Xinyu Zhang
Professor and Director of the Center of Wireless Communications, UC San DiegoZhang is an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. Before joining UC San Diego, he was an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2012 to 2017. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2012. He is the recipient of ACM MobiCom Best Paper Award (2011), NSF CAREER award (2014), and Google Research Award (2017).
Zhang’s research focuses on wireless networking and mobile computing, more specifically on wireless network architectures that can achieve orders of magnitude performance gain over conventional networks, and computational sensing mechanisms that reuse wireless signals to sense ambient activities with near-vision precision. His research builds on an experimental foundation and is often validated through end-to-end system implementation. His team is the first to address the system-level challenges in realizing millimeter-wave networking, which promises to realize wire-speed connectivity anywhere, anytime. He also designed physical-layer informed protocols that can eliminate the performance glitches in mobile applications, such as mobile Web, video streaming, and virtual reality.
In addition, Zhang’s research augments commodity mobile devices with ambient intelligence, so that they can leverage ambient signals to track human/object locations and activities at near-vision precision. The wireless sensing modalities he developed provide emerging Internet of Things applications with certain enabling mechanisms, such as centimeter-precision indoor localization for smartphones, 3D orientation and position tracking for batteryless objects, etc.
John Edward Smee
Senior Vice President of Engineering and Global Head of Wireless Research, QualcommJohn Edward Smee is Senior Vice President of Engineering and Global Head of Wireless Research at Qualcomm, where he oversees all 5G/6G and Wi-Fi R&D projects including systems design, standards contributions, and advanced radio, hardware, and software research testbeds and technology trials with industry partners. He joined Qualcomm in 2000, holds over 200 U.S. Patents, and has focused on the innovation and commercial launches of wireless communications across 5G NR, 4G LTE, 3G CDMA, and IEEE 802.11. He also leads Qualcomm’s companywide academic collaboration program across AI, augmented/virtual reality, automotive, IOT, security, semiconductor, and wireless. John was chosen to participate in the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering program and served on the National Academy of Medicine Committee on Emerging Science, Technology, and Innovation. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University and holds an M.A. from Princeton and an M.Sc. and B.Sc. from Queen's University.
Dinesh Bharadia
Professor, UC San DiegoDinesh Bharadia received his Ph.D. in 2016 from Stanford University, where he was advised by Professor Sachin Katti. He is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT working with Professors Dina Katabi and Mohammad Alizadeh. In his dissertation, Bharadia presented a prototype of a radio that invalidated a long held assumption in wireless research that radios cannot transmit and receive at the same time on the same frequency. In recognition of his work, Bharadia was named a Marconi Young Scholar for outstanding wireless research and was awarded the Michael Dukakis Leadership award. He was also named as one of the top 35 Innovators under 35 in the world by MIT Technology Review in 2016. Bharadia is also a recipient of the Sarah and Thomas Kailath Stanford Graduate Fellowship.
From 2013 to 2015, Bharadia was a Principal Scientist for Kumu Networks, where he worked to commercialize his research on full-duplex radios, building a product that underwent successful field trials at Tier 1 network providers worldwide like Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom. This product is currently under deployment. His research interests include advancing the theory and design of modern wireless communication systems, wireless imaging, sensor networks and data-center networks. Bharadia received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2010, where he received the gold medal for graduating at the top of his class. His research has been published at top conferences such as SIGCOMM, NSDI, MobiCom and has been cited over 2,000 times. At UC San Diego, he will be teaching core courses in wireless communication, IoT networks, and networked systems building.
Bharadia's research aims to innovate fundamental ideas in communication theory and translate them to build practical wireless communication systems, low power wireless communication system (IoT), wireless imaging/sensing and wireless networks. This involves understanding hardware/system challenges in achieving the above fundamental ideas and then designing algorithms to overcome the hardware limitation in translating the ideas to the practical systems. Bharadia has built systems for first full duplex radios (which was considered impossible), indoor navigation using standard WiFi, wireless virtual reality headsets, human-motion tracking systems using wireless signals, and battery-less ECG wireless sensors.
