Short Biography

Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto obtained her Ph.D. in Telecommunications in 1987 from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy. In 1991, she joined the Faculty of Engineering of University of Rome La Sapienza, where currently she is a Full Professor of Telecommunications at the INFOCOM Department. She has held visiting positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Paris XI, France. In 1994, she received the Mac Kay Professorship award from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include wireless communication systems and speech science. From 1995 to 2000, she directed four European projects for the design of UMTS. Since 2000, she has been active in fostering the development of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications in Europe, and participated in several pioneering EU projects on UWB communications (within the 5th framework, whyless.com, first funded research project world-wide addressing UWB communications for civil applications, and project UCAN aimed at the design and implementation of UWB ad-hoc networks - within the 6th EU Framework, IP projects PULSERS and PULSERS II which integrated UWB research and development in Europe, IP project LIAISON on to location-based services). During this last decade Dr. Di Benedetto research main focus was on medium access control and management in wireless networks, as well as energy-efficient routing, and location-based optimization of medium access control and routing functions. In particular, participation in the European Network of Excellence HYCON (Hybrid Control: Taming Heterogeneity and Complexity of Networked Embedded Systems) offered the framework for an inter-disciplinary effort with colleagues from “Control Theory” that led to the formulation of hybrid models for complex wireless communication systems operating under coexisting conditions, and increased theoretical research activity in the field of cognitive and coexisting networks. Based in particular on this last rewarding and productive collaboration, Professor Di Benedetto recently promoted and coordinated a proposal for a COST Action on cognitive radio and networks. The proposal, that gathered over 30 partners of 15 countries in Europe, as well as the US, Canada, China, and Australia, ranked first in the COST Information and Communications Technology Domain and was approved in May 2009. The resulting COST Action IC0902 'Cognitive Radio and Networking for Cooperative Coexistence of Heterogeneous Wireless Networks' will kick-off in December 2009. In October 2009, Dr. Di Benedetto received the Excellence in Research award 'Sapienza Ricerca', under the auspices of President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano.

Personal Data and Education

• Dottore di Ricerca (PhD) in Telecommunications, University of Rome La Sapienza, 1987
• Specialization in Control Systems Engineering, University of Rome La Sapienza, 1984
• Laurea in Electrical Engineering, University of Rome La Sapienza, 1981, magna cum laude and publication of the thesis

Professional Experience

• 11/01/00 - present, Full Professor in Telecommunications at the University of Rome La Sapienza.
• 11/01/91 - 11/01/00, Associate Professor in Telecommunications at the University of Rome La Sapienza. During 1995-1996, also with the University of L'Aquila.
• 11/01/90 - 11/01/91, Visiting Professor at the University of Perugia in Transmission Theory
• 03/01/90 - 09/30/90, Associate Professor at the University of Paris-Sud (XI) , France, in Communication Networks
• 11/01/89 - 03/01/90, Visiting Professor at the University of Perugia in Transmission Theory
• 05/15/87 - 05/15/89, Postdoctoral Fellow, Selenia Spazio
• 11/01/83 - 01/11/86, Fellowship of the Italian Ministry of Education at the University of Rome La Sapienza
• 02/01/83 - 01/31/84, Fellowship at the Fondazione Ugo Bordoni
• 09/29/80 - 11/17/80, Stagiaire, IBM France, Scientific Center, Paris

Visiting Positions

• 07/01/00 - 07/31/00, Invited Professor at the University of Paris-Sud (XI), Paris, France
• 05/01/99 - 31/07/99, Visiting Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• 06/15/98 - 07/15/98, Invited Professor at the University of Paris-Sud (XI), Paris, France
• 08/15/94 - 09/15/94, Mac Kay Professorship, University of California at Berkeley, USA
• 10/01/90 - 11/01/90, Visiting Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• 01/10/85 - 05/20/86, Visiting Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Awards

