News

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced today that Alan Bovik, professor and Cockrell Family Regents Endowed Chair in Engineering #3 in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has been elected to the prestigious academy this year. Prof. Bovik was elected "for contributions to the development of tools for image and video quality assessment."

A student team supervised by WNCG professor Robert Heath won the first runner-up prize at the Signal Processing Society Five-Minute Video Clip Contest (5-MICC).

WNCG Prof. Robert W. Heath, Jr. recently received the 2017 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications for his work entitled “Spatially Sparse Precoding in Millimeter Wave MIMO Systems,” published in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications in March 2014. The IEEE Guglielmo Marconi Best Paper Award is an annual award for an original paper in the field of Wireless Communications published in the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. Only papers published within the last three calendar years are eligible for this award. 

The FCC recently announced new spectrum for millimeter wave. The new rules open nearly 11 gigahertz of high-frequency spectrum for mobile and fixed wireless broadband, which include 3.85 GHz of currently licensed spectrum and 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum. This decision could prove critical for the U.S. to retain its leadership in the field of wireless communications.

WNCG Profs. François Baccelli, Jeff Andrews and Robert Heath were recently awarded a $1,000,000 research grant from the National Science Foundation for research on Millimeter Wave (mmW) cellular networks. The project is entitled "Fundamental Properties of Millimeter Wave Networks: Signal, Interference, and Connectivity” and will develop new mathematical and analysis tools to uncover the potential of mmW cellular networks.

Prof. Andrea Alù was selected to participate in the 2014 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. Participation in the symposium is based on a rigorous application and selection process determined by the organizing committee. Each year, 100 engineers under the age of 45 meet for an intensive multi-day symposium to discuss cutting-edge developments in the areas of next generation robotics, materials for batteries, impacts of shale gas and oil on the economy, environment, energy sustainability and technologies for the heart.