Ms. Rabab Ward, Professor and former President of the IEEE Signal Processing Society  and Director of the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems at UBC,  is a leader in the application of digital signal processing theory to cable and high-definition television, medical images, restoration of astronomical images, and extraction of an infant's distress level from his/her cry signal.  Being a highly accomplished researcher and a prolific inventor, she has an impressive list of publications and patents, and her work is used in various companies and laboratories worldwide.  Examples include her non-intrusive method for measuring the picture quality in cable TV systems, the non-interfering video system used by the aqua-culture industry, and the fluorescence microscope system used by cell-biology researchers.