Martha Suarez was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia. She received her degree as Electronics Engineer from the Universidad Industrial de Santander in 2004. During her undergraduate studies she participated in an exchange program with the Ecole Superieure Chimie Physique Electronique de Lyon, France in 2001. She received her Master degree in high frequency communication systems from the University of Marne-la-Vallee, France in 2006 and her Ph.D. degree from the University Paris-Est in 2009. She joined the department of Telecommunications and Signal Processing at the École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs en Électronique et Électrotechnique de Paris ESIEE and the Esycom Research Center where she worked on wireless transmitter architectures. In 2011 she was awarded with a Marie Curie Fellowship and worked at the Instytut Technologii Elektronowej ITE in Poland for the Partnership for Cognitive Radio Par4CR European Project. Her research interests were in the areas of wireless system architectures and the design of high performance Radio Frequency RF transceivers. Since 2013 she joined the National Spectrum Agency in Colombia, ANE, where she worked as Senior Adviser to the General Director and supported international activities of the Agency. Since December 2015 Martha Suarez is the General Director of ANE and she continues promoting the efficient use of the Spectrum and the mobile broadband connectivity in Colombia. Because of ANE´s leadership, the Government of the Republic of Colombia received in 2016 the Global Mobile Award for “Spectrum for Mobile Broadband” from GSMA. In 2017 Martha Suarez received from the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance DSA the award for “innovation in dynamic spectrum access policies”.
Martha Suarez has international experience actively participating at multi-stakeholder’s mechanisms like the Inter‑American Telecommunication Commission CITEL of the Organization of American States OAS and the International Telecommunications Union ITU. She is the president of the ITU-T SG5 Regional Group for Latin America (SG5RG-LATAM); SG5 deals with environment, climate change and circular economy and focuses on specific items as electronic waste and human exposure to electromagnetic fields.
Moreover, Martha Suárez is currently the president of the Ad Hoc Group to Coordinate Strategic Initiatives of the OAS Related to Radiocommunications at the Permanent Consultative Committee II (PCCII) of CITEL, the president of the Sub-working group on Spectrum Management at PCCII and the vice president in Working Group for the Preparation of CITEL for World Radiocommunication Conferences WRC-19 where fundamental decisions will be taken regarding frequency harmonization for 5G networks, NGSO satellite systems or High Altitude Platform Systems HAPS.
