Meet the R8 WIE Committee!
The 2019 Committee can be reached on ma-wie@ieeer8.org, and consists of:
Ana Cigarán Romero (Germany), Chair |
| “Keep always moving forward, keep learning, keep traveling, keep in constant exchange with people… is my philosophy of life.” |
 Ana obtained her degree in electrical engineering from Comillas University (ICAI), Madrid in 2010, writing her diploma thesis “Analysis of the Competitiveness Indicators in the Iberian Electricity market” in the Energy Management Direction of Iberdrola.
Since 2011, she has been working at 50Hertz, the TSO in North-Eastern Germany, as an expert for European inter-TSO cooperation principles for system operation. She has actively participated in the development of the Regional Group Continental Europe Operation Handbook, the ENTSO-E System Operation Network Codes and the conception of inter-TSO system security processes within ENTSO-E and within the Regional Security Coordinators TSCNET and Coreso. She is an active member of the IEEE Germany Section, where she has been the Chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group from 2016-2019 and the Secretary of the IEEE Young Professionals Affinity Group from 2014-2018. |
Youmna El Bitar (Lebanon), Past Chair |
| “Attaining your goals has 4 ingredients: knowing yourself, enjoying what you’re doing, commitment, and time management.” |
Youmna is a graduate student at the Technical University of Munich, pursuing a Master’s degree in Management (MiM). In Munich, she also works part-time in the RF telecommunications industry. Youmna graduated from the American University of Beirut – Lebanon with a BE in Telecommunications Engineering, a subject she is passionate about since childhood. Until mid 2017, she worked as a Radio Network Planning and Optimization Engineer with a Lebanese operator managed by Zain. IEEE has always been at the core of Youmna’s volunteering work. Currently, she is the R8 WIE Past Chair, and a member of the IEEE Geographic Unit Operations Subcommittee (GUOS). Previously, Youmna held various IEEE volunteering roles such as SPAA Chair within IEEE SAC, in addition to several R8 volunteering roles, such as R8 assistant secretary and R8 SAC member. With her studies, Youmna aims to dig deeper into the management science under the light of both her professional and volunteering experiences. Through IEEE, she aims to raise awareness regarding the power of women and their qualifications as community partners and engineering professionals, and to encourage women who wish to pursue a career in STEM.
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Maria-Alexandra Paun (Switzerland), Member |
| “If you really want to achieve your objectives, three ingredients are key: motivation, perseverance and passion!” |
 Born on Pi Day, Dr. Maria-Alexandra Paun is currently a researcher at EPFL Switzerland, where she works in the development of electronics for medical devices (MedTech).Dr. Maria-Alexandra Paun received the Engineer Diploma in 2008 from Politehnica University of Bucharest, FILS, Romania, with a major in Computer Science, graduating top of her class. The Master Project was carried out at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland).
During 2008-2009, she was awarded a postgraduate Marie Curie research fellowship at the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, where she worked in the field of OCT. Between 2009 and 2013, she was Assistant – Ph.D. student at EPFL. She received her PhD degree in June 2013 on the subject of Hall Effect sensors. During 2013-2015, Maria-Alexandra was a Visiting Researcher at University of Cambridge, UK, with two postdoctoral fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). She has published around 50 scientific papers and her h-index is 10. She is committed to volunteering work within IEEE, as she is currently Chair of IEEE Switzerland Section, Chair of IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group in Switzerland, Member in the IEEE R8 WIE Subcommittee, Member in the IEEE R8 Humanitarian Activities Subcommittee, Member in IEEE MGA Training Committee and Counselor of IEEE EPFL Student Branch. You can contact her at the e-mail address: maria_paun2003@yahoo.com. Also you can check her instagram account at @maria.alexandra.paun. |
Hzar Oqlah (Jordan), Member |
| “Women are born leaders, women always fit in!” |
 Hzar Oqlah Hzar is a 3rd year undergraduate student at Jordan University of Science and Technology currently working towards her degree in Industrial Engineering. She is a freelance graphic designer since 2012. She has been honored by the reception of an award from the US Department of State for the best Logo Design for the “SheCab Project”, winner of the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund.
