Twenty years of research and collaboration, culminating in SpectrumX, featured in keynote address at GRCon 22

On Thursday, September 30, SpectrumX Center Director Nick Laneman gave a keynote address at GRCon 22 in Washington D.C. Laneman concurrently co-directs the Wireless Institute in the College of Engineering and is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

GNU Radio is “a free and open-source software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios,” according to its website. It is utilized by researchers, industry, government, hobbyist, and academic stakeholders alike.

Jonas Zmuidzinas

A native of Southern California, Jonas Zmuidzinas received his B.S. in physics from Caltech in 1981 and his Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley in 1987. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois in 1988-89 and then joined the Caltech faculty as an Assistant Professor of physics in 1990. He became Associate Professor in 1995, Professor in 2000, Merle Kingsley Professor in 2010, and Director of the Caltech Optical Observatories in 2018. Concurrently, he has held positions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and has collaborated closely with JPL scientists and technologists, including serving as a JPL Senior Research Scientist (2006-11), Director of the JPL Microdevices Laboratory (2007-2011), and JPL Chief Technologist (2011-16).

His research interests center on astrophysics at millimeter through far-infrared wavelengths, including the development of the technology needed to fully exploit this portion of the spectrum. He has constructed instrumentation for ground-based, airborne, and space telescopes, including invention and development of several types of superconducting detectors and devices as recognized by NASA’s Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal in 2013. He has served as a reviewer and advisor for NASA, NSF, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Sandia National Laboratories, other U.S. government agencies and international science agencies, and is author or co-author of over 250 scientific articles.

Rick Reaser

Rick Reaser is an independent consultant on spectrum, satellite navigation, space and electronics technology.  He provides continuing consulting services to U.S.-CREST and a variety of other clients.  In the Spring of 2021, he provided independent consulting services Cerberus Operations and Advisory Company in the performance of technical and market due diligence to assess the viability of an aviation innovation.  He provided independent consulting services to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through the Aerospace Corporation with a systems engineering program assessment of the Artemis program in Spring 2020.

From 2006 to 2019, Mr. Reaser led Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems’ Spectrum Management and Electromagnetic Environmental Effects Department.  He was an Air Force Officer from 1978 to 2006 when he retired as a Colonel. While in the Air Force, Reaser served in the Air Force’s Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) Joint Program Office (JPO) twelve years across three duty tours as a satellite engineer, satellite contract manager, chief engineer, and deputy system program director.  While serving as the Defense Department’s deputy director of spectrum management, he was detailed by the Deputy Secretary of Defense to the White House and the State Department as a technical advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC). In the late 1990s he was selected as U.S. spokesperson and leader of the interagency effort to prevent GPS spectrum encroachment. He helped the US and Europe obtain new international spectrum for GPS and Galileo at two World Radio Conferences (2000 and 2003).  He negotiated the technical agreement between the Europe Union (EU) and the United States to share spectrum between the two systems in 2004. He led the design efforts for three new GPS civil signals L1C, L2C and L5 as well the new military signal called M-Code.

Mr. Reaser was appointed by the Secretary of Commerce in January 2009 to the Commerce Spectrum Management Federal Advisory Committee as a Special Government Employee where he served for a decade.  In 2015 he was selected by the National Research Council (NRC) to serve on a Congressionally-directed committee that provided scientific, technical and management recommendations regarding Commerce Department’s telecom labs.

Mr. Reaser is currently serving on a Congressionally-directed National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) committee reviewing Federal Communications Commission order FCC 20-48, which authorized Ligado Networks LLC to operate a low-power terrestrial radio network adjacent to the Global Positioning System (GPS) frequency band.

Frank Lind

I was born near Portland, Oregon. After attending high school in Seattle, I studied at the University of Washington, where I received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science in 1994. I then joined the UW Geophysics Program and pursued studies leading to the Doctor of Philosophy in Geophysics in 1999. My work there focused on passive radar observations of the aurora borealis. Currently, I am a Research Engineer at MIT Haystack Observatory, where I develop and operate ground- and space-based radio science instrumentation.

My research focuses on radio science, advanced radar and radio arrays, space plasma physics, software radar, novel sensors and signal processing, and satellite instrumentation.

Keith Gremban

Data and Machine Learning Project Team Lead
COLORADO CENTER FOR ASTRODYNAMICS RESEARCH (CCAR)

Focus Area:

Remote Sensing, Earth & Space Science

Education:

PhD, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
MS, Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
MS, Applied Mathematics, Michigan State University
BS, Mathematics, Michigan State University

Professional Experience:

