IEEE Leadership

Saifur Rahman

Professor Saifur Rahman is the founding director of the Advanced Research Institute at Virginia Tech, USA, where he is the Joseph R. Loring Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also directs the Center for Energy and the Global Environment at the university. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE and an IEEE Millennium Medal winner. He was the president of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) for 2018 and 2019.

He is the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Electrification Magazine and the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He has published more than 160 journal papers and has made more than 500 conference and invited presentations. His h-index is 60 with over 18,000 citations.

In 2006, he served on the IEEE Board of Directors as the Vice President for Publication Services and Products. He is a distinguished lecturer for IEEE PES and has lectured on renewable energy, energy efficiency, smart grid, energy internet, blockchain, and IoT sensor integration in more than 30 countries.

He is the founder of BEM Controls, LLC, a Virginia (USA)-based software company providing building energy management solutions. He served as the chair of the US National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for International Science and Engineering from 2010 to 2013. His research at Virginia Tech has been funded by Duke Energy, Tokyo Electric Power Company, the US National Science Foundation, the US Department of Defense, the US Department of Energy, and the State of Virginia (USA). He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech.

K. J. Ray Liu

K. J. Ray Liu was the founder and CEO, now Chairman and CTO, of Origin AI, which pioneers AI for wireless sensing and indoor tracking. The invention of wireless AI won three prestigious CES Innovation Awards, including CES Best of Innovation in 2021.

He was Distinguished University Professor and Christine Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology of the University of Maryland, College Park (USA), from where he retired after a career of more than three decades in education. His research contributions encompass broad aspects of signal processing and communications.

He has trained over 70 doctoral/postdoctoral students, of which ten are now IEEE fellows.

Dr. Liu is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE Fourier Technical Field Award for Signal Processing, the 2016 IEEE Leon K. Kirchmayer Graduate Teaching Award, IEEE Signal Processing Society 2014 Society Award, and IEEE Signal Processing Society 2009 Technical Achievement Award. Recognized as a Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher, he is a Fellow of IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the US National Academy of Inventors.

Dr. Liu was the 2022 IEEE President and CEO, 2019 IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities, and a member of the IEEE Board of Directors as Division IX Director in 2016–2017. He has also served as 2012–2013 President of IEEE Signal Processing Society, where he was Vice President for Publications and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine.

Dr. Liu received the B.S. degree from the National Taiwan University in 1983 and the Ph.D. degree from UCLA in 1990, both in electrical engineering.

Thomas Coughlin

Tom Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates, is a digital storage analyst and business and technology consultant. He has more than 40 years in the data storage industry with engineering and senior management positions at several companies.

Dr. Coughlin has many publications and six patents. He is also the author of "Digital Storage in Consumer Electronics: The Essential Guide," which is now in its second edition with Springer. Tom is a regular storage and memory contributor for forbes.com and media and entertainment organizations.

Coughlin Associates consults and publishes books and market and technology reports, including The Media and Entertainment Storage Report and an Emerging Memory Report, and puts on digital storage–oriented events.

He is an IEEE Life Fellow, Past-President of IEEE-USA, Past Director of IEEE Region 6, Past Chair of the Santa Clara Valley IEEE Section, and Past Chair of the Consultants Network of Silicon Valley. He is also active with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) and the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Sophia Muirhead

Sophia (“Sophie”) Muirhead became IEEE’s Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer (COO) in January 2023. She manages a US$500 million+ business enterprise with a worldwide staff of over 1,100 employees.

Prior to becoming the Executive Director and COO, Sophie was IEEE’s General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer for four years, where she served as a trusted business and legal advisor to the organization’s Presidents and CEOs, Boards of Directors, senior volunteer leaders, and global staff.

Before joining IEEE in 2019, Sophie spent two decades at The Conference Board (TCB), a global business membership organization founded in 1917, with a mission to help its members anticipate what’s ahead, improve their performance, and better serve society. There she served as TCB’s first-ever Chief Legal Officer, building a legal team and internal legal function from scratch. She also had various operations roles, including leading TCB’s Marketing and Communications Center.

Sophie is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, the New York State Bar Association, and the Association of Corporate Counsel. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Hunter College Foundation and is a Trustee of the United Engineering Foundation.

Sophie graduated from Harvard Law School, where she was an editor and a contributor to the Harvard International Law Journal. Born and raised on the island of Jamaica, she received a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Hunter College, graduating magna cum laude, and also studied at the University of London and Boston University.