NextG 2025 Symposium Speakers | Princeton Engineering

Charles Boyd

Managing Director of Innovation, Verizon

Charlie is based in Silicon Valley focused on innovation for Verizon. He sits at the intersection of AI, Verizon’s 5G partner ecosystem, and next generation capabilities for Verizon clients. Verizon has had significant traction in private 5G in the professional sports vertical including many NFL stadiums, NHL stadiums, NBA arenas, and future engagements with FIFA World Cup 2026 and Chelsea FC in London. With private 5G as centerpiece, Verizon has a number of AI applications, video analytics, and facial recognition solutions elevating fan experience, employee experience, and operational efficiency. Verizon is seeing the next phase of private 5G adoption with the manufacturing vertical, hotel/hospitality, and retail / logistics distribution centers. Charlie came to Verizon originally through the acquisition of Totality, Inc, a leading managed services provider (whose primary competitor was Marc Andreesen’s LoudCloud). Charlie has continued to stay active with the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and a number of Princeton founders, CEOs, and Princeton focused venture activity. Charlie received his MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, his AB from Princeton University Class of ’91, and completed a post graduate year at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

Doru Calin

AVP, Head of U.S. 6G Wireless Research Center, MediaTek

Dr. Calin is AVP, Head of the U.S. 6G Wireless Research Center and the Lead Research Scientist, 6G at MediaTek USA. In this role, he leads MediaTek’s advanced research for next generation cellular technologies. Prior to that, after starting his career with Motorola Research Labs, Paris, France, he joined Bell Labs in New Jersey, where he led the creation and incubation of novel technologies from inception stage to field trials in customer networks and market adoption and became a Bell Labs Fellow. He also spearheaded one of the fastest growing businesses with Nokia Enterprise, as the Head of private wireless networks for digital industries in North America. Dr. Calin is an Editorial Board Member of the IEEE Wireless Communications and served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Communications Letters and as an Editorial Board Member of Springer’s Wireless Personal Communications Journal. For the past fifteen years, he has been also serving as an Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City. Doru received a M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, a M.S. and a PhD in computer systems networking and telecommunications from the Universitė de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France.

Mischa Dohler

Professor Mischa Dohler
VP Emerging Technologies, Ericsson Inc.

Mischa Dohler is now VP Emerging Technologies at Ericsson Inc. in Silicon Valley, working on cutting-edge topics of 6G, Metaverse, XR, Quantum and Blockchain. He serves on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom, and served on the Technical Advisory Committee of the FCC. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur with 5 companies; composer & pianist with 5 albums on Spotify/iTunes; and fluent in several languages. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media, and is featured on Amazon Prime.

Emad Farag

Principle Engineer, Samsung Research America

Dr. Emad Farag received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, and his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He is currently a Principal Engineer at Samsung Research America (SRA), where he leads research and standardization initiatives for 5G and 6G technologies. Before joining SRA, Dr. Farag held engineering roles at Nokia Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, and Lucent Technologies, with a focus on base station modem architecture and algorithm development and standardization. He is a recognized expert in wireless standards and an active contributor to the 3GPP standards body, where he leads discussions in areas such as initial access, control channel design, MIMO, device-to-device communication, and positioning algorithms. Dr. Farag holds over 100 issued and pending patents in wireless communications and related fields. He is the recipient of the IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation Award for his outstanding leadership and significant contributions to wireless modem architecture. Dr Farag currently serves as the Chair of the IEEE North Jersey Section.