Devaki Chandramouli
Head of North American Standardization, NokiaDevaki is a Bell Labs Fellow and Head of North American Standardization at Nokia. Her current focus is on leading industry engagements, 6G System architecture research, and standardization. She is also the rapporteur and lead for 5G System architecture specification in 3GPP. She also served as a rapporteur for many key work items related to private networks, industrial 5G, timing resiliency, and URLLC enhancements, XR services in 3GPP SA2.
Sujit Dey
Professor, UC San DiegoSujit Dey is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Director of the Center for Wireless Communications, and the Director of the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur at University of California, San Diego. He heads the Mobile Systems Design Laboratory, developing innovative and sustainable edge computing, networking and communications, multi-modal sensor fusion, and deep learning algorithms and architectures to enable novel 5G and 6G use cases like predictive personalized health, X-Reality, smart mobility and smart manufacturing. He has created inter-disciplinary programs involving multiple UCSD schools as well as community, city and industry partners; notably the Connected Health Program in 2016 and the Smart Transportation Innovation Program in 2018. In 2017, he was appointed as an Adjunct Professor, Rady School of Management, and the Jacobs Family Endowed Chair in Engineering Management Leadership.
Dr. Dey served as the Faculty Director of the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center from 2013-2015, and as the Chief Scientist, Mobile Networks, at Allot Communications from 2012-2013. In 2015, he co-founded igrenEnergi, providing intelligent battery technology and solutions for EV mobility services. He founded Ortiva Wireless in 2004, where he served as its founding CEO and later as CTO and Chief Technologist till its acquisition by Allot Communications in 2012. Prior to Ortiva, he served as the Chair of the Advisory Board of Zyray Wireless till its acquisition by Broadcom in 2004, and as an advisor to multiple companies including ST Microelectronics and NEC. Prior to joining UCSD in 1997, he was a Senior Research Staff Member at NEC C&C Research Laboratories in Princeton, NJ. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University in 1991.
Dr. Dey has co-authored more than 250 publications, and a book on low-power design. He holds 18 U.S. and 2 international patents, resulting in multiple technology licensing and commercialization. He has been a recipient of nine IEEE/ACM Best Paper Awards, and has chaired multiple IEEE conferences and workshops. Dr. Dey is a Fellow of the IEEE
Mischa Dohler
VP Emerging Technologies, Ericsson Inc.Mischa Dohler is now VP Emerging Technologies at Ericsson Inc. in Silicon Valley, working on cutting-edge topics of 5G/6G, AR and Generative AI. He serves on the Spectrum Advisory Board of Ofcom and on the AI/ML Technical Advisory Committee of the FCC.
He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET); the AP Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA); and a Distinguished Member of Harvard Square Leaders Excellence. He is a serial entrepreneur with 5 companies; composer & pianist with 5 albums on Spotify/iTunes; and fluent in several languages. He has had ample coverage by national and international press and media, and is featured on Amazon Prime.
He is a frequent keynote, panel and tutorial speaker, and has received numerous awards. He has pioneered several research fields, contributed to numerous wireless broadband, IoT/M2M and cyber security standards, holds a dozen patents, organized and chaired numerous conferences, was the Editor-in-Chief of two journals, has more than 300 highly-cited publications, and authored several books. He is a Top-1% Cited Innovator across all science fields globally.
He was full/tenured Professor in Wireless Communications at King’s College London and Director of the Centre for Telecommunications Research from 2013-2021, driving cross-disciplinary research and innovation in technology, sciences and arts. He is the Cofounder and former CTO of the IoT-pioneering company Worldsensing; cofounder and former CTO of the AI-driven satellite company SiriusInsight.AI, and cofounder of the sustainability company Movingbeans (acquired). He also worked as a Senior Researcher at Orange/France Telecom from 2005-2008.
Between 1990-1993, he won several Olympics in maths and physics; and was part of the 3rd round of the International Olympics in Physics for Germany.
Ian Galton
Professor, UC San DiegoIan Galton received the Sc.B. degree from Brown University in 1984, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology in 1989 and 1992, respectively, all in electrical engineering. Since 1996 he has been a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, San Diego where he teaches and conducts research in the field of mixed-signal integrated circuits and systems for communications. Prior to 1996 he was with UC Irvine, and prior to 1989 he was with Acuson and Mead Data Central. His research involves the invention, analysis, and integrated circuit implementation of critical communication system blocks such as data converters, frequency synthesizers, and clock recovery systems. In addition to his academic research, he regularly consults at several semiconductor companies and teaches industry-oriented short courses on the design of mixed-signal integrated circuits. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, and has served on a corporate Board of Directors, on several corporate Technical Advisory Boards, as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, as a member of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Administrative Committee, as a member of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Board of Governors, as a member of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference Technical Program Committee, and as a member of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Distinguished Lecturer Program.
