Biography

Prof. Dr. Arturo Azcorra holds a double appointment as a Full Professor in the Telematics Engineering Department at the University Carlos III of Madrid (UC3M) (Madrid, Spain) and Director of IMDEA Networks, where he conducts his research activities. Currently, he is also Chairman of the Expert Advisory Group of the NetWorld2020 European Technology Platform (ETP), Vice chairman of the 5TONIC Lab, and Partnership Board member as well as member of the Vision Group within the 5G Infrastructure Association.

In April 2021, he took leave from these posts, and incorporated to the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation as Director General of Telecommunications and Organization of Audiovisual Media Services. On October 6, 2022, he was promoted to Secretary General of Telecommunications and Organization of Audiovisual Media Services. He returned to his posts as Director of IMDEA Networks and a full professor in the Department of Telematics Engineering at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 2023. Prior to all this, he had already spent some time away from his positions at UC3M and IMDEA Networks, when, from May 2010 to February 2012, he held the position of Director General at the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), an agency of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), previously known as the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación – MICINN). He previously held the position of Director General for Technology Transfer and Corporate Development also at the MICINN.

He graduated from Loy Norrix High School (Michigan, USA) in 1980. In 1986, he received his M.Sc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Polytechnic University of Madrid) (Madrid, Spain), with the “Sobresaliente” (Outstanding) grade, and was subsequently awarded the Price Waterhouse Prize for Best Student. He then obtained his Ph.D. from the same university in 1989. His Ph.D. received the National Award for Best Thesis (Premio Nacional a la Mejor Tesis Doctoral), jointly granted by the Asociación Profesional de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación (Professional Association of Telecommunication Engineers) and the then-named Asociación Nacional de Industrias Electrónicas, ANIEL (The National Association of Electronic Industries) (today ANIEL is known as AMETIC, Asociación de Empresas de Electrónica, Tecnologías de la Información,Telecomunicaciones y Contenidos Digitales). In 1993, he obtained an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa (one of the World’s most prestigious business schools), graduating first in his class.

He was an Associate Professor at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid from 1987 to 1998. In 2000, he was appointed Deputy Vice-Provost for Academic Infrastructures at the UC3M. He worked in this role until 2007, teaching and also developing the application of Information Technologies to research. He previously worked at ICSI University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, USA) as a Visiting Professor in 1999, and then, in 2002, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Massachusetts, USA).

In October 2018 he was appointed member of the European Academy of Sciences “Academia Europaea”. And, in November 2021, he was elevated to the rank of IEEE Fellow in the “Technical Leader” category, for the scientific and industrial impact of his research contributions to the development of 5G technology. In this way, he becomes the first scientist in Spain to be designated IEEE Fellow in the “Technical Leader” category.

Arturo Azcorra is an IEEE Senior Member and an ACM SIGCOMM Member. He has participated in and directed 57 European research and technological development projects, including ESPRIT, RACE, ACTS, IST and ICT programs. He previously held the position of Coordinator of the international Networks-of-Excellence (NoE) E-NEXT (Emerging Networking Experiments and Technologies) and CONTENT (Excellence in Content Distribution Network Research), part of the European Commission’s VII Framework Program. Most recently, he coordinated the European 5G-CrossHaul project and is now coordinating the 5G-Transformer project, both part of the Horizon 2020 framework for research and innovation.

He has also performed direct consulting and engineering work for institutions, such as the European Space Agency, MFS-Worldcom, Madrid Regional Government, RENFE, REPSOL and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology. He was the General Co-Chair of the ACM CoNEXT 2008 conference, celebrated in Madrid, Spain, coorganized by IMDEA Networks and University Carlos III of Madrid. He has previously worked as a Program Committee Member in many international conferences, including several editions of IEEE PROMS, IDMS,QofIS, CoNEXT and IEEE INFOCOM. He was the General Co-Chair for CoNEXT’05, Steering Committee Member for CoNEXT’06 and CoNEXT’07, and Technical Program Committee Co-Chair for INFOCOM’06. His publications in national and international magazines, books and conferences number over 170 titles. He is also the author of the book Lightning Guide to Databases with MS-Access and SQL.