Student Paper Contest 2022: Final Results

The final part of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest, SPC 2022 oral finals, was held within the frame of the IEEE R8 flagship conference MELECON 2022, in Palermo, Italy, on June 14-16, 2022. After two years of adverse circumstances caused by the pandemic (SPC 2020 was held online and SPC 2021 was held in hybrid form), this year we gathered all the finalists and jury members allowing the event to be completely in person. It was the 55th edition of this traditional and important technical activity of the IEEE Region 8.

Members of the international jury who assessed the student papers in the first (written) part and presentations in the second (oral) part of the contest were Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta, Prof. Mike Hinchey from Ireland, Prof. Giambattista Gruosso from Italy and Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia, who is also the SPC coordinator. Many thanks for their efforts and dedication!

We were very honored by the presence of Antonio Luque, IEEE Region 8 director, Vincenzo Piuri, IEEE Region 8 Director elect, Simay Akar, IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee Chair, Habib Kammoun, R8 conference coordination committee chair and Theodoros Chatzinikolaou, Regional Student Representative, at the SPC 2022 oral finals.

Final Results

Given the high level of quality of works and presentations, the jury didn’t have an easy task to select the winners. The FIRST PRIZE and an award of $800 went to Zixuan Huang from Imperial College London, UK, for the paper entitled: “Beam-switching Circularly Polarized Antenna Array for Cold-chain Tracking RFID Applications”. In addition, the student branch of the SPC 2022 winner, Imperial College London SB, got a special award “Dick Poortvliet” of $250.

The winner of the SECOND PRIZE and the award of $500 is Lorenzo Lagostina from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, for the paper entitled: “Design of Low-power Arithmetic Logic Circuits for 45 nm CMOS Technology”

The THIRD PRIZE and award of $200 went to Emilija Ćojbašić from University of Niš, Serbia, for the paper entitled:  “Machine learning as an aid to predicting clinical outcome after stroke”.

The author of the paper placed in fourth place is Kristjan Cuznar from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and his co-author and supervisor is Miha Glavan from Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The paper is entitled: “Optimization of cold rolling process recipes based on historical data”

Finally, the paper authored by Matthieu Brabant from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, with two co-authors (supervisors): Olivier Pereira from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and Pierrick Méaux from University of Luxembourg, entitled: “Homomorphic Encryption for Privacy-Friendly Augmented Democracy”, took fifth place.

Congratulations to the authors of the top five papers and branches where the finalists come from! All five papers are published in the MELECON 2022 Proceeding and in the IEEExplore digital library. Special CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd award! Many thanks to all participants in the SPC 2022! We expect many high-quality student papers for the SPC 2023.

Students’ Impressions

	❝ The SPC oral final is a perfect opportunity to get to know the far-reaching research conducted by researchers from other universities. You are able to see how they identify, analyze, and tackle the problems they encountered. Competing with four other final lists was also a great experience, from which I could learn a lot about how to conduct and present research. Last but not least, it is a great experience to travel to a new country and savor a different culture.❞ ~ Zixuan Huang
	❝ The SPC has been an incredibly enriching experience for me. Writing a paper allowed me to drastically improve the way I present information, and also led me to a deeper understanding of my work while discussing some unexpected results. Presenting in front of such a jury has been an exciting moment that boosted my confidence. Last but not least, attending to the conference, listening to other researchers and meeting students and PhDs from all over the world has just been so thrilling. I really encourage future students to jump in this adventure, you won’t regret it.❞ ~ Lorenzo Lagostina
	❝ The SPC Oral Finals were a great honor and a privilege for me, as well as a remarkable opportunity to present my student research and gain some precious new experience. The chance to attend the renowned MELECON 2022 conference, meet the other outstanding finalists and exchange knowledge and impressions, and enjoy the charming city of Palermo was truly wonderful. This has given me the motivation to conduct further research, as well as to consider an academic career in the future.❞ ~ Emilija Cojbasic
	❝ The SPC oral finals were my first real steps into academia. It was a wonderful experience, from the research to the presentation of the results to other experts in the field. The trip itself and the time spent with foreign colleagues was also a special experience that I will never forget.❞ ~ Kristjan Cuznar
	❝ The Student Paper Competition was a great opportunity to attend and present at a major international conference. We had the opportunity to meet many doctoral and post-docs from all over the world in a challenging but relaxed Mediterranean atmosphere.❞ ~ Matthieu Brabant