Judges
Each year, RFID Journal chooses judges with no financial interests in selecting one entry over another, and who will recuse themselves if they have a relationship with any specific end-user or technology companies involved with the award. At least five judges will evaluate entries in each category. Below are the judges who judged the 2020 awards. We will be updating this page with this year’s judges soon. If you would like to apply to be a judge, send email to [email protected].
Best New Product
Kevin Berisso
Assistant Professor, University of Memphis
Jamshed Dubash
Entrepreneur
Jonathan Gregory
Director, Community Engagement, GS1 US
Jonathan Gregory facilitates collaboration among brands, retailers, and supply chain partners to optimize use of GS1 standards in the retail industry. With a focus on leveraging item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) for inventory accuracy, Mr. Gregory draws on his first-hand implementation experience to help companies achieve unified commerce. Prior to his work with GS1 US, Mr. Gregory worked for eight years as a program manager for Checkpoint Systems, where he deployed retail RFID solutions for several Fortune 500 companies. Also, as RFID solution manager during his 10-year tenure at Computer Sciences Corporation, he deployed RFID solutions in the aerospace industry.
Rich Handley
Managing Editor, RFID Journal
Rich Handley has served as an editor with RFID Journal since 2005 and was named managing editor in 2012. Since then, he has also become the managing editor of IOT Journal, also published by RFID Journal. Rich has served as a judge for the RFID Journal Awards for the past five years. Prior to joining RFID Journal, he worked at several leading trade publications. Rich cofounded independent publisher Hasslein Books in 2008, and is the author or co-author of nine outstanding books to date.
Peter J. Hawrylak
Assistant professor, Electrical Engineering, University of Tulsa
Hans-Dieter Lang
Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of Applied Sciences Eastern Switzerland, Rapperswil, HSR
H.D. Lang is a lecturer in the department of electrical engineering at the HSR in Rapperswil, Switzerland, teaching electrical engineering fundamentals, including circuit theory, network analysis, electromagnetics and electromagnetic compatibility. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electromagnetics from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2018. In 2016, he was an Intern with the SEG-SIPI Department, Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA; prior to that he also held a part-time position with Bombardier Transportation in Canada, working on radar technology. Before going back to graduate school, he was an R&D project engineer with the Institute for Communication Systems, ICOM, Rapperswil, Switzerland. His current research interests include wireless power transfer, mathematical optimization, circuit theory, antennas and propagation, RFID and EMC, as well as analytical and computational electromagnetics.
Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher
UQ Development Fellow, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia
Mark Roberti
Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal, the leading source of news and analysis about RFID and its many business applications. He has reported on business and technology since 1985. His work has appeared in Business 2.0, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many other publications. More than 250,000 people around the world visit the RFID Journal Web site each month, and RFID Journal LIVE! has become the most important international gathering of RFID vendors and end users.
Senthilkumar C.P.
Director of Technology, RFID lab at Auburn University
Senthilkumar C.P., Ph.D., is the Director of Technology for the RFID lab at Auburn University, a unique collaboration platform that involves end users, suppliers, technology providers, standards organizations, industry groups, and academic institutions on a global scale. He has researched, advised, and executed projects that is enabling efficient adoption of RFID and Sensor fusion in retailing, aerospace, manufacturing, and transportation. Senthil’s work has focused on the common goal of making the adaptation of emerging technologies more secure, efficient, reliable and useful.
Best Use of RFID/IoT in a Product/Service
Tali Freed
Professor, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, California Polytechnic State University; Founding Director, PolyGAIT-RFID Research and Development Laboratory
Tali Freed received her Ph.D. from the U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Her B.Sc. and M.Sc. are in Industrial Engineering and Management, from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Freed’s primary areas of research are radio frequency identification, production planning and scheduling, and design of processes and information systems. She is the founding director of PolyGAIT—The Cal Poly Center for Global Automated Identification Technologies.
Abderrazak Hachani
Lecturer, ESPRIT School of Engineers -Tunisia
Mr. Hachani is an ITU (international telecommunications union) IoT expert. He is also lecturer in ESPRIT school of engineers -Tunisia and the head of RFID research group team. He is also a visiting lecturer in ENSIM- France, where he launched RFID and IoT courses.
