Thomas Hou received his B.E. degree from the City College of New York in 1991, M.S. degree from Columbia University in 1993, and Ph.D. degree from Polytechnic Institute of New York University in 1998, all in Electrical Engineering. From 1997 to 2002, Dr. Hou was a Researcher at Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Sunnyvale, CA. Since 2002, he has been with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University ("Virginia Tech"), the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Blacksburg, VA, where he is now an Associate Professor.

Prof. Hou's research interests are cross-layer design and optimization for cognitive radio wireless networks, cooperative communications, MIMO-based ad hoc networks, video communications over dynamic ad hoc networks, and algorithm design for sensor networks. He was a recipient of an Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award (2003) and a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award (2004) for his research on optimizations and algorithm design for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. He has published extensively in leading IEEE and ACM journals and top-tier IEEE and ACM conferences and received five best paper awards from IEEE (including IEEE INFOCOM 2008 Best Paper Award and IEEE ICNP 2002 Best Paper Award). He holds five U.S patents.

Prof. Hou is currently serving as an Area Editor of IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, and Editor for IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Wireless Communications, ACM/Springer Wireless Networks (WINET), and Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks. He was a past Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. Prof. Hou was Co-Chair (with Tony Ephremides) of NSF Workshop on Bridging the Gap between Wireless Networking Technologies and Advances at the Physical Layer, August 27-28, 2007, Reston, VA. He also served as TPC Co-Chair of IEEE INFOCOM 2009.

Prof. Hou is a Co-Editor of a new textbook titled Cognitive Radio Communications and Networks: Principles and Practices, which was published by Academic Press/Elsevier, 2010. (ISBN: 978-0-12-374715-0).