2020 – Present, Program Manager, 5G-to-NextG Initiative, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, US Department of Defense
2020 – Present, Research Professor, Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
2020 – Present, Senior Fellow, Silicon Flatirons Center, University of Colorado Boulder
2019 – 2020, Research Professor, Technology, Cybersecurity, and Policy Program, University of Colorado Boulder
2015 – 2019, Director, Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, National Telecommunications and Information Administration
2014 – 2015, Founder, Shavano Systems LLC
2011 – 2014, Program Manager, Strategic Technologies Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
2009 – 2010, Director, Computer Systems Research, SET Corporation, a Science Applications International Corporation Company
2007 – 2009, Director, Denver Advanced Technology Division, SET Corporation, a Science Applications International Corporation Company
2006 – 2007, Assistant Vice President and Division Manager, Science Applications International Corporation
2002 – 2006, Senior Scientist, Science Applications International Corporation
1998 – 2002, Senior Research Engineer, SRI International, Englewood, CO
1997 – 1998, Senior Systems Engineer, Computing Devices International (CDInt)
1995 – 1998, Senior Scientist, CTA Incorporated
1988 – 1995, Graduate Student and Research Assistant, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
1980 – 1988, Staff Engineer, Martin Marietta Corporation

Awards (Selected):

Senior Fellow, Silicon Flatirons Center, University of Colorado Wolf School of Law

Research Interests:

RF noise measurement and analysis
Spectrum monitoring
Spectrum sharing
Internet of Things

Phil Erickson

I am an associate director at Haystack (2020; previously assistant director from 2015), Principal Research Scientist at MIT, and I also lead Haystack’s very productive Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Group.  I conduct fundamental research on the near-Earth space environment, primarily through radio-based experiments and data analysis using a variety of remote sensing techniques involving ground- and space-based data.

I am the lead principal investigator for the community-oriented Millstone Hill Geospace Facility (MHGF), a prime North American space science observatory sponsored by the National Science Foundation for mid-latitude ionospheric remote sensing and scientific analysis.

Recently, the Group has initiated direct measurements from low Earth orbit for ionospheric physics.  I am the principal investigator for the forthcoming Auroral Emission Radio Observer (AERO), a NASA Heliophysics funded small satellite mission led by MIT Haystack.  I am also a co-investigator on the Haystack-led and simultaneously launched NASA Vector Interferometry Space Technology using AERO (VISTA) small satellite mission.

I am a co-director of the education and public outreach efforts at MIT Haystack, spanning undergraduate research programs, graduate student interactions including graduate student committee membership, K-12 classroom units and outreach, and public Observatory tours and lectures.

I am an active member of the HamSCI collective for amateur-professional activities and research, engaging the 750,000+ amateur radio operators in the United States for fundamental ionospheric citizen science. This includes active amateur radio participation (call sign W1PJE).

I serve as a journal reviewer, public lecturer, workshop session convener (CEDAR, GEM, AGU Space Physics and Aeronomy), and member of various space science committees. These include the Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF), convened by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) Board on Physics and Astronomy. CORF considers the needs for radio frequency requirements and interference protection for scientific and engineering research, and coordinates the views of U.S. scientists. In general, CORF acts as an important channel for representing the interests of U.S. scientists in Earth science and radio astronomy passive and active remote sensing matters.

My training in ionospheric physics and Thomson/incoherent scatter radar theory and practice (B.S. 1987; Ph.D., 1998) came from the seminal Space Plasma Physics group within Electrical Engineering at Cornell University, where my principal advisors and mentors were Donald T. Farley, Michael C. Kelley, and Wesley E. Swartz. I have been a Haystack staff member since 1995.

I grew up in Schenectady, NY, home of General Electric’s seminal Research and Development Laboratory, where both my mother and father worked (microbiology and metallurgy, respectively) and where the great Irving Langmuir, coiner of the word “plasma” for 99% of the known universe, conducted research. I live in central Massachusetts with many hobbies including music, photography, history of technology, and keeping up with my son James and art historian wife Sarah.

Tony Beasley

Tony Beasley became the Director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in May 2012 and serves as AUI’s Vice President for NRAO. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Physics with First Class Honors (1986), and a PhD in Astrophysics (1991) from the University of Sydney. His doctoral thesis examined magnetic field generation and solar-stellar activity in post-main-sequence stars. His scientific interests include non-thermal stellar radio emission, Very Long Baseline Interferometry techniques, radio supernovae, and astrometry of stellar/interstellar masers.

He first joined NRAO as a post-doc, then as a scientific staff member and senior manager in Socorro, NM and Charlottesville, VA. Since 2000, his career has focused on the design, construction, operation, and management of major scientific research facilities, with roles including: Project Manager for the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA), 2000-2004; ALMA Project Manager at the Joint ALMA Observatory in Chile, 2004-2008, leading the ALMA construction project through multiple international reviews and a major re-baselining effort; Operations Officer and Project Manager for NEON (National Ecological Observatory Network), 2008-2012, leading this continental-scale observatory designed to provide scientists with 30 years of ecological data on the impacts of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on natural resources and biodiversity.

Kazunori Akiyama

I am an astrophysicist working on the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project. I primarily study black holes with and develop imaging algorithms for the EHT.

I was born and educated in Japan. I received my undergraduate degree in Physics from Hokkaido University in 2010. Then, I completed my M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs in Astronomy at the University of Tokyo in 2012 and 2015, respectively, under the supervision of Prof. Mareki Honma at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) Mizusawa VLBI Observatory. I started to work at Haystack Observatory as a postdoctoral fellow in 2015.

2020: http://news.mit.edu/2020/kazunori-akiyama-receives-young-astronomer-award-0302