Ari Fitzgerald

Partner, Hogan Lovells

Ari Fitzgerald provides strategic, legal, and policy advice on a wide range of communications and spectrum policy issues to some of the world’s largest and most dynamic communications network operators and equipment manufacturers, as well as a diverse assortment of industry trade associations and investors. He especially enjoys helping to bring new and innovative communications-related products and services to market. In recognition of his path-breaking contributions to the wireless industry, he is one of only three attorneys to have ever been inducted into the Wireless History Foundation’s Wireless Hall of Fame. Ari had a distinguished career in government before joining Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) as a partner in 2001. He was a legal advisor to former FCC Chairman Bill Kennard, as well as deputy chief of the FCC’s International Bureau. He also worked as a legal advisor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he advised the White House, executive branch agencies, and the U.S. attorney general on constitutional and federal statutory interpretation matters. Ari currently serves on the board of directors of Crown Castle International, a large, publicly owned operator of towers and other communications infrastructure, and on the advisory board of several private technology companies and policy advocacy organizations. He also serves on the board of several nonprofit entities, including the Yale Law School Fund, secretary of the Multicultural Media and Telecommunications Council, and as president of the Duke Ellington Fund. Ari graduated with an A.B. from Harvard College, magna cum laude, in 1984; served as a Henry Luce Scholar in the Philippines from 1984 to 1985 and graduated with a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990.

Erwin Gianchandani

Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, National Science Foundation

Dr. Erwin Gianchandani is the U.S. National Science Foundation’s assistant director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, leading the newly established TIP Directorate. Gianchandani has worked at NSF since 2012. Prior to becoming the assistant director for TIP, he served as the senior advisor for Translation, Innovation and Partnerships for over a year, where he helped develop plans for the new TIP Directorate in collaboration with colleagues at NSF, other government agencies, industry and academia. During the previous six years, Gianchandani was the NSF deputy assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, twice serving as acting assistant director for CISE. Gianchandani’s leadership and management of CISE included the formulation and implementation of the directorate’s $1 billion annual budget, strategic and human capital planning, and oversight of day-to-day operations for a team of over 130. Gianchandani has led the development and launch of several new NSF initiatives, including the Smart & Connected Communities program, Civic Innovation Challenge, Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research, and the National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes. Before joining NSF in 2012, Gianchandani was the inaugural director of the Computing Community Consortium, providing leadership to the computing research community in identifying and pursuing bold, high-impact research directions such as health information technology and sustainable computing. Gianchandani has published extensively and presented at international conferences on computational systems biology. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and master’s and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering, all from the University of Virginia. In 2021, Gianchandani received the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award, awarded to members of the Federal Government’s Senior Executive Service for sustained extraordinary accomplishment. In 2018, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Engineering Graduate Award from the University of Virginia.

Niraj Jha

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University

Niraj K. Jha received his B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in 1981 and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985. He is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Princeton University. He has served as an Associate Director for the Princeton Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. He is a Fellow of IEEE and ACM. He was given a Distinguished Alumnus Award by I.I.T., Kharagpur in 2014. He has co-authored five books including two textbooks that are being widely used around the world. He has served as the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems and as Associate Editor of several other IEEE Transactions. He is an author or co-author of more than 490 papers among which are 16 award-winning papers. He has been awarded 28 patents. His research interests include algorithms and architectures for machine learning, with applications to smart healthcare.

Mohamed Kari

Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, Princeton Computer Science

Dr. Mohamed Kari is a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton Computer Science in Prof. Parastoo Abtahi’s Situated Interactions Lab. His research aims at getting closer to intelligent sensor-rich computer systems that seamlessly blend with a user’s space. Mo obtained his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and has conducted research at ETH Zürich and at Meta, Apple, and Porsche.

