ITI Faculty Named as Fellows of the IEEE

Professors Nitin Vaidya and Jennifer Bernhard

Two professors in the Information Trust Institute (ITI) have just been named Fellows by the IEEE, which is regarded as the world's leading professional organization for engineers. The 2010 class of IEEE Fellows includes ITI professors Nitin H. Vaidya and Jennifer T. Bernhard.

IEEE uses the Fellow designation to recognize "unusual distinction in the profession" and is given to individuals "of outstanding and extraordinary qualifications and experience" who have made important contributions in IEEE fields of interest.

"These fellow honors are another reminder of ITI's strength in secure and reliable wireless systems research," said ITI Director William H. Sanders. "We're very fortunate to have both of these exceptional researchers working at Illinois."

Vaidya, an Electrical & Computer Engineering professor whose research focuses on wireless networks, was honored "for contributions to wireless networking protocols and mobile communications." The design of wireless protocols and networks "involves numerous security and reliability issues," explained Vaidya, whose research group has been studying a range of issues related to trustworthy wireless networking, mobile computing, and distributed algorithms.

For example, Vaidya is the lead investigator of a project entitled "Efficient Multicasting for Multi-Channel Multi-Interface Wireless Mesh Networks," which is housed in ITI's Boeing Trusted Software Center. That project is working to exploit diversity for throughput enhancement in wireless networks. In particular, the project is developing a suitable architecture and an implementation and simulation of protocols designed to exploit multiple radio interfaces, channels, and receivers.

Bernhard, whose primary academic appointment is likewise in the department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, pursues research in applications-oriented electromagnetic problems. One major focus of her work is on electromagnetics for wireless communication, investigating the effects of packaging on antenna performance and using the results to develop design-oriented models. That work is also generating synthesis approaches for internal portable antenna systems that produce desired performance while reducing user exposure and battery usage. Another focus of Bernhard's work is on reconfigurable active and passive antennas, looking at ways to provide flexibility in operating frequency, bandwidth, and radiation pattern performance. She anticipates that the new multi-function antennas developed in this research will dramatically reduce the number and size of large array-based antenna systems, improve system efficiency, and decrease system cost and weight.

She received the IEEE honor "for development of multifunctional, reconfigurable, and integrated antennas."

1/4/10