XAVIER N. FERNANDO was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka in 1965. He received B. Sc.  Eng. (First Class Hons) degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1992 and Master’s degree in Telecommunications at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand in 1994. He obtained his PhD degree at the University of Calgary, Canada in 2001 in Electrical and Computer Engineering specializing in wireless communications.

He worked as an R&D Engineer for AT&T (Thailand) from 1994 to 1997. Currently he is a Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Advanced Telecommunications (IAT), UK in 2008 and MAPNET Fellow visiting Aston University, UK in 2014. He has  published a monograph, ‘Radio over Fiber for Wireless Communications’ (IEEE Wiley, 2014) and co-authored  ‘Cooperative Spectrum Sensing and Resource Allocation Strategies in Cognitive Radio Networks’ (Springer, 2017) and ‘Vehicular Applications of Visible Light Communications’ (IOP Publications, 2020). He has also co-authored 58 journal papers and 126 Conference Papers including many invited papers. His current research interests are wireless communication and positioning. His previous interests are radio over fiber and underground communication systems.

Dr. Fernando is a Senior Member of IEEE and a licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario. He was an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer and delivered over 60 invited talks and keynote presentations. He was the Chair of IEEE Toronto Section and Chair of IEEE Canada Central Area. He has been in the organizing/steering/technical program committees of numerous conferences. His work has won 30 awards and prizes so far including, Professional Engineers Ontario Award in 2016, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Prize in 2010, Sarnoff Symposium Prize in 2009, Opto-Canada best poster prize in 2003 and CCECE best paper prize in 2001.