2022 President-Elect Candidate

Position Statement

The world is facing unprecedented challenges, leading to significant uncertainty for the prosperity of society, and specifically of ComSoc and its members. If elected, I will work passionately to tackle our challenges and lead new initiatives with the objective to: 

• Enhance ComSoc’s global leadership by promoting venues for emerging and disruptive new, potentially multidisciplinary, technologies and further improving the excellence of our publications and conferences
• Increase industry participation in our technical, standardization, and educational activities and local chapters by developing new and innovative formats addressing the needs of practicing engineers 
• Promote integrity, transparency, and inclusiveness of our volunteer and leader selection processes to ensure the best possible representation of gender, global region, age, and all other forms of diversity
• Provide more volunteer opportunities and new networking platforms for members, especially for students and young professionals, facilitating their engagement in technical and professional activities 
• Develop new strategies for improving the services provided to our members in a fiscally responsible and cost-effective manner to increase member satisfaction and attract new members globally 

In the past 20 years, I have served ComSoc and its members with great enthusiasm in different capacities. Furthermore, I have built world-class research programs at UBC and FAU, co-founded a start-up company, and served as Department Chair. This broad leadership experience along with my passion for ComSoc will allow me to effectively lead the Society and to maximize the benefits for our members. It will be my great honor to serve and I am grateful for your support!

President-Elect Candidate Video

Biography 

Robert Schober is Alexander von Humboldt Professor and Chair for Digital Communications at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), Germany, and since 2021, he serves as Electrical Engineering Department Chair. From 2002-2011, he was Chair Professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada.

Prestigious awards he received for his wireless communications research include: DFG Heinz-Maier-Leibnitz Award, Charles McDowell Award for Excellence in Research, NSERC Steacie Fellowship, Technical Recognition Award of the ComSoc Wireless Technical Committee, and Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher. Robert is Fellow of the IEEE, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Institute of Canada and a Member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech).

Robert’s extensive ComSoc volunteer experience includes Treasurer, VP Publications, Director of Journals, Fellow Evaluation Committee Chair, BoG Member at Large, and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Communications. He received the IEEE ComSoc Joseph LoCicero Award for Exemplary Service to Publications.