Rabab Kreidieh Ward

Rabab Kreidieh Ward
Country: 
Canada
Professions: 
Consultant
Coordinator
Educator
Researcher
Field(s) of expertise: 
Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Areas of Impact: 
Quality Education

Personal information

Rabab Kreidieh Ward
Engineer, Professor, Scientist, Researcher, Consultant

Contact information (Work)

University of British Columbia
00 1 9428 822 604
rababw@ece.ubc.ca
http://ipl.ece.ubc.ca/rababw.html

Community/Lebanon Impact

She often shares in her public lectures and speeches worldwide that she is Lebanese and credits her education and any success she has achieved to Lebanon. Among the graduate students she has supervised and graduated, three have completed their doctoral studies and two have earned their master's degrees, all from Lebanon. These students have gone on to enjoy successful careers: two are now professors at top universities in the USA and UAE, and the others hold high positions in industry.

Education

Education: 
  • Doctorate degree, Electrical Engineering, 1972, University of California (Berkeley), United States of America.
  • Master's degree, Electrical Engineering, 1969, University of California (Berekely), United States of America.
  • Bachelor degree, Electrical Engineering, 1966, University of Cairo, Egypt.

Work history

Previous Professions: 
  • Professor, 1979 - present, University of British Columbia.
  • Science and Engineering Research Coordinator, 2008 - 2015, Office of the Vice-President Research and International, University of British Columbia.
  • Director of the Institute for Computing, 1996 - 2007, Information & Cognitive Systems, University of British Columbia.
  • Senior Lecturer, 1975 - 1979, University of Zimbabwe.

Major Achievements

Publications (Books, Articles, Reports, etc.): 
  • Majumdar, A., & Ward, R. K. (2010, October). Robust classifiers for data reduced via random projections. IEEE Trans. Systems, Man and Cybernetics (Part:B), 40(5), 1359 – 1371
  • Du, S., & Ward, R.K. (2010, September). Adaptive region-based image enhancement method for robust face recognition under variable illumination conditions. IEEE Trans. Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, 20(9), 1165 - 1175
  • Majumdar, A., & Ward, R. K. (2010, December). Compressed sensing of color images. Signal Processing, 90(12), 3122 - 3127
  • Majumdar, A., & Ward, R. K. (2010, October). Improved group sparse classifier. Pattern Recognition Letters, 31(13), 1959-1964
  • Majzoub, S., Saleh, R., Wilton, S. J.E., & Ward, R. K. (2010, May). Energy optimization for many-core platforms: Communication and PVT aware voltage-island formation and voltage selection algorithm. IEEE Trans. Compter Aided Design, 29(5), 816-829
  • Pourazad, M. T., Nasiopoulos, P., & Ward, R. K. (2010). Generating the depth map from the motion information of H.264-encoded 2D video sequence. EURASIP Journal on Image and Video Processing, 2010, 1 - 13. doi:10.1155/2010/108584
  • Ersahin, K., Cumming, I. G., & Ward., R. K. (2010, January). Segmentation and classification of polarimetric SAR data using spectral graph partitioning. IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 48(1), 164 - 174
  • Majumdar, A., & Ward, R. K. (2010). Compressive classification for face recognition. In M. Oravec (Ed.), Face recognition, state of the art in cognitive and computational processes, (pp. 47-64). Croatia: Intech Publishers
  • Sameti, M., Ward, R. K., Morgan-Parkes, J., & Palcic, B. (2009, February). Image feature extraction in the last screening mammograms prior to detection of breast cancer. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, 3(1), 46 - 52
  • Faradji, F., Ward, R.K., & Birch, G. E. (2009, June). Plausibility assessment of a 2-state self-paced mental task-based BCI using the no-control performance analysis. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 180 (2), 330 - 339
  • Majumdar, A., & Ward, R. K. (2009). Multiresolution methods in face recognition”. In M. S. Bartlett, K. Delac & M. Grgic, Face recognition, state of the art in cognitive and computational processes (Eds.) (pp. 79-96). Vienna: I-Tech Education and Publishing
Major achievements: 
  • She has published over 200 refereed journal papers, 340 refereed conference papers, 14 book chapters  and co-edited 3 books . These are mainly related to signal processing and its applications to cable TV, HDTV, image coding, stellar images, medical images, brain computer interfaces and biomedical applications including early detection of cancer from mammographic images and finding the level of a baby's distress from his/her cry signals, that have won nine best paper awards, 1978 - present.
  • Holder of 6 active patents related to cable television:
  1. Du, J., Li, X., Shi, P., and Ward, R.K., "Noise Reduction for Video Signals," U.S. Patent registration number 6,061,100, issued May 9, 2000.
  2. Ward, R.K., "System for Non-Intrusive Measurements of Noise Impairments in Cable TV," U.S. Patent registration number 5,661,529, issued February 27, 1997.
  3. Ward, R.K., Shi, P. and Xie, Q., "System for Reducing Beat Type Impairment in a TV Signal," U.S. Patent registration number 5,585,859, issued Dec.17, 1996.
  4. Zhang, Q. and Ward, R.K., "Automatic Signal-to-Noise Ration Assessment of TV Pictures," U.S. Patent registration number 5,329,311, issued July 12, 1994.
  5. Shi, P. and Ward, R.K., "Cancelling Composite Triple Beats in Cable TV Pictures," U.S. Patent registration number 5,323,239, issued June 21, 1994.
  6. Zhang, Q. and Ward, R.K., "Cable Television Signal Quality Monitoring System," U.S. Patent registration number 5,221,967, issued June 22, 1993., PCT #92908960, Japan #HEI 4-508,411, Canada #2,102,404, held in 1993.
  • Advising 50 44 M.A.Sc. and 43 Ph.D. students: 13 of the Ph.D. students have been appointed as professors, 7 had their Ph.D. dissertations nominated for prizes and some have started new companies in Canada and China.
  • She is a pioneering woman in engineering. She was the first woman to be appointed as professor in engineering in British Columbia, 1979.
  • First woman professor to be appointed to the Engineering Faculty in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, 1975.
  • First woman to become a member of the Lebanese Professional Engineering Society.
  • Consultant for the following organizations:
  1. MDA, 2014.
  2. AdvancedIO Systems Inc., since 2007 
  3. WebTech Wireless,telematics, 1999-2005
  4. R.F.I.D., Passport photograph compression, November 1996-1999.
  5. Hewlett-Packard (Santa Rosa, Calif.), Non-intrusive measurements of cable TV parameters.
  6. Vision Systems Inc. Building a computer vision system for grading lumber, 1989.
  7. The Whitsun Foundation of Rhodesia, building a computer model for Agrarian Reform, 1978.
Exhibitions, lectures & performances: 
  • Gave a speech during the undergraduate engineering information night organized by the Undergraduate Engineering Student Association in 2010.
  • Keynote speaker at the Inspirational Speaker Night organized by the Women in Engineering Society in collaboration with the Society of Women in Science and Technology in 2009.
  • Delivered a speech at the California Lebanese Ladies Society event in Los Angeles in 2004.
  • Gave a talk titled "Research Topics, Students, Publishing, and Multidisciplinary Studies" during the Research Mentoring Dinner organized by the Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of British Columbia and St. John’s College in 2002.
  • Presented a lecture titled "In Praise of Engineering" at the Public Science Forum organized by the Canadian Academy for the Advancement of Science at Mulgrave High School in West Vancouver in 2002.
  • She has co-directed/co-produced many videos that have been extensively used to attract students to the field of signal processing:
  1. What is Signal Processing
  2. Signal Processing and Machine Learning
  3. Under the Radar
  4. Multimedia Forensics
  5. Signal Processing in Free Viewpoint Television
  6. The Benefits of Spoken Language Technologies

