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WSIL group

Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr.

Robert W. Heath Jr. is the Charles Lee Powell Chair in Wireless Communications and a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and the Ph.D. from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2002, all in electrical engineering. From 2020-2023 he was with the North Carolina State University where he was most recently the Lampe Distinguished Chair. From 2002-2020 he was with The University of Texas at Austin, most recently as Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering and Director of UT SAVES. He is also President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc. Dr. Heath authored “Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication” (Prentice Hall, 2017) and “Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP” (National Technology and Science Press, 2012), and co-authored “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” (Prentice Hall, 2014) and “Foundations of MIMO Communication” (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has been a co-author of a number award winning conference and journal papers including in the 2020 and 2024 IEEE Signal Processing Society Donald G. Fink Overview Paper Awards, the 2021 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Neal Shepherd Memorial Best Propagation Paper Award, and the 2022 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Best Vehicular Electronics Paper Award. Other notable recognitions include the 2017 EURASIP Technical Achievement award, the 2019 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the 2021 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society James Evans Avant Garde Award, and the 2025 IEEE / RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal. He was became a Fellow of the IEEE in 2011, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2017 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. He was a member-at-large on the IEEE Communications Society Board-of-Governors (2020-2022) and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Board-of-Governors (2016-2018). He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine from 2018-2020. He is also a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a Private Pilot, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas. He is an elected Member of the US National Academy of Engineering.
Robert W. Heath Jr. is the Charles Lee Powell Chair in Wireless Communications and a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and the Ph.D. from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2002, all in electrical engineering. From 2020-2023 he was with the North Carolina State University where he was most recently the Lampe Distinguished Chair. From 2002-2020 he was with The University of Texas at Austin, most recently as Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering and Director of UT SAVES. He is also President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc. Dr. Heath authored “Introduction to Wireless Digital Communication” (Prentice Hall, 2017) and “Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP” (National Technology and Science Press, 2012), and co-authored “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” (Prentice Hall, 2014) and “Foundations of MIMO Communication” (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has been a co-author of a number award winning conference and journal papers including in the 2020 and 2024 IEEE Signal Processing Society Donald G. Fink Overview Paper Awards, the 2021 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Neal Shepherd Memorial Best Propagation Paper Award, and the 2022 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society Best Vehicular Electronics Paper Award. Other notable recognitions include the 2017 EURASIP Technical Achievement award, the 2019 IEEE Kiyo Tomiyasu Award, the 2021 IEEE Vehicular Technology Society James Evans Avant Garde Award, and the 2025 IEEE / RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal. He was became a Fellow of the IEEE in 2011, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2017 and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023. He was a member-at-large on the IEEE Communications Society Board-of-Governors (2020-2022) and the IEEE Signal Processing Society Board-of-Governors (2016-2018). He was Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine from 2018-2020. He is also a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a Private Pilot, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas. He is an elected Member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Graduate students

Joey Carlson

Joey Carlson

Joey Carlson is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University. He graduated from the Ohio State University in Spring 2021 with a BS in Engineering Physics and began working under the supervision of Professor Robert Heath at North Carolina State University in Fall 2021. He moved to UC San Diego to continue his Ph.D. studies in Fall 2024. His research interests include dynamic metasurface antennas for MIMO communications. He is also a recipient of the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship for 2023-24.

Nitish Vikas Deshpande

Nitish Vikas Deshpande

Nitish Vikas Deshpande (Student Member, IEEE) is a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California San Diego, advised by Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. He received the B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2021, where he was awarded the Proficiency Prize for his outstanding undergraduate project, and the M.S. degree from North Carolina State University in 2023. He has held research internships at Nokia Bell Labs (2022–23), where he received the Outstanding Student Research Award, and at Qualcomm’s Modem Systems team in San Diego (2024–25). He is a recipient of the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (2023–24) and the Shannon Graduate Fellowship from UCSD (2024–25). His current research focuses on signal processing and optimization for advanced MIMO communication systems, with an emphasis on reconfigurable antenna architectures. For more information, please visit https://nvdeshpa.github.io/.

Ibrahim Kilinc

Ibrahim Kilinc

Ibrahim Kilinc is a PhD student at North Carolina State University. He received his B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and his minor degree in Information Systems and Technologies from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2023. He started to work under the supervision of Prof. Robert Heath in Fall 2023. His research interests include sensor-aided beam alignment in heterogeneous devices in wireless systems and signal processing.

Jaebum Park

Jaebum Park

Jaebum Park is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his B.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Yonsei University and his M.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). From 2017 to 2024, Jaebum worked in the 6G research team at Samsung Research (SR). In Fall 2024, he began working under the supervision of Prof. Robert Heath. His research interests include energy-efficient MIMO for next-generation RAN and AI-RAN.

Nima Razavi

Nima Razavi

Nima Razavi is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Virginia in Spring 2024. He began working under the co-supervision of Prof. Nuria Gonzalez Prelic and Prof. Robert Heath at UC San Diego in Fall 2024. His research interests include MIMO for spectrum sharing and signal processing for upper midband frequencies. 

Arnaud Lamy

Arnaud Lamy

Arnaud Lamy is a PhD student at the University of California, San Diego where he is a Centaur Graduate Fellow for Electrical Engineering. He graduated from Columbia University in May 2025 with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science; his background includes classical machine learning, signal processing, and manifold denoising. He joined the WSIL group in August 2025 and has been interested in quantum error mitigation, variational quantum algorithms, and quantum information theory more broadly. He is advised by Prof. Robert Heath.

Luke McDermott

Luke McDermott

Luke McDermott is a PhD student UC San Diego, working under Prof. Robert Heath and Prof. Rahul Parhi since Fall 2024. He completed his undergraduate in Math-CS at UCSD in 2023. His research interests fall broadly under efficient deep learning. In particular, he is developing alternative attention mechanisms in transformers.

Alfredo Gonzalez

Alfredo Gonzalez

Alfredo Gonzalez is a Joint Doctoral Student at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University. In 2019, he received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Florida International University, where he was awarded the Graduate of the Year in Electrical Engineering. In 2021, he completed his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Florida International University as a NASA MUREP Fellow under the tutelage of Dr. John L. Volakis. From 2021 to 2025, he worked at Apple Inc. as a Wireless Systems Engineer, contributing to the U1, U2, and N1 chip platforms. In 2025, he began his doctoral studies under the joint supervision of Dr. Robert Heath and Dr. Tharm Ratnarajah. His current research interests are in power-efficient wave-domain signal processing through reconfigurable metasurfaces.

Afreen Haider

Diya Arun

Diya Arun

Diya Arun is an M.S. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California San Diego. She joined the Communication Theory and Systems track in Fall 2025. She has graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati with a B.Tech. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering and a minor in Mathematics. Her current research interests include the application of pixel arrays in tri-hybrid MIMO architecture. She has previously worked on RSMA and ISAC for 6G communication systems and wireless for ML. She is advised by Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. in her master’s thesis.

Shehla Amir

Shehla Amir

Shehla Amir is a PhD student in the department of Electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University since Spring 2022. She obtained her BS in Electrical Engineering from Lahore University of management sciences, Lahore, Pakistan in 2021. Her research interests include the areas of joint communication radar and sensing, signal processing and wireless communications.

Feng Zhu

Feng Zhu

Feng Zhu received his B.S. degree in Communication Engineering and his M.S. degree in Communications and Information Systems from Fudan University, Shanghai, China in 2020 and 2023, respectively. He is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include federated learning, reinforcement learning and their applications in the wireless system. He is also co-advised by Prof. Aritra Mitra and Prof. Heath