Dr. Wahab Almuhtadi has over 32 years of industry experience, and in parallel, over 27 years of university teaching experience. He’s a Professor/Coordinator of the “Optical Systems and Sensors” Program, Algonquin College/Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He’s a Research Council Member, Digital Research Alliance of Canada. Previously, he worked at Nortel as Senior System Engineer, Optical Solutions Research & Development.
With his professional background, he demonstrated outstanding leadership in establishing the Applied Research & Innovations with $10.5M fund that fostered Algonquin College to become Polytechnic Institution. He is the founder/designer of $6M cutting-edge Optophotonics Lab/Optical Communications Network 200Gbps, the only lab of its kind in any educational institute. He’s one of the founders of $65M “Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN), Canada”, also supported and help in getting Ontario Government funding for ENCQOR-5G (Evolution of Networked Services through a Corridor in Québec and Ontario for Research and Innovation). His engineering and research expertise are in the areas of photonics, optical systems and sensors, optical communications, wireless, and electrical engineering. He published several technical papers and books. He received several awards from IEEE, academia, and industry, e.g., 2010-IEEE Leadership Award, 2015-IEEE Canada W.Read Service Award, 2009-Laurent Isabelle Teaching Excellence, 2006-NISOD Award, and 2015-Canadian Pacific Railway Engineering Medal, Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC). He’s Professional Engineers of Ontario (P.Eng.), Senior Member of IEEE (SMIEEE), and Fellow of Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC).
Dr. Almuhtadi is actively involved in IEEE for over 30 years serving in many executive level posts across IEEE (TAB/MGA, Society, Region, Section, Chapter, Committee, Student Branch). Just to name a few, he’s currently IEEE BoD Member, President-Elect)/President (2024-2025/2026-2027) of IEEE Canada (Region-7), he served as 2019-2022 President and Chair of Board of Governors of IEEE Consumer Technology Society (CTSoc), served as Member of IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Board of Governors and Director of ComSoc North American Board in 2019-2020. He’s Distinguished Lecturer, ComSoc. He’s still serving in many IEEE Boards and Committees. Dr. Almuhtadi has organized and chaired 35+ international engineering conferences (e.g., Executive Conference Chair of IEEE ICC 2012, ICC 2021; and currently IEEE ICC 2025).