implementation of wireless protocols and algorithms.
4:00 p.m. Marios Iliofotou from Splunk
Title: Are Ph.D.s needed in modern enterprises?
Abstract
In this discussion we are going to focus on the role of Ph.D.s in the modern tech workplace. We are going to cover how other employees often perceive Ph.D.s and what you can do to greatly improve your image and set the right expectations. Next, we are going to discuss the main differences between Ph.D.s and non-Ph.D. employees and how you can use them to your advantage. Finally, we are going to discuss about being a programmer and being a data scientist, and why you should care about both. The topics covered here will be beneficial both for the interview process as well as for the post employment development.
Speaker Bio
Marios Iliofotou received the M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside, in 2007 and 2011, respectively. In his Ph.D., he investigated the effectiveness of graph-based algorithms for managing and securing large IP networks. During his Ph.D. tenure, Marios worked as an intern at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Telefonica Research in Barcelona, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Cisco Systems. After graduation, he worked as a research engineer at Narus, Inc. (now part of Symantec) from 2011 to 2014, where he developed algorithms for automatically profiling and parsing network protocols. In 2014 he joined the cyber security startup Caspida as a Data Scientist and designed several anomaly detection algorithms for intrusion detection. Splunk, Inc. acquired Caspida in June 2015. Currently Marios works as a Senior Data Scientist at the Security Behavioral Analytics group at Splunk Inc. Throughout his career Marios published more than twenty academic papers and patents in his field.