Prasad Gudem
Technical advisor, Analog/RF companiesPrasad Gudem received the B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 1996. During his tenure at Qualcomm from 2002-2018, he led the development of several generations of transceivers including the first integrated diversity receiver chip, the first integrated SAW-less receiver for CDMA2000, the first 28-nm integrated carrier aggregation multi-mode multi-band transceiver and the first 14nm highly integrated receiver and transmitter carrier aggregation transceiver chip. The world class transceiver products (RFR6500, QSC1100, WTR3925 and SDR855) he led at Qualcomm exceeded 1 billion in volume shipment.
He has been the Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm from 2014-2018 and an Adjunct faculty since 2014 with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, La Jolla. He has 50+ patents and 40+ IEEE publications. He taught several graduate-level classes and co-advised twelve Ph.D. students in the area of RF integrated circuit (IC) design. Gudem was the recipient of the Graduate Teaching Award in recognition of his outstanding teaching of the ECE265 course sequence, “Communication Circuit Design: I, II, and III”. He is an avid follower of the history of STEM and a boomerang sports enthusiast.
Ganesh Harinath
Founder & CEO, FiduciaGanesh Harinath is focused on delivering solutions using web 3.0 to connect brands with consumers in Physical World, Digital World & Metaverse. The solutions are focused on brand transparency, personalization and increasing brand loyalty across multiverses. Prior to Fiducia | AI, Ganesh was the CTO at Verizon Media where he built a $100M business around Data, AI and Edge Compute. He is also on the board of The Enterprise NeuroSystem where he is focused on sustainability and climate change initiatives using advanced AI.
Jing Jiang
Wireless System Engineer, QualcommJing joined Qualcomm Corporate R&D (CR&D) as a system engineer in 2007, worked on various projects across 4G modem design and 5G standardization over the last two decades. He is currently leading 6G PHYMAC research project. Jing Jiang received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA, in 2007.
Binoy Kurien
Assistant Leader of the Tactical Edge Communications Group, MIT Lincoln LaboratoryDr. Binoy Kurien is Assistant Leader of the Tactical Edge Communications group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. At the laboratory, he leads the design and prototyping of resilient communication and sensing systems. His research interests are in adaptive signal processing, dynamic spectrum access, and the application of machine learning to communication and spectrum sensing systems. Dr. Kurien received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2006, and his Masters and PhD degrees in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University in 2009 and 2016, respectively.
Chris Mangelsdorf
Analog IC Design and ConsultingChris Mangelsdorf (S'77 - M'84) received a B.S. in physics, magna cum laude, from Davidson College, Davidson, NC in 1977. In 1980 and 1984, he received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering at M.I.T. where he held the first Analog Devices Fellowship. He has been associated with Analog Devices since summer employment in 1980 and has been a Fellow of Analog Devices since 1998.
From 1996 to 2013, Dr. Mangelsdorf worked in Tokyo, running the Analog Devices Tokyo Design Center and then adding responsibility for the Shanghai and Beijing Design Centers with the title of Asia Technical Director. In 2013, he moved to the Analog Devices San Diego office, where he was engaged in the development of high speed A/D converters. In September 2020, Chris retired from Analog Devices and is now consulting and writing the "Shop Talk" series for IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine.
Dr. Mangelsdorf is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Pi Sigma (physics) and has served on both the ISSCC Program Committee and the AdComm for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society. He holds 18 patents and has won the ISSCC Best Evening Session Award 10 times.
Al Pisano
Dean, Jacobs School of Engineering , UC San DiegoIn his role as Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering, Albert P. Pisano is responsible for strategic planning and programmatic development. His responsibilities include School-wide research initiatives, space plans, academic affairs, strategic planning and operations, and UC San Diego-wide cooperative initiatives.
As Dean of the Jacobs School, Pisano holds the Walter J. Zable Chair in Engineering. He is an active researcher who serves on the faculty of the departments of mechanical and aerospace engineering and electrical and computer engineering.
