Karen Renninger-Rojas & Gaultier Real, New YP-BOOST Laureates, Roberto Petroccia, OES Liaison for the YP-BOOST Program
Introduction by Roberto Petroccia, OES Liaison for the YP-BOOST Program
I am very happy and honored to introduce Karen and Gaultier, the two new IEEE OES Young Professional (YP) BOOST Program laureates for 2024-2025. They will join the OES YP-BOOST team and participate in the leadership of the society by attending the meetings, by being involved in the diverse committees, and by helping with different aspects of the OCEANS conferences. The OES YP-BOOST program aims at helping selected YPs in their career development and engagement with the leadership of the OES society and maritime scientific and technological community at large. We are very happy to have Karen and Gaultier on-board and, as you can read in what follows, they have strong ties with OES and can significantly contribute to current and novel initiatives. If you see them around in future OES events, please engage and take the chance to discuss and propose ideas. Two new YP-BOOST candidates will be selected at the end of 2024 to serve in 2025-2026 and the application process will open later in 2024.
I would like to invite all of you to visit the OES YP webpage (https://ieeeoes.org/young-professionals/), learn more about this program and apply to engage more within the OES society and give a boost to your career development and networking.
New YP-BOOST Laureates 2024-2025
Karen Renninger-Rojas
Hey there! Who would’ve thought a girl who once dreamed of flying high in the sky would find her true calling in the embrace of the ocean? Yet, here I am, a testament to life’s unpredictability and beauty.
My journey began in the vibrant coastal town of Salinas, Ecuador, where the ocean was more than just a backdrop; it was a central character in my life’s story. My family’s livelihood depended on the marine bounty, tying me to the sea in ways I only began to understand as I grew older. Seeing the ocean’s majesty every day and understanding its immense importance on our planet motivated me to develop a profound love and respect for it.
At 16, fresh out of high school and brimming with ambition, I found myself at a crossroads. Eager to take to the skies as a pilot, I was too young to join the Ecuadorian Air Force. So I decided to bide my time in college, choosing a field in engineering as a placeholder for my dreams of flight. Little did I know, this decision would steer my life in a completely new direction.
During those formative years in college, I discovered a world as captivating as the skies I had longed to explore. Oceanography revealed itself to me like a map brimming with endless wonders. I was astounded by everything I learned—the dynamics of waves, intricate chemical processes, the mysteries of surf zones, and the diverse marine life. Each discovery answered the myriad ‘whys’ that had filled my life. Why is the ocean blue? What causes the foam at the breaking of waves? Why does a jellyfish sting feel the way it does? Turning back from this newfound love was simply out of the question.
This deep connection I have with the ocean inspired me to dedicate my life to protecting, preserving, and exploring it. The ocean is much more than a job for me; it is my passion, my peace, and my happy place. This is why I decided to continue the oceanographic engineering degree at the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral – ESPOL, Ecuador. My goal was clear: to delve deeper into the ocean’s mysteries and create an environmentally friendly path for human-ocean interaction to coexist harmoniously.
My academic and professional journey has been a thrilling adventure. Starting in 2016, I joined the Department of Maritime Engineering and Marine Sciences as a research assistant. I was part of the Acoustic System for Aquatic Data Collection project, where I developed and used innovative technologies. As a result of this project, I presented my first publication in 2017 at the IEEE/OES Acoustics in Underwater Geosciences Symposium (RIO Acoustics) in Rio de Janeiro marking my entry into the world of scientific contribution and discovery.
Currently, I am deepening my knowledge at Louisiana State University, pursuing a master’s degree in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences. Here, I am part of the SMART Subsea Cables project, an ambitious initiative aimed at monitoring essential ocean variables to safeguard our planet against natural disasters.
My involvement with IEEE/OES has been nothing short of transformative. It was after my presentation at RIO Acoustics that I first learned about the IEEE/OES mission, which deeply resonated with me, leading me to establish the first IEEE/OES Student Chapter in Ecuador. A pivotal figure in this journey was Jean-Pierre Hermand (may he rest in peace). He was more than just a mentor; he was a source of inspiration, guiding the creation of our chapter and leading initiatives like the Ocean Technology Congress and a research expedition along the Ecuadorian coast. He taught me that every idea and every action is significantly important in moving closer to creating the ocean environment that our marine ecosystem and humanity deserve.
