Shamar Ward


Organization:	UWICHC
Affiliation:	NextGen@ICANN
Region:	Latin America and the Caribbean
Country:	Barbados
Email:	shamar.ward@mycavehill.uwi.edu
Website:	http://cavehill.uwi.edu
Facebook:	Shamar Ward
LinkedIn:	Shamar Ward

Dr. Shamar Ward holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of The West Indies, Cave Hill Campus (UWICHC). Currently, he serves as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at The University of The Virgin Islands (UVI)

Career History[edit | edit source]

Dr. Shamar Ward gained a Double Major Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in 2014 and a Ph.D. in Computer science in 2022. Dr. Ward has published research in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) focusing on smart technologies and the European Alliance for Innovation (EAI). Additionally, Dr. Ward has given presentations at the Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon and at the IAEA United Nations (UN) headquarters in Vienna Austria and in Hangzhou China on green computing. Dr. Ward is currently an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at The University of The Virgin Islands (UVI). Previously, Dr. Ward, held the post of, Head of Experimentation in the Accelerator Lab programme at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In addition to his development role at UNDP, Dr. Ward served the Caribbean region in various capacities such as his role as IT Officer (Operations) at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Analyst/Programmer at the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) and IT Specialist at The Caribbean Institute For Meteorology & Hydrology (CIMH).

Dr. Ward was a recipient of the Internet Society(ISOC) Fellowship to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 102, Internet Society(ISOC) Fellowship - IoT for policymakers and a recipient of the Internet Cooperation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) NextGen@ICANN 61 fellowship. He has also participated in other IG initiatives such as the 2018 ISOC Chapter on safe IoT usage and was certified in an ISOC course on Building Wireless Community Networks. Additionally, Dr. Ward was formerly Barbados' Youth Ambassador to CARICOM (2015 – 2018), and participated in regional and Local IG initiatives such as CARICOM Girls in ICT Day and was a panelist at the 2018 and 2019 Barbados Youth Internet Governance Forums(IGFs).

Education[edit | edit source]

2017 – 2022 The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus Ph.D. Computer Science
2014 - 2017 The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus M.Phil Computer Science (Upgraded)
2011 - 2014 The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus B.Sc Computer Science (Double Major) (Hons)

Publications[edit | edit source]

(1) S. Ward and M. Gittens, "Locating Optimal Study Areas Using Augmented Reality And Low Cost IoT Devices," 2022 IEEE Games, Entertainment, Media Conference (GEM), St. Michael, Barbados, 2022, pp. 1-2, doi: 10.1109/GEM56474.2022.10017619.

(2) Shamar Ward, Mechelle Gittens, Nicholas Rock, and Keone James. 2019. CampusEMonitor: Intelligent Campus Environment Room Monitoring System. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGUCCS Annual Conference (SIGUCCS '19), Bob Haring-Smith, Keith "Mac'" McIntosh, and Becky Lineberry (Eds.). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 165-172. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3347709.3347825

(3) Ward S., Gittens M. (2019) The Feasibility of Repurposing Recycled Cell Phones as Sensors in a Smart Campus Shuttle Monitoring System. In: Yin Y., Li Y., Gao H., Zhang J. (eds) Mobile Computing, Applications, and Services. MobiCASE 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 290. Springer, Cham DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28468-8_5

(4) Ward S., Gittens M. (2019) Edu-BUS Wi-Fi: An On-Board Wi-Fi Educational System Using a Raspberry Pi. In: Yin Y., Li Y., Gao H., Zhang J. (eds) Mobile Computing, Applications, and Services. MobiCASE 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 290. Springer, Cham DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28468-8_6

(5) S. Ward and M. Gittens, "Building useful smart campus applications using a retired cell phone repurposing model," 2018 Third International Conference on Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, Clean Energy and Green Computing (EBECEGC), Beirut, Lebanon, 2018, pp. 43-48. URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8357131&isnumber=8357120

(6) Shamar A. Ward and Mechelle Gittens. 2016. Monitoring and Analyzing Wi-Fi Availability and Performance on a University Campus Using Recycled Cell Phones to Aid Students in Selecting Study Areas. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on SIGUCCS Annual Conference (SIGUCCS '16). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 147-152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/2974927.2974929

(7) Shamar Akio Ward and Mechelle Gittens. 2015. A Real-time Application to Predict and Notify Students about the Present and Future Availability of Workspaces on a University Campus. In Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Annual Conference on SIGUCCS (SIGUCCS '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 67-74. DOI=http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2815546.2815563

Awards[edit | edit source]

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Fellowship Montreal 102 - https://www.internetsociety.org/fellowship/fellowship-to-ietf/fellows/102/
Finalist in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Young Innovative Communicators Competition on Communicating Nuclear and Radiological Emergencies to the Public
NextGen@ICANN, ICANN61 | San Juan
Barbados`s Ambassador To Caribbean Community (CARICOM) - 2015 - 2018.
3rd Place in Microsoft C# Mobile Application Development competition - https://issuu.com/uwichill/docs/chill_50th/8.
Royal Society for Engineering Leaders in Innovation Fellowship (LIF Global 2023) - LIF 2023 innovators (raeng.org.uk)