Konstantina S. Nikita, Zoya Popović
This is the third of three articles in which we give the stage to some outstanding women in our field. So, we asked our colleagues questions that are gender independent, hoping everyone can learn something useful from their answers or at least be entertained. Here is what we wanted to learn:
We hope you will find their answers as inspiring and entertaining as we have! It is such a privilege to have these amazing people as our colleagues and professional friends.
Editor’s Note
This contribution to the Women in Engineering column was prepared by Prof. Konstantina S. Nikita, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece, and Prof. Zoya Popovic´, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA. It is the last paper of a series of three collecting the interviews of seven female scientists who present their role models, mentors, accomplishments, visions of the future, and desires to improve women’s involvement in the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society.
In our three articles, we tried to cover different continents, countries, and technical strengths.
Figure 1. Cynthia Furse is a professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Utah. She is a Fellow of IEEE and the National Academy of Inventors. Her technological innovations and patents include development of a system to locate intermittent electrical faults on aging aircraft wiring. She is also a pioneering researcher in the development of telemetry antennas for medical implants and fast methods for predicting the statistical variation in bioelectromagnetic applications.
Figure 2. Jamesina Simpson is a professor at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Utah. She has pioneered advanced 3D Maxwell’s equations finite-difference time domain models of global electromagnetic wave propagation within the Earth–ionosphere waveguide, applied to a variety of applications across the electromagnetic spectrum. She has received research and teaching awards, including the 2012 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Donald G. Dudley Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award, the 2017 Santimay Basu Medal from the Union of Radio Science International, and the 2020 AP-S Lot Shafai Mid-Career Distinguished Achievement Award.
Figure 3. Reyhan Baktur is an associate professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Utah State University (USU). She is affiliated with the Center for Space Engineering at USU and the Space Dynamics Laboratory and collaborates with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She is an AP-S Distinguished Lecturer for 2022–2024 and an AdCom member of AP-S and is active in the U.S. National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science, serving as the vice chair for commission B and the inaugural chair of the Women in Radio Science Chapter.
Figure 4. Almudena Suarez is a professor at the University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain, and head of the Microwave Engineering and Radiocommunication Systems research group. She is a member of the technical program committees of the IEEE International Microwave Symposium and European Microwave Week. She serves as an associate editor of IEEE Microwave Magazine and the editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques. She is the recipient of the 2022 Social Council Research Award of the University of Cantabria.
Figure 5. Maria Garcia Vigueras is an associate professor at the Institute National des Sciences Appliquées de Rennes and head of the SurfWave research group. Her current research interests include leaky wave antennas, periodic surfaces, active antennas, waveguide feed chain components, and the evaluation of additive manufacturing’s potential for RF design. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Best Ph.D. Thesis Awards from COIT/AEIT in 2014 and UPTC in 2013 and the Best Paper Awards at the 2013 International Symposium on Microwave, Antenna, Propagation and EMC Technologies for Wireless Communications and the 2012 European Conference on Antennas and Propagation.
Figure 6. Nina Popovic Schlomann is a research staff member in the Sensors and Electronics Laboratory at HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, CA, USA. She received her B.Sc. in electrical engineering from McGill University in 2016 and her M.Sc. from Georgia Tech in 2017. After working at FIRST RF, she completed her Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 2020 from the University of Colorado Boulder in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Her expertise ranges from millimeter-wave to THz and optical applications, including broadband materials characterization, THz sensors, RF subsystem design, and RF quantum engineering.
Figure 7. Ifana Mahbub is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she leads the Integrated Biomedical and Radio Frequency Circuits and Systems Laboratory. Her research interests include energy-efficient integrated circuits and systems design for readout, wireless communication, and wireless power transfer for implantable and wearable sensors. She is the recipient of the NSF Early Career Award (2020), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2021), and the Texas Instruments Early Career Chair Award in 2022.
Konstantina S. Nikita (knikita@ece.ntua.gr) is a professor at the National Technical University of Athens, 15780 Athens, Greece, and the Irene McCulloch Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine with the Keck School of Medicine and Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA. She is editor in chief of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation and the recipient of various honors/awards, including the Bodossakis Foundation Academic Prize.
Zoya Popović (zoya@colorado.edu) is a Distinguished Professor and Lockheed Martin Chair of RF Engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309 USA. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Her research is in analog RF front ends for various microwave engineering applications.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MAP.2023.3320942