Rich Handley
Managing Editor, RFID Journal
Rich Handley has served as an editor with RFID Journal since 2005 and was named managing editor in 2012. Since then, he has also become the managing editor of IOT Journal, also published by RFID Journal. Rich has served as a judge for the RFID Journal Awards for the past five years. Prior to joining RFID Journal, he worked at several leading trade publications. Rich cofounded independent publisher Hasslein Books in 2008, and is the author or co-author of nine outstanding books to date.
Erick C Jones
Executive Director of RFID and Supply Chain Lab
Dr. Erick C. Jones is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska and director of the University of Nebraska’s RFID Supply Chain Lab. He received Bachelors degree in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University and Masters and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Houston. He has held various positions in industries as engineering specialist, engineering director and project manager. Dr. Jones expertise has led to become and expert in the field of supply chain optimization, distribution logistics and inventory control. His unique background led him to one of the first and largest academic RFID labs in the country. He has published one textbook on RFID and has edited two industry texts on the subject, and is currently working on a military handbook for RFID and other Automatic Information technologies which include GPS and satellite tags. Also, his lab joined the industry academic consortium focused on Logistics sponsored by the National Science Foundation for several years. Currently, he has focused on RFID research for US Department of Transportation, Department of Defense Transportation Command, and with NASA JSC.
Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher
UQ Development Fellow, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia
Sanjay Sarma
Vice President for Open Learning, MIT
Junyu Wang
Professor of Micro-Electronics, Fudan University and Associate Director of Auto-ID Lab at Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Best RFID/IoT Implementation (Other Industry)
Kevin Berisso
Assistant Professor, University of Memphis
Tali Freed
Professor, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, California Polytechnic State University; Founding Director, PolyGAIT-RFID Research and Development Laboratory
Tali Freed received her Ph.D. from the U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Her B.Sc. and M.Sc. are in Industrial Engineering and Management, from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Freed’s primary areas of research are radio frequency identification, production planning and scheduling, and design of processes and information systems. She is the founding director of PolyGAIT—The Cal Poly Center for Global Automated Identification Technologies.
Abderrazak Hachani
Lecturer, ESPRIT School of Engineers -Tunisia
Mr. Hachani is an ITU (international telecommunications union) IoT expert. He is also lecturer in ESPRIT school of engineers -Tunisia and the head of RFID research group team. He is also a visiting lecturer in ENSIM- France, where he launched RFID and IoT courses.
Rich Handley
Managing Editor, RFID Journal
Rich Handley has served as an editor with RFID Journal since 2005 and was named managing editor in 2012. Since then, he has also become the managing editor of IOT Journal, also published by RFID Journal. Rich has served as a judge for the RFID Journal Awards for the past five years. Prior to joining RFID Journal, he worked at several leading trade publications. Rich cofounded independent publisher Hasslein Books in 2008, and is the author or co-author of nine outstanding books to date.
Jonathan Gregory
Director, Community Engagement, GS1 US
Jonathan Gregory facilitates collaboration among brands, retailers, and supply chain partners to optimize use of GS1 standards in the retail industry. With a focus on leveraging item-level radio frequency identification (RFID) for inventory accuracy, Mr. Gregory draws on his first-hand implementation experience to help companies achieve unified commerce. Prior to his work with GS1 US, Mr. Gregory worked for eight years as a program manager for Checkpoint Systems, where he deployed retail RFID solutions for several Fortune 500 companies. Also, as RFID solution manager during his 10-year tenure at Computer Sciences Corporation, he deployed RFID solutions in the aerospace industry.
Ultan McCarthy
Lecturer, Waterford Institute of Technology
Ultan McCarthy has many years experience in testing and deploying RFID technology across a variety of International sectors. His experience ranges from the development and management of basic applied RFID system research through to commercializing ready-for-market RFID systems and assessing their commercial impact. He actively engages with university and industrial partners across the United States and Europe towards developing the world of RFID. He is currently lecturing at Ireland’s Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland.
