Current Students

Mohamad "Omar" Al Kalaa

Omar received his engineering master’s degree in 2012 from the advanced telecommunication program established between Damascus University and TELECOM Bretagne. In 2008 he earned his bachelors degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Damascus University. Omar is currently seeking a PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Oklahoma. Research interests include networks infrastructure, wireless networks modeling and testing, as well as body-area networks in medical devices.

From Fall 2013 to Spring 2015, Omar was awarded the Tulsa Scholarship for the University of Oklahoma. In 2014, Omar was selected for the ORISE Research Participation Program at the US Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health (FDA CDRH).

Email: omarqal@ou.edu
4502 E 41^st St. Lab 508, Tulsa, OK 74135
918-660-3345 (office) or 918-370-4460 (mobile)

Amal Algedir

Amal completed her master’s degree in engineering at Oklahoma State University (OSU). During her tenure there, her projects on control systems, neural networks, and signal estimation. Amal’s master’s thesis, entitled “Outbound Network Traffic Monitoring,” led her to develop a Java tool that uses free Internet-based search engines to determine the probable physical location of outbound traffic IP addresses and the IP address owner(s).

Currently Amal is a Telecommunications Engineering PhD student at University of Oklahoma School of Computer and Electrical Engineering where she works in the WECAD center and focuses her efforts on network data analytics using machine-learning algorithms for cellular networks. She also devotes research time investigating co-existence in wireless networks.

For her undergraduate final year capstone project Amal designed and implemented a real time digital control circuit for Oil Tank Farm systems. Her underlying knowledge for the project was based on studying computer design and control systems.

Email: Amal.A.Algedir-1@ou.edu
4502 E. 41st St., Room 4305, Tulsa OK 74135
+1-3134060690 (mobile)

Walid Balid

Walid Balid attended the University of Aleppo in Syria from 2006 to 2011, earning his B.S., Dip.Sc., and M.Sc. degrees in electronic engineering. In 2012, he began his Ph.D. studies at the University of Aleppo where he served as a teaching assistant for the Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) faculty. During this time Walid was employed as senior research engineer, and then manager of the R&D department at AL-AWAIL Co., a well-established Syrian company recognized for embedded systems development. In 2013, Walid was appointed as a senior research assistant at Qatar University. Currently, Walid is a student and Graduate Research Assistant in the Ph.D. program at the University of Oklahoma Telecommunications Engineering Department. His research interests include intelligent embedded systems design, wireless sensor networks, intelligent transportation systems, industrial electronics and control systems, and wireless coexistence.

Walid has extensive experience and has published more than 15 papers on the topic of developing novel constructivist, pedagogical methods for engineering education and delivering professional and academic training courses. Since 2010 he has also acted as a manuscript reviewer for IEEE transaction at Education Journal since 2010. Walid has earned the following awards and recognitions:

• Top Best Presentation of the Year, 2014, OU-Tulsa, University of Oklahoma- Telecommunications Engineering Department, May 2014. Ranked by fellows as one of the top presenter in the research meetings of the year 2014
• Top paper contribution at EDUCON 2013 conference, Germany; invitation for journal submission.
• Best student paper award at IRSPBL 2009 conference, Australia.
• Ranked first in graduating class at the Institute of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, resulted in direct admission to the EEE faculty Aleppo University.
• Ranked first in graduating class at the Industrial and Vocational Secondary School—a leading technical school in Aleppo City, which granted Walid direct admission to the Institute of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME) at Aleppo University. Licentiate in EME is offered to only the top 2% of achievers in the Technical Baccalaureate.

Naim Bitar 

Naim Bitar is currently a graduate research assistant pursuing an M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Oklahoma (OU). His research interests include big data analytics, data mining, statistical analysis, machine learning and engineering optimization in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and Self-organizing network (SON) functions for 5G future wireless networks.

Naim holds a B.S. in telecommunication engineering and has nearly four years experience working as a Core Network Engineer at MTN®–Mobile service provider.

Naim's research work at OU has included optimization of Intelligent Transportation Systems, 5G self-organizing network (SON) optimization, wireless coexistence, wireless medical coexistence, Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI) testing, Electro-Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing, and big data analytics in transportation and cellular networks.

Email: naimbitar@ou.edu
4502 E 41st St, Room 510, Tulsa, OK, 74135, USA
918-660-3341 (office) or 918-804-9130 (mobile)

Asaad Kaadan

Asaad is currently a Ph.D. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Oklahoma where he serves as a Graduate Research Assistant. In 2010 he received his B.S. degree with first rank honor in Electronics Engineering from Aleppo University in Syria. He earned his M.Sc, degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 2013, completing coursework with 4.0 GPA.

During the last half of 2014, Asaad worked with the Optical Communication Group (OCG) at the Institute of Communication and Navigation—German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Munich, Germany. While there he developed a closed-loop fiber coupling controller for satellite-to-ground optical downlinks. His current research interests include control theory, embedded systems, robotics, unmanned aerial systems, wireless sensor networks, security and mobile Free-space Optics.

Asaad’s honors and awards include:

• Best Paper Award at the 9th IEEE International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2013) for "Cognitive Extension to Existing Wireless Technology"
• Honorable Mention (2^nd best student paper for technology) at the Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference
• for "Modeling Of Aerial-To-Aerial Short-Distance Free-Space Optical Links"
• First Place at the OU-Tulsa Sooner Launchpad Competition (SLP 2012)
• Participant in the OU Center for Creation of Economic Wealth (CCEW), The University of Oklahoma.
• AL-BASEL Award for Academic Excellence at the University of Aleppo for academic years 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, and 2009-2010

Ahmad Mayeli

Ahmad is currently a graduate student studying electrical and electronics engineering at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa. He has been appointed as a graduate research assistant at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research where he is adopting various Blind Source Separation methods to remove artifacts from EEG data recorded simultaneously with fMRI in real time. He for this purpose. In 2012, Ahmad earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from University of Tehran, Iran.

