Spectrum Week is back in 2024: Co-locating six major spectrum events

The second annual U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Spectrum Week is open for  registration. This year, NSF Spectrum Week will be hosted May 13-17, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia. It will bring together six major spectrum events and create an even bigger opportunity for cross-collaborations than its first year in 2023. The collaborative organizational effort is again being led by SpectrumX, an academic hub where all spectrum innovators come together to innovate, collaborate, and contribute to the advancement of radio spectrum resources and sciences.

NSF SpectrumX members help lead 50th Anniversary USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting

In January 2024, the National Radio Science Meeting celebrated its 50th anniversary. Twelve members of the SpectrumX, the National Science Foundation Spectrum Innovation Center, including two of the center’s students, were in attendance to further national conversations about radio science, telecommunications and electrical engineering.

The meeting, hosted by the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) and the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, took place from January 9-12, and resulted in the discussion of 12 research papers co-authored by SpectrumX members.

SpectrumX founding research partner named director of MIT Haystack Observatory

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has announced that Philip Erickson was named the director of the MIT Haystack Observatory, effective January 1, 2024. Erickson has served as the Observatory’s associate director and geospace lead scientist since 2020.

Erickson is a founding member and research partner of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) SpectrumX, an NSF Spectrum Innovation Center. Erickson participated in Project Teams (PT) for Sensing and Data, as well as Working Groups (WG) in Policy and Economic Policy Research.

Electrical and computing engineering students learn academic research methods with SpectrumX at UCLA

Over the summer of 2023, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) hosted three SpectrumX-sponsored students in its National Science Foundation (NSF) research experience for undergraduate (REU) program. These students were paired with graduate students to pursue research in the electrical and computer engineering field and were guided through the process researchers take from project formation to presentation throughout the 10-week program.

Two SpectrumX Colleagues Receive Google Endowed Professorships

Florida A&M University (FAMU) has named two SpectrumX-affiliated faculty as Google endowed computer science and computer engineering progressors: Shonda Bernadin, Ph.D., an associate professor in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Hongmei Chi, Ph.D., a professor in the FAMU College of Science & Technology’s (CST) Department of Computer and Information Sciences.

Founding SpectrumX Broadening Participation Director Promoted at CU Boulder

SpectrumX’s founding Broadening Participation Director, Dr. Tanya Ennis, began her career as an electrical engineer and found her passion opening doors for young engineers through education.

Since March 2022, Ennis has served as both Broadening Participation Director for both SpectrumX and the Research Support Office in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder). As of October 2023, she has been promoted and transitioned to a new role as Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Research, Creative Work and Innovation in the Research and Innovation Office at CU Boulder. She will continue to support SpectrumX indirectly through this new role, but has stepped down from her day-to-day responsibilities in the center.

SpectrumX leadership, researchers attend NASEM CORF at CU Boulder to present on center, pressing issues in spectrum policy, security

The University of Colorado Boulder (CU) hosted the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM)’s Committee on Radio Frequencies (CORF) Fall meeting on October 3-4, 2023.  CORF considers the needs for radio frequency requirements and interference protection for scientific and engineering research, coordinates the views of U.S. scientists, and acts as a channel for representing the interests of U.S. scientists.

SpectrumX’s fall meeting introduces new ways to engage with the center’s work

Unveiling comprehensive undergraduate research experience programs, introducing a new board of advisory members, and launching a flagship workshop on crafting comments on policy for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) were just some of the top agenda items for attendees of SpectrumX’s Fall 2023 Center meeting. The meeting took place at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, from October 9 and 10, 2023. It brought the multi-institutional center, composed of 27 founding institutions and led by the University of Notre Dame, to the upper midwest to discuss research progress, center initiatives, and more.

SpectrumX research partners, students present research findings at TPRC 51

In September, SpectrumX researchers—along with industry and government representatives—came together at TPRC 51: The 51st Annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference in Washington, DC. 

For many of the Center’s spectrum researchers, TPRC is a regular part of their annual calendar.

“TPRC once again provided an exceptional forum to discuss spectrum management. What seemed different – and even better – is that the SpectrumX participation is becoming an annual feature and expectation,” said Ilia Murtazashvili, SpectrumX lead of Project Team Rights (PT-Rights) and professor at the University of Pittsburgh.