Thierry Klein

President, Bell Labs Solutions Research Nokia Bell Labs

Thierry E. Klein is the President of Bell Labs Solutions Research at Nokia Bell Labs. His global multi-disciplinary team conducts fundamental and applied research focused on new Nokia value chains, business opportunities and ecosystems. Bell Labs Solutions Research pursues research and innovation into advanced technologies, architectures, systems and applications beyond Nokia’s current product and solutions portfolio, including research into advanced sensing technologies, AI-based knowledge systems and fundamental algorithms, autonomous software and data systems, and integrated solutions and experiences. Prior to his appointment as President of Bell Labs Solutions Research, Thierry was the Head of the Integrated Solutions and Experiences Research Lab at Nokia Bell Labs, leading a global research team dedicated to applied research, innovation and advanced technologies with the mission to design, develop and prototype massively disruptive solutions, systems and experiences for the next human-industrial revolution. The research domains span new wearable devices, cloud robotics and drones, image and data analytics, industrial process optimization and automation enabled by 5G networking and edge computing technologies. Previously, he was the Head of Innovation Management for Vertical Industries with a focus on the transportation, automotive and connected industries sectors. He also served as the Founding Vice-Chair of the Board of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), a cross-industry association bringing together the telecommunications and automotive industries that he helped found and launch in September 2016. He was also the Program Leader for the Network Energy Research Program at Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent with the mission to conduct research towards the design, development and use of sustainable future communications and data networks. He served as the Chairman of the Technical Committee of GreenTouch, a global consortium dedicated to improve energy efficiency in networks by a factor 1000x compared to 2010 levels. He joined Bell Labs Research in Murray Hill, New Jersey in 2001 and his initial research was focused on next-generation wireless and wireline networks, network architectures, algorithms and protocols, network management, optimization and control. From 2006 to 2010 he served as the Founder and CTO of an internal start-up focused on wireless communications for emergency response and disaster recovery situations within Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. Thierry earned an MS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Université de Nantes and the Ecole Centrale de Nantes in Nantes, France. He received a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. He is an author on over 35 peer-reviewed conference and journal publications and an inventor on 36 patent applications. He is the recipient of a Bell Labs’ President Award and two Bell Labs Teamwork Awards. In 2010, he was voted “Technologist of the Year” at the Total Telecom World Vendor Awards and received the 2016 Industrial Innovation Award from the IEEE Communications Society. Thierry has dual US and Luxembourg citizenship and speaks four languages. He lives in Fanwood, New Jersey with his wife and son.

Ed Knapp

CTO, American Tower Corporation

Ed Knapp is American Tower’s Chief Technology Officer. He is responsible for leading the company’s global innovation program, technology investments and strategy. Prior to joining American Tower in 2017, Mr. Knapp served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm. He joined Qualcomm after its acquisition of Flarion Technologies. Prior to that he served as the Chief Technology Officer of PacketVideo Corporation, co-founded NextWave Telecom, Inc. and served as its Chief Technology Officer, and was Executive Director of Technical Services for Bell Atlantic/NYNEX Mobile (Verizon Wireless). Mr. Knapp serves on the Board of Directors of AST SpaceMobile and the Center for Automotive Research, as well as the Rutgers University Industry Advisory Board. Mr. Knapp currently has five granted U.S. patents and one pending application. He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University (NYU) in New York and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Stony Brook University.

Ozge Koymen

Senior Director of Technology, Qualcomm

Ozge Koymen is a Senior Director of Technology at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. where he has been since 2006. He has led the 5G/6G millimeter-wave program within Qualcomm R&D since early 2015, from early conceptual evaluation to commercial deployment. His previous areas as a technical contributor includes Wireless Backhaul, Small Cells, LTE-D, LTE and UMB. Prior to Qualcomm, he was a member of Flarion Technologies developing a pioneering OFDMA cellular system,Flash-OFDM, during 2003-2006. His earlier work experience includes full-time and consulting work for Impinj, Inc (2000-2003) and TRW (1996-2000). He received the B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1996 and the M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1997 and 2003, respectively.

Mihir Kshirsagar

Tech Policy Clinic Lead, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University

Mihir Kshirsagar(Link is external) (Link opens in new window) runs CITP’s first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary technology policy clinic(Link opens in new window) that gives students and scholars an opportunity to engage directly in the policy process. Most recently, he served in the New York Attorney General’s Bureau of Internet & Technology as the lead trial counsel in cutting edge matters concerning consumer protection law and technology and obtained one of the largest consumer payouts in the State’s history. Previously, he worked for Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and Cahill Gordon Reindel LLP in New York City on a variety of antitrust, securities and commercial disputes involving emerging and traditional industries. Before law school he was a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., educating policy makers about the civil liberties implications of new surveillance technologies. Kshirsagar attended Deep Springs College and received an A.B. from Harvard College in 2000 and a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006.