Ahmad’s research interests include:

• Signal and Image processing
• EEG/fMRI multimodal
• Machine Learning
• Data Analysis

Ahmad's honors and awards include:

Email: amayeli@laureateinstitute.org
Laureate Institute for Brain Research, 6655 South Yale Avenue, Tulsa, OK 74136-3326
918-502-5172 (office) or 918-841-6072 (mobile)

Samer Rajab

Samer has been employed as an an ITS research engineer at Honda R&D Americas since 2014. His expertise is centered on V2X safety and mobility applications research. He also serves as Honda technical lead in the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) V2I consortium.

Samer completed his master's degree in electrical and computer engineering at OU in 2012 and immediately joining the OU's PhD program. Samer's research interests include intelligent transportation systems and wireless communications that includes V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), V2I, V2X, and CACC. Samer has published several publications in these domains.

Samer's honors and awards include:

• First paper award at the IEEE International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2013) for the "Cognitive Extension to Existing Wireless Technology"
• First place in the 2012 SOONER Launchpad competition for innovative ideas
• President of OU-Tulsa E-club for the 2013-2014 academic year
• Vice president of OU-Tulsa E-club for the 2012-2013 academic year

Email: samer.rajab@ou.edu (OU) or srajab@hra.com (Honda R&D)
Honda, 1000 Town Center, Suit 2400, Southfield, MI. 48075

Bashar Romanous

Bashar joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma– Schusterman Center in 2013. His current research centers on cellular networks and 5G wireless technologies, especially the study of small cells, heterogeneous networks, and cloud-radio access networks using a game theory framework. Other research interests include studying co-existence between heterogeneous wireless networks and deploying embedded systems for wireless communications applications. 

Bashar obtained his master's degree in 2013 at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he studied Computer Architecture with a focus on embedded systems. Bashar participated as an active member of the hardware team for the research project investigating “Re-configurable Active Solid-State Drives (RASSD).” The purpose of the project was to provide a new platform to accelerate data access and processing using Xilinx Virtex 6 FPGA as compute nodes. 

In 2010, Bashar received his bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from the University of Aleppo, Syria, where he studied control systems and automation, including the foundations of control theory, system's modeling, controller design, and implementation.

Bashar's honors and awards include:

• Graduate Research Assistantship, University of Oklahoma, fall 2013 to present
• Best Presentation award at the spring 2014 OU-Tulsa research meeting for "Ubertooth Features and Deployment for Spectrum Sensing”
• Graduate Research Assistantship, American University of Beirut, spring 2011 to summer 2013
• “Al Basel” National Award for Academic Excellence", University of Aleppo, Syria, 2007 through 2009

Email: on: bromanous@gmail.com or bashar.romanous@ou.edu
4502 E 41st St, Room 4305, Tulsa, OK 74135-2512, USA
918-660-3349 (office ) or 918-906-1019 (mobile)

Jesse Schettler

Jesse Schettler received his B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Oral Roberts University in 2014. Prior to that, Jesse worked as an intern in the OU Telecommunications Department and was able to use his research efforts for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation to complete his undergraduate capstone project. Jesse’s research at that time focused on developing an automatic vehicle classification program for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Jesse is currently pursuing an M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He plans to graduate May 2016.

As a graduate research assistant, Jesse serves as a project engineer at the Laureate Institute of Brain Research. His research centers on automating data collection from various physiological devices and integrating data into a single sink terminal for simplified management and improved analysis. As a part of this project, Jesse is responsible for acquiring and waterproofing devices used to collect physiological data. He has also programed a Microsoft Kinect to track and count limb movements during fMRI testing. Jesse provides EMC testing for local companies like Garmin and Stillwater Designs. He also conducts wireless coexistence tests.

Jesse’s honors and awards include:

• Senior Design Project of the Year
• Biomedical Engineering Student of the Year
• 1^st Place IEEE Tulsa Section Poster Competition
• Summa Cum Laude
• Whole Person Scholarship Winner
• Honors Program Scholar
• ASME Auxiliary Scholar
• Bill Lay Memorial Scholar

Hasan Tafish

Hasan is currently a MSc. student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at the University of Oklahoma. He received his BSc. degree in electrical engineering from The University of Damascus in 2012.

In 2013, Hasan joined WECAD group as a research assistant where he worked on many projects related to Intelligent Transportation Systems and Wireless Coexistence. His research interests include, digital signal processing, machine learning, deep neural networks, statistical data modeling, and FPGA based DSP.

Hasan was chosen to receive two scholarship grants from European Union’s Erasmus Mundus academic exchange program, namely, Erasmus Mundus – Peace and DuniaBeam scholarships.

Hasan's list of projects includes:

• Development of unsupervised statistical framework to detect anomalies in Weigh in Motion (WIM) data
• Development of low-cost intelligent vehicle counting and classification system based on magnetic sensors.
• Evaluating Wireless-coexistence between ISM band devices.

Email: Hasan.tafish@ou.edu
4502 E 41st St, Lab 506, Tulsa, OK 74135-2512, USA
918-660-3343 (office) or 918-851-1938 (mobile)