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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

Ibrahim Kilinc

Ibrahim Kilinc LinkedIn

Ibrahim Kilinc is a PhD student in the Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He received his B.S. degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a minor degree in Information Systems and Technologies from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey in 2023, where he was awarded full-scholarship (ranking 0.01% nationwide) with high honors. He started working under the supervision of Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. in Fall 2023. His research interests include sensor-aided beam management in heterogeneous devices, AI/ML-based low-overhead solutions for CSI feedback, hardware impairments, UAV relay optimization. He enjoys MIMO communications, AI/ML, signal processing, optimization, and especially farming.

Jaebum Park

Jaebum Park LinkedIn

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, Seoul, South Korea in 2015 and his M.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea in 2017. From 2017 to 2024, Jaebum was a Staff Engineer in the 6G research team at Samsung Research (SR), Seoul, South Korea, where he cultivated deep expertise in physical layer algorithms, RAN architectures, and 3GPP RAN1 LTE/NR standards. In Fall 2024, he began working under the supervision of Prof. Robert Heath. His research interests include DPD techniques, energy-efficient MIMO for next-generation RAN and AI-RAN.

Nima_Razavi

Nima Razavi LinkedIn

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

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.

Till

Till-Yannic Müller

Till-Yannic Müller is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He is a Centaur Graduate Fellow in Electrical Engineering. He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering, Information Technology, and Computer Engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Germany, in 2023, and his M.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from ETH Zürich, Switzerland, in 2025. In Fall 2026, he began working under the supervision of Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr.

WSIL_YY

Yiğit Yıldırım

Yiğit Yıldırım 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. and M.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2023 and 2026, respectively. During his M.S. studies, his research focused on goal-oriented communications, connected autonomous systems and machine learning for wireless communications. In Fall 2026, he joined the Wireless Systems Innovation Laboratory (WSIL) under the supervision of Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr.

Ayberk

Ayberk Çınar

Ayberk is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and a recipient of the Centaur Graduate Fellowship for Electrical Engineering. He received B.S. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Physics from Bilkent University, Turkey, in 2026, completing a double major and graduating summa cum laude in both programs. He began working under the supervision of Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. in Fall 2026. His research interests include wireless communications, electromagnetics, physical-layer signal processing, AI/ML-assisted communication systems, and physically consistent MIMO communication. He is particularly interested in bridging electromagnetics and wireless communications to develop physically consistent communication systems.

Alfredo

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.

Afreen2

Afreen Haider

Afreen Haider is a M.S. student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. She received her B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering and from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 2024. She is being advised by Prof. Robert W. Heath Jr. on her ongoing Master’s thesis. Her current research interests include adaptive base station network switching for energy optimisation and the applications of Reinforcement Learning in wireless communications.

Diya

Diya Arun

Diya Arun is a 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_Resized

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