News

The IEEE Global Conference on Communications known ubiquitously as Globecom is the largest research-related communications conference in the world. It will take place in Austin for the first time from December 7-11, 2014 at the downtown Hilton. Detailed preparations are already underway, and your participation is welcome. The Technical Program Chairs of the Conference are Robert Heath and Jeff Andrews.

In December 2009, WNCG Director Professor Robert W. Heath, Jr. and two of his students, Steven Peters and Robert Daniels, co-founded Kuma Signals, LLC with the vision of transitioning the state-of-the-art in wireless communications research into viable commercial products. Professor Heath is Chief Innovation Officer, while Daniels is Executive VP of Engineering and Peters is CEO.

Every year, from the 100-plus graduate students that constitute WNCG, one or two students are recognized for their leadership: both contributions within WNCG and impact on the broader community. This year two students share this award: Omar and Tom. Omar, working towards his PhD with Prof. Robert Heath, has been a leading student contributor to several WNCG events: multiple open houses, board and WiCAT meetings, and TW Summits. He has also been a dependable resource for organizing student-led and student-oriented activities within WNCG. Omar has also represented WNCG at CTIA 2010.

Ken Pesyna (left) and Jahshan Bhatti (right) receive their Best Paper awards from IEEE/ION PLANS Committee Chair Wayne Soheren (center). Myrtle Beach, SCTwo RNL members won conference-level best paper awards at the 2012 IEEE/ION PLANS conference. Congratulations to Jahshan and Ken!Jahshan Bhatti won the Walter Fried award from the IEEE for the overall best technicalpaper at the IEEE/ION PLANS conference for his work on Development and Demonstration of a TDOA-Based GNSS InterferenceSignal Localization System.

Prof. Brian L. Evans won the 2012 Best Professor Award from the HKN/IEEE Student Chapters at The University of Texas at Austin. The award was presented at the UT ECE Graduation Banquet on May 15, 2012. The award from the students recognizes Prof. Evans for his teaching and mentoring of students.In teaching the junior/senior elective Real-Time Digital Signal Processing Laboratory, Prof. Evans brings his WNCG research experience into all aspects of the course.

Prof. Jeffrey G. Andrews presented a keynote address at the IEEE Small Cells Workshop in Ottawa, Canada, which was held in conjunction with the flagship IEEE International Conference on Communications. His talk was entitled The 7 Ways Small Cells are Forever Changing Wireless Communications, and drew lessons from his groups leading research on the topic, and industry collaborations with companies including Nokia Siemens, Huawei, Qualcomm, Samsung and ATT. The slides can be found on his homepage.

WNCG welcomes its newest faculty member, Andrea Alu, Ph.D. Alu joined The University of Texas at Austin in January 2009 after receiving his Ph.D. (2007), M.S. (2003) and Laurea (2001) degrees from the University of Roma Tre (Italy), and working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in 2007-2008. Dr. Alu is the co-author of over 160 journal papers and 16 book chapters and is the co-inventor of three US Patents related to electromagnetics research.

Dr. Kyungtae Han won the 2012 Intel Achievement Award For Developing the Converged Platform Power Management Framework. This is highest technical award handed out at Intel. At the awards ceremony in San Francisco on May 5th, Kyungate received the award after remarks by Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini. Dr. Han received his PhD ECE degree (2006) from UT Austin under the supervision of Prof. Brian L. Evans. Dr. Han received his BSEE (1996) degree from Korea University, and his MSEE (1998) degree from Seoul National University under the supervision of Prof. Wonyong Sung.

Renowned French Engineer and Mathematician Francois Baccelli will join UT Austin in Fall 2012 as the first Simons Chair, which is a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Baccelli is a global thought leader in several fields, including stochastic geometry applied to wireless networks, queueing theory, and various branches of applied probability (especially point processes and martingales).

T.J. Brudner received the 2011 Jeffress Award from Applied Research Laboratories: The University of Texas at Austin. This is ARL's most prestigious award, 'In Recognition of Outstanding Contributions in Applied Research', and T.J. is the youngest ever to receive this award. As part of ARL's submarine sonar development effort, T.J. has served as the lead of the High Frequency Working Group under the Advanced Processing Build process. At the request of the U.S. Submarine Force, T.J. has taught high frequency submarine sonar in the Navy's Prospective Commanding Officers Submarine Command Course.