Wireless Institute Seminar Series: Sustainable Connectivity — A Powerful Means of Doing Good

Dr. Ralf Bendlin

Lead Member of Technical Staff,

Advanced Wireless and Spectrum Research,

AT&T Labs

Abstract:

“This college will be one of the most powerful means of doing good in this country,” Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., founder of the University of Notre Dame, famously said. This message resonates with AT&T. From FirstNet, the nation’s only wireless broadband communications platform dedicated to America’s first responders and public safety community, to the digital divide and environmental stewardship. AT&T, too, strongly emphasizes the common good. We committed to be carbon neutral across our entire global operations by 2035 and announced to help businesses reduce a gigaton of global emissions in the same time frame. We lead efforts on sustainability in standards developing organizations and industry alliances and, together with universities like the University of Notre Dame, develop new technologies for next generation networks that have the potential to significantly lower energy consumption and cost. This seminar will shed light on the role the information and communications technology sector plays in environmental sustainability, and how “Green Networks” of the future address technological, societal, economic, and environmental mandates alike.

Bio:

Dr. Ralf Bendlin (Senior Member, IEEE) received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany, and the master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, USA, in electrical engineering and information technology. He is a Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Labs, Austin, TX, USA. Before joining AT&T, he was a Senior Wireless Systems Architect with Intel Corporation and a Systems Engineer with Texas Instruments Inc.He has worked on algorithm development, performance prediction, optimization, systems architecture, spectrum research, and technology strategy for current and next-generation wireless networks; and has actively participated in the definition of several global communications standards. He was a Guest Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Networking (TCCN) and the Technical Program Chair of both the 2019 IEEE GLOBECOM Workshop on High-Dimensional, Low-Resolution Architectures for Power-Efficient Wireless Communications and the 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks. He served as a presidential appointee on the Advisory Council of the College of Engineering and is currently a member of the Industry Advisory Council of the Department of Electrical Engineering, all at the University of Notre Dame. During his career, Dr. Bendlin has received several awards, most recently the AT&T Science and Technology Medal.