This article continues the series of ten interviews with the Officers of the IEEE ComSoc Member and Global Activities (MGA) Council for the term 2024–2025, which is published every month in the Global Communications Newsletter.
In this series of articles, I introduce the Vice-President and the six Directors of the MGA Council (namely: Member Services, Industry Outreach, and AP, NA, LA, and EMEA Regions), as well as the three Chairs of the Women in Communications Engineering (WICE), Young Professionals (YP), and Sister Societies Standing Committees. In each interview, one by one they present their sector activities and plans.
In this issue, I interview Toktam Mahmoodi [S’06, M’09, SM’16], IEEE ComSoc WICE Committee Chair. Toktam is a Professor of Communication Engineering and Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research (CTR) at King’s College London. Previously, she was a visiting research scientist at F5 Networks, a research associate at Imperial College London, a Mobile VCE researcher, and a telecom R&D engineer. Toktam is chair of IEEE WICE and vice-chair of the IEEE ComSoc Aerial Communication Emerging Tech initiative. Her research focuses on the areas of mobile and cloud networking and includes network intelligence, edge learning and networking, ultra-low latency networking, and network modeling and optimization. She has contributed to the ETSI, IETF, and 3GPP standards, and has played an active role within 5GPPP in defining 5G vision for vertical industries. She has also served on several editorial boards including the executive editor of ETT, guest editor of the JSAC series on network softwarization, area editor of IEEE Communications Standard Magazine on management & orchestration, and editor of IEEE communication letters. Toktam served as technical committee chair and member of various IEEE ComSoc conferences, including ICC, GLOBECOM, PIMRC, WCNC, and ICT.
Stefano: Hello Toktam! What is the IEEE ComSoc WICE Committee? What are its goals?
Toktam: The Women in Communications Engineering (WICE) is a Standing Committee of the IEEE Communications Society, reporting to the Member and Global Activities (MGA) Council. Its mission is to promote the visibility and roles of women networking and communications engineers and to provide a venue for their professional growth. Any woman ComSoc member is automatically a member of WICE. Anyone supporting Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is also welcome to join WICE.
What are your impressions after your three years serving as a WICE Member and now Chair?
I have been the WICE chair since Jan 2024, and vice-chair since Jan 2022. One of the amazing achievements in this 3-year window is the representation of women in ComSoc membership, with an increase from 11% in early 2022 to 20% at the end of 2024.
It is a vivid community, with an active committee and a large number of volunteers, organizing a significant number of events in ComSoc conferences to promote the visibility and roles of women communications engineers and to provide a venue for their professional growth.
WICE has active social media channels on LinkedIn and Instagram, where events and activities are publicized.
Any ComSoc member is welcome to the WICE events and is encouraged to join WICE social media channels for up-to-date news on the events and activities.
What is the composition of the WICE Committee?
The WICE committee has 15 members serving in different roles including secretary, publicity chair, award sub-committee, industry liaison, student activity coordinator, coordination with WIE, as well as four members-at-large. The WICE committee members are volunteers who are ComSoc members and work together passionately towards the WICE mission.
Would you please recall some of the main activities and events organized by WICE during 2024?
WICE organized technical sessions, panels, and mentoring, as well as career coaching and career inspiration events in eight conferences in 2024.
The aim of technical sessions and panels is twofold, to provide further visibility to senior female colleagues, as well as being inspirational venues for the younger generation of ComSoc members.
The other events aim to target a spectrum of career stages from junior to mid-senior level, providing opportunities for mentoring, career coaching in leadership, and other senior training opportunities e.g. elevation to ComSoc Fellow.
Among programs supported by WICE, the ComSoc Child Care Grant is one of the most appreciated at ICC and GLOBECOM conferences. Would you please recall its mission and why is it so appreciated by members?
One of the best WICE initiatives is the Child Care program, which is received enthusiastically by the community, but has its challenges. While WICE has been offering childcare grants in ComSoc flagship conferences, we also acknowledge that often finding childcare support in another country, i.e. the conference venue, is a major challenge for families. In addition to the childcare grant, in 2024, WICE sponsored a dedicated childcare space with suitable facilities at the conference venue. Through local volunteers, we also supported parents in finding local childcare providers.
The past year, the program was run in ICC 2024 in Denver, USA, and GLOBECOM 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. Some of the parents’ testimonies include the following.
“From my daughter’s perspective, she absolutely loved it. She kept on saying, “Let’s go to the conference!” even after the conference ended. From a parent perspective, I really like that I could attend the conference along with my daughter and swing by her room whenever I had some time to check on her.”
“As a family of two academic researchers, attending conferences with our child has always been a complicated process. This time at ICC 2024, it has been exceptionally easy thanks to the on-site childcare service provided by WICE.”
The childcare program also created a networking and peer-support opportunity for parents attending the conference, as
“The childcare service not only provided my son with a safe and engaging environment where he made new friends, but it also allowed me to connect with and become friends with other parents.”
What are your plans for 2025?
In 2024, we tried more than ever to reach out to other bodies and initiatives that share similar missions and ambitions to WICE, e.g. WIE at the IEEE level, ACM-W, and N2Women. We organized multiple events in 2024, in collaboration with WIE, e.g. in WCNC 2024, and GLOBECOM 2024. We are also planning events with ACM-W in INFOCOM 2025 and with N2Women in ICC 2025.
We also tried to proactively reach out to conference organizers, helping with achieving greater gender balance in technical committees, keynote speakers, and other highly visible roles. I am delighted to see for example GLOBECOM 2024 had an equal number of male and female keynote speakers from across academia and industry.
Our childcare program is still in its infancy and while we continue trying different models of supporting parents that fit within the IEEE legal framework, we also continue working with the legal team aiming to change policies in the direction of providing more support to young families and parents while attending ComSoc conferences.
Finally, building on the amazing progress we had with closing the gender gap in ComSoc membership, we would like to see such progress in senior-level members such as Fellows. In 2025, WICE is planning a series of online workshops for supporting ComSoc female members in their fellowship applications.
Any more remark you wish to make, to conclude our conversation?
As the first year of my term as the WICE chair comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation to the entire WICE Board, who works passionately and tirelessly in their volunteering roles.
I am also grateful for the time and dedication of all volunteers who organize WICE events at conferences, as well as the speakers, panelists, and attendees on whom the event’s success depends.
I would also like to thank you, Stefano, the ComSoc President, the MGA as well as the ComSoc staff for their amazing support. My wish is that WICE will continue to thrive, and thus, contribute to the growth of our Society.