In this issue, we interviewed Dr. Athina Petropulu, the President-Elect of the IEEE Signal Processing Society for 2020-2021. Athina Petropulu is a Distinguished Professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at Rutgers. Prior to joining Rutgers, she was faculty at Drexel University (1992-2010). 

Dr. Jian Li received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1987 and 1991, respectively. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville. She is also affiliated with the Department of Electronic Engineering and Information Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei.

Sheila S. Hemami received the B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, in 1990 and the M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, in 1992 and 1994, respectively and all in electrical engineering. She is presently Director of Strategic Technical Opportunities at Draper in Cambridge, MA...

Ana Isabel Pérez-Neira (B.Sc. '89, MSc. '1991, Ph.D. 1995) is currently a professor at UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) and scientific coordinator of the Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC).

Anna Scaglione (F) (M.Sc.'95, Ph.D. '99) is currently a professor in electrical and computer engineering at Arizona State University (ASU). She was Professor of Electrical Engineering previously at the University of California at Davis (2008-2014), and at Cornell University, (2001-2008). 

Rabab Ward's career includes many firsts, particularly for women in engineering and signal processing, paving the way in three continents and spanning over four decades. This did not come as easy as we discovered.  After many years of perseverance, Ward became the first woman with a Ph.D. to be appointed as professor of electrical engineering in Canada in 1981. 

When did you first come into touch with signal processing? What was your motivation of following a career in this domain?
In 1984 I obtained my first degree which was a five years diploma in Electrical Engineering. My favorite courses were quite diverse, from Electromagnetism and Antenna Theory to Automatic Control, System Theory and Stochastic Processes.