Justin Patton
Director, RFID Lab, Auburn University
Mark Roberti
Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal, the leading source of news and analysis about RFID and its many business applications. He has reported on business and technology since 1985. His work has appeared in Business 2.0, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many other publications. More than 250,000 people around the world visit the RFID Journal Web site each month, and RFID Journal LIVE! has become the most important international gathering of RFID vendors and end users.
Best Supply Chain/Logistics RFID/IoT Implementation
John Aloysius
President of the POMS College of Behavioral Operations
Gisele Bennett
Co-Founder, MEPSS LLC; Editor-in-Chief, Applied Optics
Dr. Bennett has held academic, industry, and research positions for over 29 years. She is the founding member for MEPSS LLC focused on technology driven decision support. She has held numerous positions at Georgia Tech to include Regents’ Researcher (position nominated by the President and approved by the Board of Regents), an Associate Vice President for Research, Faculty Integration, and Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. At the Georgia Tech Research Institute, she held the Glenn Robinson Chair in Electro-Optics, founded the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center and as the Director for the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory grew the research portfolio from industry and DoD sponsored research. Dr. Bennett is a member of the Army Science Board. She is a Fellow with OSA and SPIE, and a Senior Member of the IEEE. She held positions as a member of the board of directors for OSA and is the past President for the IEEE Council on RFID. She is the Editor-in-Chief for Applied Optics. Dr. Bennett has been working with RFID systems and standards since early 2000.
Massimo Bertolini
Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma
Robb Clarke
Associate Professor of Packaging at Michigan State University
Robb Clarke’s teaching duties include undergraduate and graduate courses on packaging operations and quality issues, material handling and distribution packaging, and RFID for Packaging. Clarke has a B.S. degree in packaging, an M.B.A. in marketing, a Ph.D. in engineering management, and a Willett Visiting Scholar research position in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, England. Prior to teaching, Dr. Clarke had a 17-year industrial career. At Michigan State, his primary research is in automatic identification (particularly radio frequency identification) for manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution and handling. He is also Director of the independent, dedicated Auto ID Research and Testing Center at Michigan State University.
Jamshed Dubash
Entrepreneur
Jean-Pierre Emond
Director, Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute
Geraldo Ferrer
Associate Dean for Research, Graduate School of Business and Public Policy, Naval Postgraduate School
Marco Frosolini
Researcher Università di Pisa
Justin Patton
Director, RFID Lab, Auburn University
Neeraj Sood
Researcher, University of Toronto
Best Health Care RFID/IoT Implementation
Jamshed Dubash
Entrepreneur
Tali Freed
Professor, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, California Polytechnic State University; Founding Director, PolyGAIT-RFID Research and Development Laboratory
Tali Freed received her Ph.D. from the U.C. Berkeley’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. Her B.Sc. and M.Sc. are in Industrial Engineering and Management, from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Freed’s primary areas of research are radio frequency identification, production planning and scheduling, and design of processes and information systems. She is the founding director of PolyGAIT—The Cal Poly Center for Global Automated Identification Technologies.
Marco Frosolini
Researcher Università di Pisa
Hans-Dieter Lang
Lecturer and Research Associate at the University of Applied Sciences Eastern Switzerland, Rapperswil, HSR
H.D. Lang is a lecturer in the department of electrical engineering at the HSR in Rapperswil, Switzerland, teaching electrical engineering fundamentals, including circuit theory, network analysis, electromagnetics and electromagnetic compatibility. He received his Ph.D. degree in Electromagnetics from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 2018. In 2016, he was an Intern with the SEG-SIPI Department, Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA; prior to that he also held a part-time position with Bombardier Transportation in Canada, working on radar technology. Before going back to graduate school, he was an R&D project engineer with the Institute for Communication Systems, ICOM, Rapperswil, Switzerland. His current research interests include wireless power transfer, mathematical optimization, circuit theory, antennas and propagation, RFID and EMC, as well as analytical and computational electromagnetics.
Paolo Locatelli
Project manager and researcher, Fondazione Politecnico di Milano
Ahmed Toaha Mobashsher
UQ Development Fellow, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, The University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, Australia
Mark Roberti
Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal, the leading source of news and analysis about RFID and its many business applications. He has reported on business and technology since 1985. His work has appeared in Business 2.0, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many other publications. More than 250,000 people around the world visit the RFID Journal Web site each month, and RFID Journal LIVE! has become the most important international gathering of RFID vendors and end users.