In 2013 she succeeded as a young Jordanian entrepreneur to start her first self-run business, by designing bookmarks and other crafts to sell them at Jerash Festival of Culture and Arts, Jordan. After that she has been working as a handicrafts designer in the festival from 2013 up till now. She is an active member of IEEE Jordan Section, where she is currently the Chair of IEEE JUST Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group and she was a member of the organizing committee of the IEEE Jordan Students and Young Professionals Congress 2017 (JSYP). Hzar has volunteered as a graphic designer in IEEEXtreme 11.0, Jordan. Recently, she has joined the committee of IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Summit Tunisia 2018 as a graphic designer. After winning a graphic design competition carried by R8 WIE, Hzar has joined IEEE R8 Women in Engineering Committee as “Publicity Officer”. |
Ilhem Kallel (Tunisia), Member |
 Dr. Ilhem Kallel is an A. Professor with the Department of Computer Science Engineering in Higher Institute of Computer Science and Multimedia of Sfax, and a senior researcher with REGIM-Lab in National school of Engineers of Sfax (university of Sfax-Tunisia). She received the bachelor degree in computer science in 1988 from ISG Tunis, the DEA degree in Information Systems and new Technologies in 2003, from FSEGS, and the PhD degree in Computer Systems Engineering in 2009 from ENIS. Since 1988, Dr. Ilhem had many leadership positions and a rich professional experience dealing with developing and managing enterprise information systems within an industrial company, teaching fields of computer science and training of teachers.Besides professional and associative activities, including those of IEEE, Dr. Ilhem is involved in many associative projects and activities. She usually takes part or organizes many scientific and social events (meetings, conferences, workshops, contests, competitions, training sessions, booths, soft skills training, etc.) and she is participating in international research cooperation projects and research mobility. She supervises engineering and doctoral research projects and contributes to the review process of many international conferences and journals. Her research interests are mainly in collective and hybrid intelligence, pedagogical innovation in education, intelligent multirobot systems, fuzzy modeling, swarm intelligence, multiagent systems, and systems’ quality assessment.
Dr. Ilhem Kallel is an IEEE member since 2001: from graduate student Member, to member, tosenior member on 2014. She is serving as a chair of Education Tunisia chapter for 2017-2020(http://education.ieee.tn/), Tunisia-section Chair-Elect for 2019-2020 and next chair for 2021-2022. On 2009, she founded and chaired for four years the affinity group IEEE Tunisia “WomenIn Engineering”; among others, she was one past chair of IEEE “Systems, Mans andCybernetics”, and “Computational Intelligence” Tunisia Chapters, the chapters coordinator inTunisia Section for 2015-2016. She volunteered in many international competition programs.She was the winner of the 2011 WIE Clementina Award for Region 8 (Europe, Africa and MiddleEast) for her professional and personal achievements; this award attests that she can serve as a role model for combining professional achievements and family life. Recently she wins the2018 R8 Outstanding Women In Engineering Section Volunteer Award. Moreover, she participates in the organization of many IEEE activities, conferences andtechnical events. She invites many international Distinguished Lecturers from WIE, SMC, CI andEducation societies. Since 2017, she is focusing on education engineering and intelligenttutoring systems on both associative IEEE activities and scientific research activities.
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Philippa Makobore (Uganda), Member |
 Philippa Makobore is the Department Head of the Instrumentation Division at the Uganda Industrial Research Institute.She has a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada (2008), a Professional Certificate in Embedded Systems Engineering from the University of California, Irvine (2016) and is currently a Master of Science in Engineering (MSE) student in Interdisciplinary Engineering at the Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA. Her expertise is the design of diagnostic and therapeutic medical devices for low resource settings.
In 2016 the division secured a 1st place Innovation Award from the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, USA and in 2017 the 2nd place Innovation Prize for Africa for the design of the ECGF infusion set. UIRI has partnered with University of Pisa, Italy and five other partners on the UBORA project to design a Euro-African Open Biomedical Engineering e-Platform for the co-creation of open source medical devices funded by a European Union Horizon 2020 grant. She is a member of the African Biomedical Engineering Consortium (ABEC), IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) and the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society (CMBES).
Almedin Kavas (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Corresponding Member
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