• Mac Kay professorship award, University of California at Berkeley, USA, 1994
• Specialization course in Control Systems Engineering award, 1983
• Second prize at the IEEE Undergraduate Student Paper Contest, Region 8, 1982
• Publication award of the Laurea thesis, 1981

Editorial Activities

Editor in Chief of the Research Letters in Communications

Editor of:

• Special Issue of Eurasip Journal on Applied Signal Processing "UWB - State of the Art", coeditor with Thomas Kaiser and Norbert Schmidt 2005 
• Special Issue of the Journal on Special Topics in Mobile Networking and Applications (MONET) on "WLAN Optimization at the MAC and Network Levels 2005", coeditor with Fabrizio Granelli
• Special Issue of Journal of Communications and Networks "Ultra-Wideband Communications", December 2003, coeditor with Branimir Vojcic, Ryuji Kohno, and Raymond Pickholtz
• Special issue of IEEE JSAC "UWB Radio in Multi-Access Wireless Communications", 2002 - coeditor with Nicola Blefari-Melazzi, Mario Gerla, Heinz Luediger, Paul Withington
• Special issue of IEEE Communication Magazine "Mobile Radio Advances in Europe", September 2000 - coeditor with Federico Tosco and Franco Vatalaro

• IEEE Transactions on Communications 
• IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing 
• IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 
• Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 
• Speech Communication 
• Wireless Personal Communications 
• Journal of Phonetics 
• Phonetica

• The Academy of Finland and the Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering
• The Norwegian Research Council
• The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, USA
• The Austrian Science Foundation
• Science Foundation Ireland
• ESPRIT-EEC program ROARS

Research Projects

Scientific responsibility (PI) for the University of Rome La Sapienza of :

• European Union research projects on Ultra Wide Band Radio [UWB] within the Information Society Technologies (IST) program, 2000-2006 (funding by the EU: ~1.5 million $)
  • Project LIAISON integrated project IP within the 6th European Union Framework Program
  • Project PULSERS integrated project IP within the 6th European Union Framework Program
  • project UCAN-Ultra Wide Band Concepts for Ad-hoc Networks
  • project n°IST-2000-25197-whyless.com
• STMicroelectronics: project on UWB ranging and positioning in radio communication systems, 2004-2005, funding by STM to INFOCOM: 30000$
• Thales communications: project on UWB radio applied to ad-hoc networks, 2003-2004, funding by Thales to INFOCOM: 150000$
• National research project, 2000-2002 (funding by the Italian Ministry of University (MURST): ~100000$)
  • OFDM systems for applications in the wireless LAN
• four European Union research projects within the Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS) program, 1995-1999 (funding for the four projects by the EU: ~1 million $):
  • project AC004 SECOMS-Satellite EHF Communications for Mobile Multimedia Services
  • project AC006 MEDIAN-Wireless Broadband CPN/LAN for Professional and Residential Multimedia Applications
  • project AC031 COBUCO-Cordless Business Communication System
  • project AC104 MOSTRAIN-Mobile Services for High Speed Trains
• "Articulatory Synthesys of Italian", 2000-02, (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~10000$)
• "Analysis and synthesis of affricates in Italian",2000-01, (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~5000$)
• "Analysis and synthesis of affricatives in Italian",1998-99, (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~5000$)
• "Analysis and synthesis of liquids in Italian",1996-97, (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~5000$)
• "Analysis and synthesis of stops in Italian",1994-95, (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~5000$)
• project EEC RP SPELL II, 1993-1994 (funding by the EEC: ~100000$)
• project EEC RP SPELL, 1991-1992 (funding by the EEC: ~50000$)
• International Cooperation Program with French Laboratory LIMSI-CNRS, 1994 (funding by the Italian and French National Research Councils: ~15000$)
• "Discrimination between spectral and temporal properties of the first formant in the identification of vowels", (funding by the Italian Ministry of Education: ~5000$)