I am in love with the academia for the last years, but also flirting with industry and consultancy from time to time.  I am interested in new ways of deploying dynamic wireless and wired networks, providing a truly end-to-end network, relying on 5G/6G programmable networks.  I am also heavily involved in the SmartHigway testbed and in the Smartcity testbed of Antwerp, Belgium -Citylab- which is part of major endeavour involving the government of the City of Antwerp, imec (leading industry in nanolectronics and digital technologies), and University of Antwerp (ranked 7th in the top 50 young universities).   

Prof. Marquez-Barja is a Full Professor at the University of Antwerp (Ranked 7th in the Times Higher Education Under 50) and also a Professor at IMEC Research Centre (Worldwide leading in Nanotechnologies and Digital solutions), Belgium. Since 2024 he has been ranked Top 2% Scientist in the World (Stanford/Elsevier Ranking). Currently, he is the Head of Programmable and Intelligent Networks (PIN) at IDLab imec & University of Antwerp. Previously he led the Wireless Cluster. He was and is involved in several European research projects such as CREW, FORGE, WiSHFUL, Fed4FIRE/FAVORITE, Fed4FIRE+, eWINE, CONCORDA, 5G-CARMEN, FLEXNET, FUTEBOL (Technical Coordinator), 5G-Mobix, PROTEGO, InterConnect, Dedicat-6G, Daemon, Vital-5G, TrialsNet, For-Freight, Hexa-X-II, iSEE-6G, 6GXCEL, and 5G-Blueprint (Technical Coordinator) projects. Prof. Marquez-Barja has been appointed as Distinguished Lecturer by the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, and also by the IEEE Education Society, holding such appointment simultaneously for two different IEEE societies. He is a member of IEEE Standards Association, Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a Fellow of European Association for Innovation (EAI), a Senior Member of the IEEE Communications Society, IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology,  IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, IEEE Intelligent Transport System Society,  and IEEE Education Society, where he participates on the board of the Standards Committee. . His main research interests are: 5G advanced architectures including edge computing; flexible and programmable future end-to-end networks; 6G network-of-networks; and interoperability among 3GPP and non-3GPP systems. He is also interested in vehicular communications, mobility, and smart cities deployments. Prof. Marquez-Barja is leading the Citylab Smart City testbed, part of the City of Things programme, and the SmartHighway testbed, both located in Antwerp, Belgium. Furthermore, he is also interested and active on education development, being actively involved in different research actions to enhance engineering education, in particular remote experimentation in e-learning systems. Prof. Marquez-Barja has given several keynotes and invited talks in different major events, as well as received 30+ awards in his career so far, and co-authored more than 250 published works including publications, editorials, and books. He is also serving as Editor and Guest editor for different International Journals, as well as participating in several Technical Programme and Organizing Committees for several worldwide conferences/congresses. Prof. Marquez-Barja received his Bachelor and Msc. in Systems Enginnering in 2002 at the Royal Saint Francis University (UMRPSFXCH, Bolivia), Msc. in Telematics at CUJAE University (Cuba) in 2004, Msc. in Computer Architecture at University Politechnic of Valencia in 2008, Spain, to then obtain his PhD. on Wireless Networks in the same University in 2012. After that he was Postdoc and Research Assistant Professor at CONNECT, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. As above mentioned, Prof. Marquez-Barja is now a full professor at University of Antwerp, Belgium, and IMEC, Belgium.