Octavia A. Dobre is a full professor at Memorial University, Canada. Previously, she was with New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, and Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania. Dr. Dobre was a visiting professor with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and Université de Bretagne Occidentale, France. She was a Royal Society Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar. Dr. Dobre is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the IEEE. She is an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Her research interests include technologies for B5G wireless networks, signal identification, as well as underwater and optical communications. She published over 400 journal and conference papers in these areas. She received several Best Paper Awards at conferences, such as the IEEE Globecom, IEEE ICC and IEEE WCNC.
Dr. Dobre’s research has been supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS), Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Research and Development Corporation (RDC), Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), Defence and Research Development Canada (DRDC), Department of National Defence, Communications Research Centre (CRC) Canada, Altera Corporation, DTA Systems, EION Wireless, ThinkRF, Agilent Technologies, Agile Sensor Technologies, Allen Vanguard, and Huawei Technologies Canada among others.
Dr. Dobre is the director of journals in the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), and was the inaugural Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society and the EiC of the IEEE Communications Letters. She has served as a Senior Editor/Editor/Guest Editor for numerous prestigious journals. Dr. Dobre is the recipient of the IEEE ComSoc Joseph LoCicero Award for Exemplary Service to Publications.
Dr. Dobre was a member-at-large (MaL) of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society. She has been the General Chair, Tutorial Chair, Technical Committee Chair or Technical Symposium Chair at various flagship conferences. Dr. Dobre was the inaugural Chair of the Women in Communications Engineering standing committee, Director of the Sister and Related Societies portfolio, Chair of the SPCE Technical Committee, all of the IEEE ComSoc. She also was a MaL of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, and is the Co-Chair of TC-13 of the same society. She served with the IEEE Eric E. Sumner, IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu, and IEEE ComSoc Awards Committees. Dr. Dobre also served as the Chair of the NSERC Discovery grant evaluation committee for electrical and computer engineering. She is a Professional Engineer, affiliated with the NL Professional Engineers and Geoscientists, Canada.