For me, the Wireless Lab is the place where I learned the ABCs of research!

Amine Laourine
Vice President at Wells Fargo Securities

Biography:

Amine Laourine received the Diplome d'Ingenieur degree from the Ecole Polytechnique de Tunisie in 2005, a Master degree in Telecommunications from the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in 2007 and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2012. Since then he joined Wells Fargo Securities where he has been working as a quant and a trader for the commodities trading group.

Testimony:

I had the immense opportunity to be part of the Wireless Lab. For me, the Wireless Lab is not just the place where I did two internships and a master, for me it iss also the place where I learned the ABCs of research, it iss where I learned to dedicate myself heart and soul to becoming a better scientist and it is where I learned the intrinsic reward of working on tough research problems. My time at the Wireless Lab helped shape the person I am today and I would not be where I am today without the support and nurture of Professor Sofiene Affes and Dr. Alex Stephenne. I will always look back at the time I spent in INRS and Montreal with nostalgia. I wholeheartedly recommend the Wireless Lab to any student interested in learning about signal processing and wireless communications. By joining this dynamic group they will learn and grow to become top-tier researchers but more importantly they will make everlasting friendships and relationships.

The support that I received at the Wireless Lab fostered my skills and allowed me to compete at the international level and to join renowned International research labs and companies!

Mehrez Souden
Speech and Audio Processing Sr. Engineer at Apple

Biography:

Mehrez Souden is a Senior Research and Development Engineer at Apple Inc. in Greater Los Angeles Area, California, USA. His research interests are in statistical signal processing and machine learning. He has made several contributions to both fields of speech processing and wireless communications. He has published more than fifty papers in renowned scientific journals and international conferences. Dr. Souden received his PhD and M.Sc. in Telecommunications from INRS-EMT in 2010 and 2007, respectively. He was a student and an active member of the Wireless Lab from January 2005 to October 2010. During his PhD, he joined the Microsoft Research, USA, as a summer Intern in 2008. He was a Research Associate at the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corporation, Japan, from November 2010 to December 2012. In 2013, he joined the ECE School at Georgia Tech as a Research Scientist. He was then PDT Module, Integration and Yield Engineer at Intel Corporation, USA, from July 2014 to January 2016. Dr. Souden received the PhD Innovation Award from INRS in 2011 and several prestigious scholarships, namely, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) postdoctoral fellowship from 2013 to 2014, the NSERC AlexanderGraham-Bell scholarship from 2008 to 2010, and the Tunisian graduate scholarship at the M.Sc. and PhD levels from 2005 to 2009.

Testimony:

IMy experience at INRS had been nothing short of amazing. Since my first day I joined the Wireless Lab on January 15th, 2005 I felt at home at INRS. I was given unique opportunities and I believe I took good advantage of them. First and foremost, I built a strong background in electrical engineering with applications to audio, speech processing and wireless communications under the supervision of Professor Sofiene Affes and Professor Jacob Benesty. Thanks to their guidance and support, I made several scientific contributions ranging from fundamental theory and analysis to algorithmic development. Professor Affes and Professor Benesty were very supportive since the days I began my research journey at INRS. They both believed in me and supported me in all aspects. They provided me with all research assistantship during my MSc and PhD programs, and supported me financially, academically and emotionally for seven years. Some of the amazing times that I can not forget were working together with Professor Affes to develop blind source separation and deconvolution algorithms, and the frequent and very fruitful discussions with Professor Benesty on the fundamentals of acoustics and speech processing. Besides the strong scientific background that I developed during my PhD and M.Sc. programs at the Wireless Lab, I was given the opportunity to attend several international conferences to present my work and learn from International researchers. The support that I received at the Wireless Lab fostered my skills and allowed me to compete at the international level and to join renowned International research labs and companies, namely the NTT Communication Science Laboratories in Japan, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, Intel Corporation in Oregon, and Apple Inc. in California. Professor Affes and Professor Benesty continue to support me as friends and previous supervisors whenever I need help or advice.

Without a doubt, the level of personal attention and academic support that I received during my time in the Wireless Lab were instrumental in allowing me to carve out a research niche in neural signal processing!

Jacek Dmochowski
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, City College of New York

Biography:

After completing my Master's of Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering under the supervision of Rafik Goubran at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada), I continued my pursuit of array signal processing research as a doctoral student at the Universite du Quebec, where I worked on several aspects of acoustic signal processing under the tutelage of Jacob Benesty and Sofiene Affes. My dissertation was subsequently awarded the Governor General of Canada's Academic Gold Medal. At the end of 2008, I transitioned into the biomedical domain as a post-doctoral research scholar at the City College of the City University of New York, where I have been engaged in neural engineering research: decoding brain state from functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), and designing optimized non-invasive electrical brain stimulation paradigms. My research is supervised by Lucas Parra and performed in close collaboration with Marom Bikson and Paul Sajda.

Testimony:

I chose the INRS Wireless Lab for my PhD studies to have the opportunity to work under the tutelage of two of the eminent leaders in array signal processing. While there, I greatly benefited from frequent interactions between student and faculty in an intimate and diverse environment that fosters creativity and collaboration. Moreover, my experience at INRS motivated and propelled me on my path towards an academic career that included a Research Associateship at Stanford University. Without a doubt, the level of personal attention and academic support that I received during my time in the Wireless Lab were instrumental in allowing me to carve out a research niche in neural signal processing, which is the foundation of my research lab today. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to develop my scientific abilities alongside the talented and driven faculty at INRS.