Special Session 4

Recent outstanding progress in intelligent materials formulation, sensors technology, sensors networks development and IoT widespread diffusion, paved the way to the design of complex systems monitoring physical, physiological, behavioural parameters of several different categories of end-users. To what extent are the gender-based differences taken into account when designing such systems? Relevant gender-related design aspects include: wearability for wearable systems, user interfaces, measurements reference parameters, sensor placement, personal data management and usage, etc.
Moreover, user interaction with these systems goes well beyond the simple sensors interface and may underlie gender-bias that should be avoided. Gender may influence the way the subject approaches the system, in terms of acceptance, tolerability, inclination to share personal data, and so on. This special session encourages submissions about how the design of measurement systems and IoT applications may deal with gender-related issues and their implications, in order to share views, approaches and best practices.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Best practices in accounting gender diversity by design;
• Gender-based different approaches to the interaction with physical and virtual systems;
• Gender-inspired models for the design of interactive technology;
• Gender-driven design practices in on-body measurements, wearable devices and IoT;
• Gender diversity and inclusivity in sensor technology, interfaces and measurements;
• Practical guidelines for designing gender-aware sensors and wearables (e.g. automatic gender recognition);
• Strategies and practices to avoid gender bias in system design, machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms in IoT applications;
• Gender-based information management for collecting, processing, distributing and sharing measured data;
• Measurements and data to inform gender research in medicine, social sciences, product design, etc.

Paola Saccomandi is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. She is the Principal Investigator of the European Research Council Starting grant "LASER OPTIMAL”- GA 759159 and of national and international projects. She is co-author of more than 100 scientific publications and reviewer for several international journals and national and international calls. Her main research interests include the development of light-based approaches for hyperthermal tumor treatment and monitoring, fiber optic sensors, biomedical imaging, and numerical simulations. Since 2012 she is an IEEE member of several societies, including IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, IEEE Women in Engineering Society. Since 2020 she has been elevated to the grade of Senior Member of IEEE. She is Co-founder and Officer (secretary) of the IEEE Italy Sensors Chapter. She served as Technical Program co-chair for 2020 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Industry 4.0 and IoT (MetroInd4.0&IoT), and she will serve in the same role for the edition of 2021. She will serve as Technical Program co-chair for the IEEE International Symposium on Measurements and Medical Applications (MeMeA) 2021, and for the same conference she was Technical Program Committee member of three editions. She organized several workshops and special sessions at different IEEE international conferences, including IEEE International Symposium on Measurements and Medical Applications (MeMeA), IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC) and IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC).

Cristina Emilia Costa is currently Researcher staff member in the Wireless Internet Networking (WiN) group at the FBK research center, Italy. She is IEEE Senior Member and ComSoc Member, and she is an active member of the IEEE WIE (Women In Engineering) AG Italy section where she serves as Secretary. She got the Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1996. After graduation, she worked as a researcher at Telecom Italia Lab (Turin, Italy) in the E-Commerce and Security groups, providing technology transfer and scientific support to operational Telecom Italia divisions. In 2005 she earned her Ph.D. in Information and Communication Technologies from the University of Trento, Italy. She was involved in several research projects both at national and international level, gaining experience both as a researcher and as project coordinator, in the fields of Wireless and Mobile Networks, Multimedia Communications, Interfaces and Interaction. Recently she was involved in 5G RAN slicing and security projects. She served as member in the organizing committees of various conferences, in particular of Intetain, UCMedia, Securecomm, and European Wireless.

Monica La Mura is post-doc researcher at the Department of Information Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics of the University of Salerno. She received her Master's Degree cum laude in Electronic Engineering in 2015 and her PhD in Industrial Engineering in 2019 at the University of Salerno, discussing her work on the modeling and characterization of Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) for medical imaging applications. Her research interests include the design and the experimental characterization of piezoelectric and capacitive acoustic transducers for imaging, sensing and non-destructive testing. Recently, she started working on the sensitivity analysis and robust design of graphene-based materials and devices. An IEEE member from 2009, she is actively involved in the IEEE Italy Section Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group, as well as in the IEEE Student Branch of the University of Salerno, where she acts as vice-chair.

Dajana Cassioli is currently Associate Professor of Telecommunications Engineering at the Department of Information Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematics of the University of L'Aquila, Italy. She is currently the Chair of the WIE AG of the IEEE Italy Section (since 2016) and a Senior Member of IEEE, a Member of ComSoc and CompSoc. From 2011 to 2017, she served as the Chair of the IEEE Joint VT06/COM19 Italy Chapter. Since 2015, she is the Coordinator of the University of L'Aquila Node of the National Laboratory of Cyber-Security of the National Inter-University Consortium for the Computer Science (CINI). She is currently the CEO of the spin-off of the University of L'Aquila SMARTLY: Natives of smart living s.r.l., where she previously served as the COO (2018) and CEO (2014-2018). Her main research interests are in the fields of wireless and mobile communication technologies, 5G/beyond 5G, Software Defined Networks, IP networking and Network Security. In 2010 and 2016, she has been awarded the ERC Starting Grant VISION (Video-oriented UWB-based Intelligent Ubiquitous Sensing - 5 years; 1.2M€) and the ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant iCARE (MobIle health-Care system for monitoring toxicity and symptoms in cAncer patients Receiving diseasE-oriented therapy – 18 months; 150k€). She is author and co-author of tens of publications on prestigious International Journals and Conferences. She was TP Co-Chair of NETWORKS 2012, Rome, Italy and several times TPC member of International Conferences, like the ICC, PIMRC, VTC, GLOBECOM. She currently serves as Associate Editor of the IET ELECTRONIC LETTERS, © IET; Associate Editor of the IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS, © IEEE; Executive Editor of the INTERNET TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, © JOHN WILEY & SONS Ltd; Executive Editor of the TRANSACTIONS ON EMERGING TELECOMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES, © JOHN WILEY & SONS Ltd.

Patrizia Lamberti is the vice-Chair of the WIE AG of the IEEE Italy Section. She is Associate Professor of Electrotechnique at the Dept. of Information and Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics - University of Salerno (UniSA), Italy. She is vice-dean of the interdepartmental center NanoMates and scientific representative for UniSA in the Italian interuniversity center ICEmB (Interaction between Electromagnetic fields and biological systems). She is co-founder of the spin-off AI4Health S.r.l. Her research interests concern tolerance analysis and design optimization of electromagnetic (EM) devices, EM modeling and characterization of novel nanomaterial, EM treatment of biological cells and systems by means of Pulsed Electric Field. The research activities lead to more than 50 journal papers, 3 book chapters, 3 Italian, 2 European and 1 USA patents. She was involved in more than 30 national and international scientific projects and she is currently principal investigator from UniSA-side for 5 EU-H2020 founded projects.