The IEEE Communications Society has recently chosen Prof. João Barros from the Universidade do Porto as the recipient of the Young Researcher Award for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Region. This award honors researchers who have been very active in IEEE ComSoc publication and conference activities over the past three years. The upper age limit is 35. The award letter states that the awards committee “had received a large number of excellent submissions, which were assessed by the Awards committee for ComSoc EMEA Region. The assessment was carried out against a very stringent set of criteria”. The awards ceremony will take place in June 2011 at the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2011) in Kyoto, Japan.

João Barros is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the School of Engineering of the University of Porto, the Head of the Porto Delegation of the Instituto de Telecomunicações, and a Visiting Professor with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In February 2009, Dr. Barros was appointed National Director of the CMU-Portugal Program.