< COMSYS at Mobile World Congress 2012

Doctoral Defense of Muhammad Hamad Alizai

On March 7th 2012, Muhammad Hamad Alizai successfully defended his dissertation. Congratulations!

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In his thesis entitled "Exploiting Wireless Link Dynamics", Hamad
explored the challenges of wireless links and the diverse ways in
which they differ from traditional wired networks. After proposing new
metrics of how to measure the burstiness of links, he shifts from the
traditional routing methodology to only use long term stable links and
suggests new schemes to use short term links to improve routing
performance in sensor and ad-hoc networks by up to 40%, while at the
same time making addresses used for routing in wireless networks 3 to
7 times more stable.

After a great talk and then his defense behind closed doors, we
honored our new PhD with his doctoral hat as well as the mandatory
collar and cloak. Later at night we celebrated his great success in
style with delicious middle eastern and Pakistani cuisine. Following
our traditions, we had prepared special activities as well as a nice
poem about Hamad's time at the chair while he pursued his PhD:

A doctor is our Hamad, that's true,
but for this, many things he had to do.

From Pakistan he came to Aachen,
at first, there was not much to laughen,

He is a fan of spicy food
and always tells us it's so good.

But his advisor disagrees:
"No more of these spices, please!"

So when he cooks, the food is tame
so our tongues won't burst to flame.

And if you meet him here at the chair, already late at night,
it's Real Madrid that streaming on his screen, all bright.

He also plays the sport with much dedication,
breaking his foot at Info-Cup, off to the aid-station.
(even breaking a foot for his dissertation?)

But him, being a proud South Asian,
plays Cricket, too, not just on vacation.

Try to understand what they're doing at Cricket,
you're bound to fail, the rules, they're wicked

Not long after starting his PhD,
he went to marry a real beauty.

She's now his wife, they have a son,
the Hamad-legacy lives on.

Taming sensors is simpler than taming a boy,
Ahad is very active, a bundle of joy.

Nothing seems safe at his home, all goes pop.
Ahad breaks everything but Hamad's laptop

The prayer he kept in his table every day,
it seemed to have worked, keeping all evil away.

But also to work, he was very dedicated,
those bursty links, they were much underrated!

BRE to rule them all, BLE to find them,
TinyWifi to bring them all and on Linux bind them.

Sensor nodes are hard to find,
so you need addressing of some kind.

To solve the stupid routing mess,
simply use a probabilistic address:


If about the location you have no clue,
the addressing scheme has none, too.

So great and famous, he is a speaker,
his former "acting adviser", a real sneaker,

takes Hamad's slides to start his career
the swedes are excited, applaud and cheer!

In Stanford of his work they are also very aware
but for presenting it someone else was there.

Now off to Saudia Hamad will go,
to do more research, rocking the show.

He can do the Hajj now every day,
working in Mekka, not far away.

As PhD of great renown
he needs to wear this velvet gown.

It almost looks like a Thawb, right? [traditional gown worn in Saudi-Arabia]
just changing the color from black to white!

But this alone is not enough,
he also needs this cardboard ruff.

He needs to wear one more asset,
the nice and fashionable doctor hat!

Before us stands Doktor Hamad here,
and will drink neither wine nor beer.

Hamad's happy this important date,
cheering and singing: God is great!

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