Anton Monk

SVP Strategy, Cohere

Dr. Monk joined Cohere in 2024 as Senior Vice President of Strategy. He also led the company’s Standards and Partnerships efforts from 2015 to 2018, driving industry and academic outreach and co-authoring the first paper on OTFS. Previously, Dr. Monk was VP and CTO of Wireless Initiatives at Viasat, a global satellite operator, where he drove cellular, fixed wireless and direct-to-cell technology initiatives and partnerships. He was a co-founder and held the roles of VP and CTO of Entropic Communications, a formerly publicly traded semiconductor company that invented the MoCA home networking solution used by Pay TV service providers for multi-room DVR throughout the U.S. Dr. Monk earned a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and B.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Udayan Mukherjee

Senior Fellow, Intel Corporation

Udayan Mukherjee is the Intel Senior Fellow and Chief Architect of Intel’s Network & communications Products. Udayan architected industry’s first fully virtualized 5G infrastructure Software on open architecture through FlexRAN & FlexCore which are being deployed worldwide. He also leads the worldwide team driving Intel’s NextG network technology & 3GPP/ORAN standards development. Udayan is also responsible for developing Silicon enhancements/SoC for networking and is currently working on developing network AI systems including domain specific LLM & RAG pipeline trained with network and enterprise data for deployment/automation as well as troubleshooting/root cause analysis. Udayan is also responsible for establishing new growth areas for Intel in the intelligent compute both in the enterprise as well as communications market segment, a role that includes developing technologies and architecture including augmenting classical networking algorithms with AI/ML models, enterprise and network specific LLM/RAG for network automation and RCA, software-based networking, as well as developing edge specific intellectual property including system design as well as time sensitive networking for industrial usages.. Udayan has been deeply involved with IEEE, ORAN alliance and TIP, has been a keynote and distinguished speaker multiple times @ IEEE Globecom, IEEE WCNC, IEEE 5G Silicon Valley summits, IEEE NFIC, CTIA, GSMA, Cable Labs, ORAN Summits as well as ITS, FCC and other Global as well as US government forums. A three times recipient of Intel achievement awards, Udayan also has more than a dozen granted patents and many pending in networking, edge as well as silicon enhancements for wireless, real-time processing & HA architecture. He has been associated with two startups and has double master’s degrees in computer science as well as industrial engineering.

Chris Ng

Director, Systems Engineering, JMA Wireless

Dr. Chris Ng’s professional experience is in wireless communications and optimization systems. Dr. Ng is the author of more than 20 technical papers and multiple patents. His professional experience includes research and development positions with Bell Labs, Blue Danube Systems (acquired by NEC), and other technology companies. He was a Co-Chair on the Massive MIMO Working Group of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative. He received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Science from the University of Toronto, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Dr. Ng is currently an Engineering Director at JMA Wireless in New Jersey working on next-generation network optimization solutions.

Giampaolo Tardioli

Vice President, Keysight

Giampaolo Tardioli is the Vice President of 6G, Enterprise and Service Providers, Communications Solutions Group, located in Santa Rosa, California with 27 years of service. He is responsible for 6G strategy, enterprise solutions, and strategic growth opportunities such as Quantum Computing. He joined Hewlett-Packard in 1998 as a test engineer and served over the last 20 years in a variety of management roles in Planning, Research & Development, and operations both at the division and business unit levels. Giampaolo’s focus is to establish Keysight as an undeniable leader in 6G, shifting from enabling standards implementation to defining what the standards can and will be.

Pramod Viswanath