Robert S. H. Istepanian

Robert Istepanian is recognized as one of the leading authorities and pioneers of mobile healthcare and the first scientist to have coined and defined the concept of ‘m-Health’. He holds a PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Loughborough University, UK, and he has since held several academic and research posts in the UK and Canada. These include Visiting Academic and Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London, UK (2013-2016); Professor of Data Communications for Healthcare and Founding Director of the Medical Information and Network Technologies Research Centre (MINT) at Kingston University, London, UK (2003-2013); Senior Lecturer at the Universities of Portsmouth, UK (1995-1998) and Brunel University, London (2000-2003); and Associate Professor at Ryerson University, Toronto and Adjunct Professor at the University of West Ontario, Canada (1999-2000). He has also been Visiting Professor at St. George’s Medical School, University of London (2007-2009), and Leverhulme ‘Distinguished Visiting Fellow’ at the Centre for Global e-Health Innovation, University of Toronto and the University’s Health Network, Canada (2008-2009). He was awarded the 2009 IEEE Award for the best and most cited IEEE Transactions paper from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society for his seminal work on m-Health published in 2004. He was also the recipient of the IEE Heaviside Award in 1999 from the Institution of Electrical Engineering, UK. Professor Istepanian has led numerous multi-disciplinary research projects on m-Health, e-Health and telehealth, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK, The European Commission, the British Council, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Leverhulme Trust. In addition, he has led industry-sponsored projects and clinical trials funded by global telecom and mobile companies. He has also served as the vice-chair of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) focus group on standardization of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) for developing the e-Health service layer for M2M communication standards (2012-2013).
He has served as an expert on numerous assessment and peer evaluation panels on healthcare technology innovations, well-being, m-Health and e-Health, including the Dutch Philips (STW) partnership program on ‘Healthy Life Style’ (2011-2105); the Science Foundation Ireland SFI- Strategic Research Cluster Grants (2008 and 2011); the Finnish Strategic Centers of Science, Technology and Innovation (SHOK) on advances on well-being program, 2012; and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) on large scale strategic and leading edge projects for health services, 2009. In addition, he has been peer reviewer and panelist for the following UK Funding bodies: EPSRC, BBSRC, Wellcome Trust, Department of Health, Service Delivery Organisation, Health Innovation Challenge Fund, National Institute of Health Research, BUPA Foundation, and Diabetes – UK.
Professor Istepanian has served on the editorial board of IEEE Transaction on Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on NanoBioScience, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, International Journal of Telemedicine and Applications, Journal of Mobile Multimedia, and Journal of World Medical & Health Policy. He also served as guest editor of special issues of IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine in areas of mobile health and IEEE Transactions of NanoBioScience on micro-array image processing. He has served on numerous technical committees of the IEEE and other international conferences and chaired organising and technical committees of national and international conferences in the UK, USA and elsewhere, including the Telemed Conferences at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, the IET, London, the 2000 World Medical Congress, Chicago, and the successive IEEE-Engineering in Medicine and Biology International Annual Conferences (IEEE-EMBS). He has also been invited to numerous keynote lectures at international conferences and meetings in the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and other countries. His publications exceed 200 peer-reviewed papers and books on mobile communications for healthcare, m-Health, control systems and biomedical signal processing.