Dr. Letaief received the BS degree with distinction in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University at West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, in December 1984. He received the MS and Ph.D. Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, in August 1986, and May 1990, respectively.  From January 1985 and as a Graduate Instructor in the School of Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, he has taught courses in communications and electronics.

From 1990 to 1993, he was a faculty member at the University of Melbourne, Australia.  Since 1993, he has been with the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (ranked #1 in Asia in 2012 according to QS) where he is currently the New Bright Professor of Engineering and  Chair Professor. He has served as Dean of HKUST School of Engineering (ranked #18 in the world in 2019 according to QS) from 1999 to 2015. He also served as the Director of the Hong Kong Telecom Institute of Information Technology. 

From September 2015 to 2018, he joined HBKU as Provost to help establish a research-intensive university in Qatar in partnership with strategic partners that include Northwestern, CMU, Cornell, and Texas A&M.

Dr. Letaief is Member of the United States National Academy of Engineering, Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences, Fellow of IEEE, and Fellow of HKIE.  He is also recognized by Thomson Reuters as an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.

His current research interests include wireless communications and networks, AI and machine eearning, Internet of Things, mobile and cloud edge computing, and 6G systems.  In these areas, he has over7000 journal and conference papers and given invited keynote talks as well as courses all over the world. He has also 15 patents including 11 US patents.

Dr. Letaief served as consultants for different organizations and is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. He has served on the editorial board of other prestigious journals including the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications – Wireless Series (as Editor-in-Chief).  He has been involved in organizing a number of major international conferences and events. These include serving as the General Co-Chair of the 2007 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, WCNC’07, in Hong Kong; Technical Program Co-Chair of the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Communication, ICC08, in Beijing; Vice General Chair of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Communication, ICC’10, in Cape Town, General Co-Chair of the 2011 IEEE Technology Time Machine, TTM’11, in Hong Kong, and General Chair, IEEE International Conference on Communications in China, ICCC’12, in Beijing.

In addition to his active research and professional activities, Professor Letaief has been a dedicated teacher committed to excellence in teaching and scholarship.  He received the Mangoon Teaching Award from Purdue University in 1990; the Teaching Excellence Appreciation Award by the School of Engineering at HKUST (4 times); and the Michael G. Gale Medal for Distinguished Teaching (Highest university-wide teaching award and only one recipient/year is honored for his/her contributions). 

He is the recipient of many other distinguished awards and honors including the 2021 IEEE Technical Committee on Cognitive Networks Recognition Award; 2021 IEEE Communications Society Best Survey Paper Award; 2019 Distinguished Research Excellence Award by HKUST School of Engineering (Highest research award and only one recipient/3 years is honored for his/her contributions); 2019 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award; 2018 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award; 2017 IEEE Cognitive Networks Technical Committee Publication Award; 2016 IEEE Signal Processing Society Young Author Best Paper Award; 2016 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications; 2011 IEEE Wireless Communications Technical Committee Recognition Award; 2011 IEEE Communications Society Harold Sobol Award; 2010 Purdue University Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineer Award; 2009 IEEE Marconi Prize Award in Wireless Communications; 2007 IEEE Communications Society Joseph LoCicero Publications Exemplary Award; and over 15 IEEE Best Paper Awards.

Dr. Letaief is well recognized for his dedicated service to professional societies and IEEE where he has served in many leadership positions.  These include Treasurer of IEEE Communications Society, IEEE Communications Society Vice-President for Conferences, Chair of IEEE Committee on Wireless Communications, elected member of IEEE Product Services and Publications Board, and IEEE Communications Society. Vice-President for Technical-Activities. He also served as President of the IEEE Communications Society (2018-19), the world's leading organization for communications professionals with headquarter in New York City and members in 162 countries. He is an elected member of the IEEE Board of Directors (2022-23).