Electrical Engineering Alumnus Earns Dissertation Recognition

March 9, 2022 – Samueli School alumnus Joe Khalife ’20 Ph.D., electrical engineering, has received the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society ‘s 2021 Robert T. Hill Best Dissertation Award. Khalife who currently works as a wireless systems engineer at Apple, previously worked as a postdoctoral scholar in the research laboratory of Zak Kassas, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.

Khalife’s doctoral dissertation addressed the vulnerabilities of global navigation satellite systems by exploiting other existing signals for navigation purposes, even if they were not designed for navigation. These include cellular signals, Wi-Fi, satellite communications and many others. Khalife’s dissertation presents the theory for navigating with cellular signals of opportunity, supports the concept with extensive simulations, and validates the proposed methods with several experimental demonstrations that show UAVs navigating within submeter accuracy using cellular signals exclusively.

“I am incredibly honored to receive this recognition,” said Khalife. “My Ph.D. journey was very challenging and demanding. It is therefore incredibly rewarding to see my hard work recognized by the community. I am also grateful to all the people who supported me along the way, my adviser Zak Kassas, my colleagues at the ASPIN lab, and several faculty and staff in the EECS and MAE departments at UCI. I am especially thankful for UCI’s Tryphon Georgiou, who not only served on my defense committee, but also was one of the recommenders for the award, along with Mathieu Joerger from Virginia Tech.”

Established in 2015, the IEEE AESS Robert T. Hill Best Dissertation Award is an annual award that recognizes candidates who have recently received a doctorate and have written an outstanding dissertation in a field of interest of the Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society.

– Lori Brandt