Hamid Aghvami joined the academic staff at King’s College London in 1984. In 1989 he was promoted to Reader, and in 1993 was promoted Professor in Telecommunications Engineering. He is the founder of the Centre for Telecommunications Research at King’s. He was the Director of the Centre from 1994 to 2014.

Professor Aghvami carries out consulting work on Digital Radio Communications Systems for British and International companies; he has published over 550 technical journal and conference papers, and given invited talks and courses the world over on various aspects of Personal and Mobile Radio Communications. He was Visiting Professor at NTT Radio Communication Systems Laboratories in 1990, Senior Research Fellow at BT Laboratories in 1998-1999, and was an Executive Advisor to Wireless Facilities Inc., USA, in 1996-2002. He is the Chairman of Advanced Wireless Technology Group Ltd. He is also the Managing Director of Wireless Multimedia Communications Ltd, his own consultancy company.

Professor Aghvami leads an active research team working on numerous mobile and personal communications projects for Fourth and fifth generation networks; these projects are supported both by government and industry. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society in 2001-2003, was a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society in 2004-2007, and has been member, Chairman, and Vice-Chairman of the technical programme and organising committees of a large number of international conferences. He is also founder of the International Symposium on Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), a major yearly conference attracting some 1,000 attendees.

Professor Aghvami was awarded the IEEE Technical Committee on Personal Communications (TCPC) Recognition Award in 2005 for his outstanding technical contributions to the communications field, and for his service to the scientific and engineering communities. Professor Aghvami is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the IET, Fellow of the IEEE, and in 2009 was awarded a Fellowship of the Wireless World Research Forum in recognition of his personal contributions to the wireless world, and for his research achievements as Director at the Centre for Telecommunications Research at King’s.

Pramod Khargonekar received B. Tech. Degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 1977, and M.S. degree in mathematics and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1980 and 1981, respectively.

Khargonekar was Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1997 to 2001 and also held the position of Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science at The University of Michigan. From 2001 to 2009, he was Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Florida. He has held the Eckis Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering the University of Florida from 2001. He served as Deputy Director of Technology at ARPA-E, U. S. Department of Energy in 2012-13. From March 2013, he has been serving as Assistant Director of the U. S. National Science Foundation leading its Engineering Directorate.

Khargonekar’s research and teaching interests are centered on theory and applications of systems and control. His early work was on mathematical control theory, specifically focusing on robust and H-infinity control analysis and design. Later, he was involved in a large multidisciplinary project on applications of control and estimation techniques to semiconductor manufacturing. His current research and teaching interests include systems and control theory, machine learning, and applications to smart electric grid and neural engineering.

Khargonekar was a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, the American Automatic Control Council’s Donald Eckman Award, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science fellowships, the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Prize Award, the IEEE CSS George Axelby Best Paper Award, the Hugo Schuck ACC Best Paper Award, and the Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Awards from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a Fellow of IEEE and IFAC. At the University of Michigan, he received the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship and the College of Engineering Research Excellence Award. The impact of his scholarly work has led to his recognition as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher.