Faculty

Omer Waqar received the B.Sc. degree from the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore, Pakistan, in 2007 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Leeds, UK (a public university of the prestigious Rusell group) in November 2011. From January 2012 to July 2013, he was a postdoctoral research fellow with the Institute for Communication Systems and 5G/6G Innovation Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK. During his stay at the University of Surrey, UK as a post-doctoral research fellow, he collaborated with many international industrial partners such as Intel Mobile Communications, Telecom Italia and Sagemcom broadband while performing research activities and preparing research proposals He worked as an Assistant Professor in UET, Lahore, Pakistan from August 2013 to June 2018. He worked as a researcher in the department of electrical and computer engineering, University of Toronto, Canada from July 2018 to June 2019. He worked as an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in department of software engineering, Thompson Rivers University (TRU), British Columbia, Canada from August 2019 to July 2023. Since August 2023, he has been working as an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing, University of the Fraser Valley, BC, Canada and holds an adjunct faculty position at York University, Ontario, Canada. He has authored or co-authored 35+ peer-reviewed articles including top-tier journals such as IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology and IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. As per Google scholar, his research works got 375+ citations. He has secured over CA $200K in research grants from the Tri-Council agency of Canada i.e., NSERC Discovery Grant, Alliance grant and International Catalyst Grant. Moreover, he is currently working as a collaborator with the European Union (EU) Horizon project that secured research funding over 600K CAD from the EU. Besides Tri-council funding, his research proposals were also successful for the Mitacs Globalink program. He also mentored student for obtaining the competitive NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award. He has served as a reviewer for many journals, technical program committee member (TPC) for several IEEE conferences and is currently serving as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society and IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He delivered public presentations during various events and invited talks, and he received “Best presentation award” from IEEE UEMCON 2021, held on December 2021. He is also a senior member of IEEE. His current research interests include intelligent reflecting surface aided communication systems, Deep Learning for next generation communication networks, wireless sensing, resource allocation for the Internet of Things (IoT) and applied optimization achievable via distributed and scalable machine learning algorithms. He served on various committees at TRU that includes admission committee, graduate committee of the Masters in Data Science program, science awards committee, science research committee and engineering design committee, workload committee and health and safety committee of the engineering department. He loves travelling and has travelled to various countries that includes UK, USA, UAE, Japan, Singapore, China, Qatar, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany and France.

PhD, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, UK. November 2011.

Thesis title: Performance analysis of non-regenerative wireless relay networks

BSc, Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan, August 2007.

Senior Member, IEEE

• Data structures and Algorithms (UFV)
• Operating systems (UFV)
• Real-time systems design and analysis (TRU)
• Digital systems design (TRU)
• Communications systems (TRU, UET)
• Introduction to programming (UET)
• Linear Algebra (UET)
• Digital signal processing (UET)

Deep Learning assisted wireless networks, applied optimization using distributed machine learning, resource allocation for the next generation wireless networks, Internet of Things (IoT), intelligent and smart communication systems.

1. “Agile and Smart Radio Environments with Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces for Sixth Generation (6G) Communication Systems”, Principal Investigator (PI), funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Amount: 152,500 Canadian Dollars (Discovery Grant). Apr. 2021-Mar. 2026.
2. “Scalable and trustworthy machine learning over the wireless edge networks”, Principal Investigator (PI), funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Amount: 24,890 Canadian Dollars (Alliance International Catalyst Grant). June 2023 - June 2024.
3. “Channel characterization and adaptive learning solutions for WiFi-assisted sensing in indoor environments”. Co-PI, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Amount: 80,000 Canadian Dollars (Alliance Grant), Mar. 2022-Mar. 2024.
4. "Software-controlled metasurfaces based intelligent wireless communication systems”. Principal Investigator (PI), funded by the Thompson River University (TRU), Canada. Amount: 3000 Canadian Dollars. Mar. 2021-Nov. 2021
5. “Design Physical Layer Security techniques for safeguarding the wireless powered communication networks”. Principal Investigator (PI), funded by the Thompson Rivers University (TRU), Canada. Amount: 5000 Canadian Dollars. Mar. 2020-Sep. 2021.
6. “Electric Vehicles Point Location Optimisation via Vehicular Communications”, Collaborator, funded by the European Union (EU), Amount: 600K+ Canadian Dollars, Jan. 2023 – Dec. 2026.

I authored or co-authored more than 35 peer-reviewed articles. Full list of my publications can be found here: Google scholar and https://www.owaqar.ca/

Volunteer judge for the Cariboo-Mainline Science Fair in 2021 and 2022.