Biography of

Tarik Taleb

Prof. Tarik Taleb is currently a Professor at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) – Networks and Systems Unit, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Oulu. He is the founder and director of the MOSA!C Lab (www.mosaic-lab.org). Between Oct. 2014 and Dec. 2021, he was a Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland. Prior to that, he was working as Senior Researcher and 3GPP Standards Expert at NEC Europe Ltd, Heidelberg, Germany. He was then leading the NEC Europe Labs Team working on R&D projects on carrier cloud platforms. Before joining NEC and till Mar. 2009, he worked as assistant professor at the Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, Japan, in a lab fully funded by KDDI, the second largest mobile operator in Japan. From Oct. 2005 till Mar. 2006, he worked as research fellow at the Intelligent Cosmos Research Institute, Sendai, Japan. He received his B. E degree in Information Engineering with distinction, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Information Sciences from Tohoku Univ., in 2001, 2003, and 2005, respectively.

Prof. Taleb’s research interests lie in the field of telco cloud, network softwarization & network slicing, AI-based software defined security, immersive communications, mobile multimedia streaming, & next generation mobile networking. Prof. Taleb has been also directly engaged in the development and standardization of the Evolved Packet System as a member of 3GPP’s System Architecture working group 2. Prof. Taleb served on the IEEE Communications Society Standardization Program Development Board. As an attempt to bridge the gap between academia and industry, Prof. Taleb founded the “IEEE Workshop on Telecommunications Standards: from Research to Standards”, that got later promoted to the IEEE Conf. on Standards for Communications and Networking.

Prof. Taleb served as the general chair of the 2019 edition of the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC’19) held in Marrakech, Morocco. He was the guest editor in chief of the IEEE JSAC Series on Network Softwarization & Enablers. He was on the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine, IEEE Journal on Internet of Things, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, and a number of Wiley journals. Till Dec. 2016, he served as chair of the Wireless Communications Technical Committee, the largest in IEEE ComSoC. He also served as Vice Chair of the Satellite and Space Communications Technical Committee of IEEE ComSoc (2006 – 2010).

Prof. Taleb is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE ComSoc Wireless Communications Technical Committee Recognition Award (Dec. 2021), the 2017 IEEE ComSoc Communications Software Technical Achievement Award (Dec. 2017) for his outstanding contributions to network softwarization. He is also the (co-) recipient of the 2017 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize (May 2017), the 2009 IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Best Young Researcher award (Jun. 2009), the 2008 TELECOM System Technology Award from the Telecommunications Advancement Foundation (Mar. 2008), the 2007 Funai Foundation Science Promotion Award (Apr. 2007), the 2006 IEEE Computer Society Japan Chapter Young Author Award (Dec. 2006), the Niwa Yasujirou Memorial Award (Feb. 2005), and the Young Researcher’s Encouragement Award from the Japan chapter of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) (Oct. 2003). Some of Prof. Taleb’s research work have been also awarded best paper awards at prestigious IEEE-flagged conferences.


Career highlights

  • Awarded the 2022 AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Award Honorable Mention in Internet of Things
  • Named Highly Cited Researcher for two years (2020 and 2021) in a row, by Web of Science, Clarivate, and that in in recognition of exceptional research performance demonstrated by production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% for field and year in Computer Science.
  • Ranked #6 and #3 among top scientists in Finland (in 2021) in the fields of “Computer Science” and “Electronics and Electrical Engineering,” respectively. The ranking was conducted by Research.com, a leading academic platform for researchers.
  • +17 years of Telecom R&D experience, in Europe and Japan, in both academia and industry, in the areas of Telco Cloud, Network Function Virtualization, Software Defined Networking, Network Softwarization & Slicing, Edge/Cloud Computing, and 4G/5G Core.
  • Initiation, direction & management of several EU cooperative research projects, Business Finland (TEKES) funded projects, Academy of Finland projects, and industry business unit projects related to wireless networking, in particular to B5G, 5G, SDN, NFV, Network Softwarization and Slicing, Cloud Computing, Edge Cloud Continuum, Content Delivery Network, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Automotive, Immersive Communications, Software Defined Security, and Multimedia Streaming.
  • Author of several scientific publications in top IEEE Magazines & Transactions (+177), reputable IEEE flagship international conferences (+183), and patents (+17) with impact on the business of both radio and mobile core networks.