Accomplishments

Distinctions: 
  • Full scholarship from the Lebanese Council for Scientific Research to do graduate work in Electrical Engineering in Berkeley, California (5 years).
  • Won the Egyptian government scholarship award to study engineering or medicine (5 years).
  • Won the American University of Beirut Scholarship award to study medicine (but declined it because I wanted to study engineering. Women were not allowed at that time to study engineering at the American University of Beirut in 1961).
Awards: 
  • Recipient of the Outstanding Mentor/Sponsor Award of Wendy McDonald Awards, 2017.
  • Recipient of Centennial Gold Medal, UBC Applied Science, 2016.
  • Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring, UBC, 2013.
  • Meritorious Service Award of IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2013.
  • Paradigm Shifter Award of the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology, Nov 2011.
  • Millennium Award, IEEE Vancouver Chapter, Aug 2011.
  • CUFA BC “Career Achievement Award”, May 2011. (CUFA is the association representing all professors in all B.C. universities). This is the highest of the 3 awards it gives each year.
  • UBC Engineering Co-op “Faculty of the Year“ Award, 2010.
  • WYCA Woman of Distinction Award, 2008.
  • The “Society Award” of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2008. This is the highest and most prestigious award of this society, emphasizing technical leadership and achievements in the field.
  • R.A. McLachlan Award of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, 2007. Amongst its nine awards, this is the top and most prestigious, emphasizing education, research, innovation in engineering, and community service.
  • Recipient of the UBC Killam Research Prize, 1998.
  • “Distinction Award” for being the first in Lebanon in the 1960 Scientific Baccalaureate national Exam.
  • Registered Professional Engineer (of the BC Professional Engineers Association).

 

Competences & Skills

Field(s) of Expertise: 
  • Electrical & Computer Engineering
  • Signal Processing
  • Medical Imaging
  • Multimedia Research
Languages: 
  • Arabic
  • English