Neeraj Sood
Researcher, University of Toronto
Junyu Wang
Professor of Micro-Electronics, Fudan University and Associate Director of Auto-ID Lab at Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Best Manufacturing RFID/IoT Implementation
Ygal Bendavid
Professor, University of Quebec Montreal (UQAM) School of Management; Co-founder, RFID Academia
Massimo Bertolini
Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Parma
Robb Clarke
Associate Professor of Packaging at Michigan State University
Robb Clarke’s teaching duties include undergraduate and graduate courses on packaging operations and quality issues, material handling and distribution packaging, and RFID for Packaging. Clarke has a B.S. degree in packaging, an M.B.A. in marketing, a Ph.D. in engineering management, and a Willett Visiting Scholar research position in Engineering Science at the University of Oxford, England. Prior to teaching, Dr. Clarke had a 17-year industrial career. At Michigan State, his primary research is in automatic identification (particularly radio frequency identification) for manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution and handling. He is also Director of the independent, dedicated Auto ID Research and Testing Center at Michigan State University.
Luca Cremona
Business Development Manager Industrial Solutions, ROLD
Mauro Mezzenzana
Partner at Boardwalk Business Advisory
Mauro Mezzenzana, Ph.D., is professor of Management Information Systems, IoT Systems Design and Development and Digital Business Analysis and Measurement at LIUC University and professor of Supply Chain Management at the Università degli Studi dell’Insubria. He is partner and member of the Scientific Technical Committee at Boardwalk Business Advisory and co-founder at Xensify, an IoT platform for retail operations. Mauro graduated with a degree in Business Engineering from LIUC University, where he became senior researcher at Lab#ID RFId Laboratory, and completed a Corporate Executive MBA while working as central planning manager for a multinational company in the defense and aerospace sector.
Selwyn Piramuthu
Professor of Information Systems, University of Florida
Selwyn Piramuthu is Professor of Information Systems at the University of Florida, where he has taught since Fall 1991. Trained in machine learning, his interests include cryptography with applications related to IoT/RFID, privacy/security, retailing, supply/cold chain management, among others. His (co-authored with Wei Zhou) book, RFID and Sensor Network Automation in the Food Industry, was published by Wiley in 2016.
Samad Rostampour
Professor, Vanier College
Samad Rostampour is a professor at Vanier College in Montreal/Canada. He was Postdoctoral researcher and currently is IT director at IoT Laboratory of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He works in the design and the implementation of RFID/IoT systems. Prior to join the IoT Lab., Samad completed his Ph.D. in computer systems architecture where he worked on the security of RFID systems.
Dieter Uckelmann
Professor, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart
Junyu Wang
Professor of Micro-Electronics, Fudan University and Associate Director of Auto-ID Lab at Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Best Retail RFID/IoT Implementation
John Aloysius
President of the POMS College of Behavioral Operations
Harold Boeck
Professor of Marketing, ESG UQAM School of Management
Abderrazak Hachani
Lecturer, ESPRIT School of Engineers -Tunisia
Mr. Hachani is an ITU (international telecommunications union) IoT expert. He is also lecturer in ESPRIT school of engineers -Tunisia and the head of RFID research group team. He is also a visiting lecturer in ENSIM- France, where he launched RFID and IoT courses.
Dr. Bill Hardgrave
Dean, Auburn University College of Business
Justin Patton
Director, RFID Lab, Auburn University
Antonio Rizzi
Director, RFID Lab, University of Parma
Samad Rostampour
Professor, Vanier College
Samad Rostampour is a professor at Vanier College in Montreal/Canada. He was Postdoctoral researcher and currently is IT director at IoT Laboratory of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). He works in the design and the implementation of RFID/IoT systems. Prior to join the IoT Lab., Samad completed his Ph.D. in computer systems architecture where he worked on the security of RFID systems.
Senthilkumar C.P.
Director of Technology, RFID lab at Auburn University