Since joining IEEE/OES my journey has been marked by a commitment to fostering inclusive academic environments and empowering the next generation of ocean professionals.
Looking back on the path I’ve traveled, from aspiring pilot to devoted oceanographer, I am filled with gratitude for the unexpected turns that have led me here. The ocean, once a distant dream, is now my life’s work, my passion, and my endless source of inspiration.
Thank you for allowing me to share my journey with you. In securing a place in the IEEE/OES Young Professionals “BOOST” Program, I eagerly anticipate contributing meaningfully to the community, deepening our understanding of the oceans, and making a lasting impact on marine conservation.
Gaultier Real
For as long as I can remember, I was always attracted by the sea. As unoriginal as it may seem, this statement cannot be more adapted to my case. I specifically mention the sea and not the ocean, since I was brought up on the Mediterranean coast in the south east of France.
Most of my summers were spent on the beach, most of my adventures were experienced with a sea view, preferably with a sunset on the sea horizon.
I made a point never to live far away from the shore. Even though it was more a fun fact than a true expression of my free will, I spent my life living near the coast. In the south of France, in south Florida, or now on the Ligurian coast in Italy. In the end, my extreme sense of commitment solidified my strong bond with this environment.
Was that enough to justify a career choice? Probably not. There are at least two other factors that I want to share with this small window of expression.
The first one is music. One of the other passions of mine I share with the ocean is the capability to connect rational fields such as physics, and science overall, with poetry and the possibility to generate feelings beyond deterministic expectations. A natural link between these two focal points was therefore … underwater acoustics!
I started my journey towards this field when embarking for a Master’s of Science program at Florida Atlantic University (FAU, USA). The campus of Dania Beach being so close to the shore (again, see the pattern here), I was not only introduced to the theoretical aspects of ocean engineering, but also to its expression through field experiments. From this point on, being able to make the most out of sensing actual things happening in the water became a priority. My PhD work, conducted at the Laboratory of Mechanics and Acoustics in Marseille (France), still carried a fair load of experimental work. In water tanks this time, with the challenge of emulating some phenomena observed in the “real” ocean.
This “real” ocean really turned into a playground further down the road, while I was working as an underwater acoustic scientist for the French Ministry of Defense (DGA Naval Systems, Toulon, France). During my seven years stay, I accumulated multiple months on various ships (military, civilian, scientific), in various environments (Med, North Atlantic, Arctic), above and even below the sea surface.
Maybe now is a good time to introduce the second factor I wanted to mention, besides music. That factor is mentorship. No one in my family of direct surroundings had any connection to science. Whether fate or karma were involved is up to each and everyone’s belief, but one thing I can say is that I was lucky. Lucky that some inspiring people were put on my path. I will not state any names, in order not to embarrass them, but should they read these lines, they will recognize themselves. I was confronted with very different ways of leading people: pushing you towards your best self, helping you make progress, making sure you always go towards the relevant question, trusting your decisions, the list goes on and on.
This also inspired me to try to share the knowledge I was able to gain over the years. I started giving lectures at the University of Toulon, mentoring some students and now leading projects for a NATO research center (CMRE, Italy).
All of this is, of course, not completely uncorrelated with the influence of IEEE OES, to say the least. A particularly important event in my background is my participation as a member of the local organization committee in MTS/IEEE OCEANS in Marseille in June 2019. Not only was that an opportunity to take a look at the backstage of such a big event for our community, it was also a formative experience to organize the student poster competition and coordinate the evaluation of the judges.
Figure 6 Judges of the 2019 MTS/IEEE OCEANS Student Poster Competition (I am the first sited on the left).
I am very proud to have been selected as one of the new YP-BOOST laureates for IEEE OES. I will take this opportunity to talk about my passions, and, at my level, try to provide some guidance and help to younger folks who may be interested in following these steps.
After all, knowledge, much like happiness, is only good when shared.
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.