Prior to September 2013, Pisano served on the UC Berkeley faculty. The FANUC Endowed Chair of Mechanical Systems, he held faculty appointments in mechanical engineering and in electrical engineering and computer sciences. Pisano served as senior co-Director of the Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center (an NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center), Director of the Electronics Research Laboratory (UC Berkeley’s largest organized research unit), and Faculty Head of the Program Office for Operational Excellence, among other leadership positions.
In 2001, Pisano was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the design, fabrication, commercialization, and educational aspects of MEMS. From 1997 to 1999, Pisano served as a program manager for the MEMS Program at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and an awardee of the Thomas Egleston Medal forDistinguished Engineering Achievement by notable alumni of Columbia University.
Pisano earned his undergraduate (’76) and graduate degrees (’77, ’80, ’81) in mechanical engineering at Columbia University. Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, he held research positions with Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Singer Sewing Machines Corporate R&D Center and General Motors Research Labs.
Fatih Porikli
Vice President of Technology , QualcommFatih Porikli is an IEEE Fellow and Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm AI Research. He previously served as a full Professor at the Research School of Engineering at the Australian National University and has held several senior leadership roles, including Vice President at Futurewei, Chief Scientist of Autonomous Vehicles at Huawei, Computer Vision Research Group Leader at NICTA, and Distinguished Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. He received the R&D100 Scientist of the Year Award in 2006, has earned eight best paper awards and seven additional professional honors, and has co-authored more than 400 publications while co-organizing over twenty workshops.
Rajat Prakash
Senior Director of Technology, QualcommRajat Prakash is with the Wireless R&D group at Qualcomm. His current work focuses on digital twin, virtualized RAN and industrial IoT technologies, and on the evolution of 5G towards 6G. He has previously worked on small cells, self-organizing networks, neutral host, VoLTE and VoWiFi technologies. Rajat has participated in several industry bodies, including 3GPP, O-RAN Alliance, CBRS Alliance, Multefire Alliance, Small Cell Forum, 5G ACIA, IEEE and 3GPP2. Rajat obtained his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, MS from Cornell University and B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, all in Electrical Engineering.
Gabriel Rebeiz
Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering , UC San DiegoProfessor Rebeiz's expertise includes design of silicon RFICs for microwave and millimeter-wave systems with a specialty on phased arrays and low power circuits, active and passive imaging systems up to THz frequencies (including thermal imagers), THz CMOS and SiGe electronics, RF micro-electro-mechanical systems (RF MEMS), reconfigurable front-ends including tunable filters and tunable antennas, cognitive radios, planar antennas from RF to THz frequencies, radars, and collision avoidance systems for automotive applications.
Kamal Sahota
Senior Vice President, Engineering, RF Integrated Circuit Design Team , QualcommKamal Sahota is Senior Vice President of Engineering at Qualcomm, leading the Radio Frequency Integrated circuit design team for 3G, 4G and 5G cellular radio transceivers used in modern smart phones. He received his BSEE (Sum Cum Laude) and ME in electrical and computer engineering from UCSD in 1993 and 1999 respectively with a minor in art history.
He joined Qualcomm in 1993 as an analog integrated circuit designer working on the first CDMA digital cell phones. Over his career he has contributed to the evolution of the cellular phone radio subsystem from 1G to 5G. He holds over 290 patents in the field of RF analog circuits and systems for wireless communications.
Hemanth Sampath
VP Engineering, QualcommHemanth Sampath is VP of Engineering at Qualcomm, where he drives technology development enabling new 5G/6G user experiences and services, including extended reality (XR), AI-native protocols, inferencing and sensing services. He also leads Qualcomm’s University Relations Platforms program, enabling educators to integrate edge AI platforms in research and curriculums. Previously, Hemanth held engineering leadership roles across Wi-Fi and 4G-UMB. Hemanth has over 300 granted US patents and earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2001.
Chad Sweet
Co-founder and CEO, ModalAIChad Sweet is the co-founder and CEO of ModalAI®, a Blue UAS Framework maker of autonomous autopilots for UAS. A 20-year Qualcomm veteran with 15 patents, he led computer vision and wireless programs and launched Snapdragon Flight—powering NASA’s Ingenuity, the first drone on Mars. He advances the U.S. UAS industry with ModalAI’s U.S.-built open AI compute, autopilot, and communications systems.
