Xavier Fernando is a Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Canada. He has (co) authored over 300 publications including three books. He is the Director of the TMU Intelligent Computing and Communication Lab that has received total research funding of over $5 million. His area of research is wireless/optical communications, vehicular networks and IoT.

He was a Fulbright Canada Research Chair in 2025. His work has won 30 awards and prizes so far including a number of IEEE awards, Professional Engineers Ontario Award in 2016, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Prize in 2010, Sarnoff Symposium Prize in 2009, Opto-Canada best poster prize in 2003 and CCECE best paper prize in 2001. TMU nominated him for the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants award in which was a finalist.

He was an Associate Editor for the IEEE IOT Journal. He was an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer and delivered over 100 invited talks. He has chaired the IEEE Toronto Section (2012-13) and IEEE Canada Central Area (2016-17) serving the IEEE Region-7 Board. He has edited 17 IEEE and Springer conference proceedings.

He has been in the organizing/steering/technical program committees of numerous conferences and journals. He was the General Chair for the IEEE International Humanitarian Technology Conference (IHTC) 2017 and IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE) 2014 and 2017. He was a Member of Board of Governors of Ryerson University during 2011-12.

He is a program evaluator for ABET (USA). He was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Advanced Telecommunications (IAT), UK in 2008 and MAPNET Fellow visiting Aston University, UK in 2014. He completed his PhD at the University of Calgary, Canada in 200, master’s at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok in 1994 and bachelor’s at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka in 1992. He worked as an R&D Engineer for AT&T during 1994-97.