Prof. Rappaport Elected to National Board of Governors

Dr. Ted Rappaport, electrical and computer engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the Vehicular Technology Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Board of Governors for 2009-2011. Rappaport has been a pioneer in the fields of radio wave propagation and wireless communication system design. His research has been used by many international wireless standard bodies over the past two decades, and his work has led to the broad acceptance of site-specific radio frequency propagation modeling for broadband wireless network design and deployment. Recently, he has been focusing on new methods for analyzing and deploying wireless broadband networks and portable internet access. Rappaport’s goal is to make the wireless channel understood as well as a copper wire, and to transfer that knowledge into actual products. by Becky Rische CSOE

Dr. Rappaport was also honored recently as the recipient of the 2008 Austin Wireless Association’s Wireless Industry Leadership Award.

Rappaport has also led the reactivation of the UT Amateur Radio Club (N5XU). A licensed radio amateur along with Prof. Heath, Prof. Rappaport has lent his expertise—and time—in running RF transmission, CAT 5 and Rotor cables throughout the building where the club’s antenna is located. Associated events have included a kick off meeting and ‘antenna party’.

Ted Rappaport is the William and Bettye Nowlin Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and is the founding director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) at the university’s Austin campus, a center he founded in 2002. From 1988 to 2002, he was on the electrical and computer engineering faculty of Virginia Tech, where he founded the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), one of the world’s first university research and teaching centers dedicated to the wireless communications field. Prof. Rappaport has been a pioneer in the fields of radio wave propagation and wireless communication system design. His research has been used by many international wireless standard bodies over the past two decades, and his work has led to the broad acceptance of site-specific radio frequency (RF) propagation modeling for broadband wireless network design and deployment. Dr. Rappaport is one of the most highly cited authors in the wireless field, according to ISI Highly Cited, and has published over 200 technical papers. In 2006, he was elected to serve on the IEEE Board of Governors of the Communications Society (ComSoc). He serves on the editorial boards of several academic and technical journals, is a fellow of the IEEE and is active in the IEEE Communications and Vehicular Technology societies. In 1989, he founded TSR Technologies, Inc., a cellular radio/PCS software radio manufacturer that he sold in 1993. In 1995, he founded Wireless Valley Communications Inc., a pioneering creator of site-specific radio propagation software for network design and management that was acquired by Motorola, Inc. in 2005. As a faculty member, Rappaport has advised approximately 100 students who continue to accomplish great things in the communications and electromagnetics fields throughout industry, academia, and government.

Rappaport received the Marconi Young Scientist Award in 1990, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship in 1992, the Sarnoff Citation from the Radio Club of America in 2000, the Fredrick E. Terman Outstanding Electrical Engineering Faculty Award from the ASEE in 2002 and the Stuart F. Meyer Award from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society in 2005. Rappaport has over 100 U.S. or international patents issued or pending and has authored, co-authored and co-edited 18 books in the wireless field, including Wireless Communications: Principles & Practice, Principles of Communication Systems Simulation with Wireless Applications, and Smart Antennas for Wireless Communications: IS-95 and Third Generation CDMA Applications. In 1999, his work on site-specific propagation received the IEEE Communications Society Stephen O. Rice Prize Paper Award. He is a highly sought after technical expert, having consulted for over 25 multinational corporations and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). He currently serves on the technical advisory boards of iTaggit, Inc., Motion Computing, Inc., Alereon, Inc., and Paratek Microwave, Inc. He received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1982, 1984 and 1987, respectively.