Blythe Towal
Head of Robotics AI Software, QualcommDr. Blythe Towal is Head of Robotics AI Software at Qualcomm, leading innovation at the intersection of machine perception, edge intelligence, and autonomous systems. She brings 15+ years of experience in robotics and AI, spanning edge ML, cloud analytics, and scalable autonomy. Previously, she was Chief of AI at EyePop.ai, building a developer focused platform for rapid deployment of computer vision applications; VP of Software Engineering at Saildrone, scaling autonomous sailboats for ocean data collection; and led Scene Understanding at Shield AI for quadcopters in unstructured environments. At NVIDIA and Qualcomm, she pioneered AI models for autonomous vehicles and edge deployment. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Blythe holds degrees from Georgia Tech and Northwestern and completed a postdoc at Caltech.
Luke Urban
Cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer, Magnolia ElectronicsLuke Urban received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Engineering degrees from MIT in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He then earned his Ph.D. from Caltech in Computation and Neural Systems. Currently, he serves as the co-founder and CTO of Magnolia Electronics, based at the Caltech Innovation Center in Pasadena, California.
Harish Viswanathan
Radio Systems Research Lab, Nokia Bell LabsDr. Harish Viswanathan is Head of Radio Systems Research Lab at Nokia Bell Labs. He received the B. Tech. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the School of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Since joining Bell Labs in October 1997, he has worked extensively on wireless research ranging from physical layer to network architecture and protocols including multiple antenna technology for cellular wireless networks, multi-hop relays, network optimization, network architecture, and IoT communications. He has published extensively with over 150 publications. From 2007 to 2015, Harish was in the Corp CTO organization, where as a CTO Partner he advised the Corporate CTO on Technology Strategy through in-depth analysis of emerging technology and market needs. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Bell Labs Fellow and recipient of 2023 Edison Patent Award in NJ.
Michael Yip
Professor, UC San DiegoMichael Yip is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego, IEEE RAS Distinguished Lecturer, Hellman Fellow, and Director of the Advanced Robotics and Controls Laboratory (ARCLab). His group currently focuses on solving problems in data-efficient and computationally efficient robot control and motion planning through the use of various forms of learning representations, including deep learning and reinforcement learning strategies. His lab applies these ideas to surgical robotics and the automation of surgical procedures.
Previously, Yip's research has investigated different facets of model-free control, planning, haptics, soft robotics and computer vision strategies, all towards achieving automated surgery. Yip's work has been recognized through several best paper awards at ICRA, including the 2016 best paper award for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. Yip has previously been a research associate with Disney Research in Los Angeles involved in animatronics design, and most recently held a visiting research position with Amazon Robotics Machine Learning and Computer Vision group in Seattle. He received a B.Sc. in Mechatronics Engineering from the University of Waterloo, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Stanford University.
Michael Yip’s research focus is on developing high-performance robotics that achieve dexterous and agile behaviors. This falls into three categories: (i) flexible robotics, (ii) surgical robotics, and (iii) robotic actuators and biomimetics. He investigates the design and control of flexible robotics, or snake-like robotics, for a broad range of medical, industrial, and military applications. Another significant research effort is in designing surgical robots to treat diseases such as heart disease and prostate cancer, including image-guidance and augmented reality for surgeons to guide them during an operation. A third area of research involves the design of robotic actuators and robotic limbs that mimic natural movement; this includes low-cost artificial muscles that have been used to design robot prostheses or animatronics limbs, and could be used for human augmentation.
YoungHan Nam
Sr. Director of Standards and Mobility Innovation Team , SamsungYounghan Nam currently serves as a Senior Director at the Standards and Mobility Innovation Team in Samsung Research America (SRA), where he leads system research for 6G. Before assuming this role, he held the position of Associate Vice President at Mavenir, overseeing ORAN product R&D in the system engineering team until 2022. His career at SRA also includes a tenure as a principal engineer until 2018, during which he led research and made contributions to the 3GPP RAN1 standards, focusing on areas such as mmWave, massive MIMO, and 5G channel modeling. He has received a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Ohio State University in 2008, and MS and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, in 2002 and 1998, respectively.




