WNCG student Ian Roberts has been awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. The NSF program identifies researchers “anticipated to become knowledge experts who can contribute significantly to research, teaching, and innovations in science and engineering.”
The program, which began in 1952, supports students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees; it includes a three-year stipend, an education allowance, and unique opportunities for professional development and research. It is the country’s oldest fellowship program directly supporting graduate students in STEM fields.
Since the fellowship’s inception, NSF has funded over 50,000 graduate-level researchers from a competitive pool of more than 500,000 applicants. Ian Roberts is one of four students in Texas ECE to win the award for 2020.
Roberts’ winning research statement outlined his planned work on bringing full-duplex capability to millimeter-wave systems with a focus on the design of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission and reception strategies. The goal is to develop a system to mitigate self-interference and enable reception while transmitting in-band.
Ian Roberts is a Ph.D. student advised by Prof. Jeffrey G. Andrews and Prof. Sriram Vishwanath. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Missouri University of Science and Technology in 2018 and has held internships at GenXComm, Amazon, Sandia National Laboratories, and Dynetics. His research interests are in the theory and implementation of millimeter-wave communication, in-band full-duplex, and communication system optimization.