Emily Sopensky Meritorious Service Award

Mark Roberti is best known as the founder and former editor of RFID Journal. In 2002, he launched the journal online out of a spare bedroom in his home with $500 in startup capital. He built it into a global brand that has been the go-to source for news, case studies, and other information about radio frequency identification (RFID) and other Internet of Things (IoT) technologies for two decades.In 2003, he launched RFID Journal LIVE!, which became the world’s largest conference and exhibition focused on these technologies. RFID Journal also ran an event in Europe for many years and has held conferences in Abu Dhabi, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Dubai

George Xiao is a Principal Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada (NRC), where his work focuses on printed electronics and wireless technologies. His current research includes printed antennas, 5G and IoT solutions for precision farming, and stretchable and superflexible conductive and dielectric inks. He is also developing low-loss dielectric inks with both low and high dielectric constants. Dr. Xiao received his PhD from Loughborough University in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Engineering Institute of Canada (2023), and the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2024). His work has earned national and international recognition. In 2022, he received an R&D

Professor, Formerly The University of Arizona, Currently Chinese Academy of Sciences Fei-Yue Wang (S’87–M’89–SM’94–F’03) received his Ph.D. degree in computer and systems engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA, in 1990. He joined The University of Arizona in 1990 and became a Professor and the Director of the Robotics and Automation Laboratory and the Program in Advanced Research for Complex Systems. In 1999, he founded the Intelligent Control and Systems Engineering Center at the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, China, under the support of the Outstanding Chinese Talents Program from the State Planning Council, and in 2002, was appointed as the Director of the

Gisele Bennett, Ph.D.Co-Founder, MEPSS LLC Dr. Bennett is co-Founder and managing member of MEPSS LLC, a software-based startup for decision support and automation.  She has held academic, industry, and research positions for over 30 years. These positions include Senior VP for Strategic and Research Initiatives and Professor at Florida Tech, numerous positions at Georgia Tech and founding member of startups.  At Georgia Tech, she held the positions of Regents’ Researcher, Associate Vice President for Research (AVPR), Faculty Integration, and Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  As AVPR, she was responsible for increasing research collaboration between academic and applied research. At the Georgia Tech Research Institute, she held

Paul Hartmann is President of RF SAW Inc. (https://rfsaw.com/) He has over 40 years of experience in designing various RF  electronic products that are now widely used in many communications networks. Prior to joining RF SAW, Paul served as the founding Vice President of Engineering and CTO of Applied Digital Access (ADA) in San Diego. Prior to that, he worked at Collins Radio/Rockwell International at Richardson, TX where in the mid-1970s, he led the design team that developed the first successful digital microwave system developed in the United States.  Paul Hartmann holds B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and M.S. in Management and Administrative Science