Jafarkhani Elected to U. of Maryland Innovation Hall of Fame

July 31, 2017 - Hamid Jafarkhani, Samueli School Chancellor’s Professor of electrical engineering and computer science, earned his doctorate in 1997 from the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering. This year, a committee of experts at his alma mater unanimously selected him the sole 2017 inductee into its School of Engineering Innovation Hall of Fame.

Jafarkhani was elected for pioneering a variety of space-time methods and algorithms for multi-antenna wireless communication systems and networks. In its recommendation, the committee wrote, “It is estimated that space-time block codes have been used in billions of wireless devices worldwide, and some of [Jafarkhani’s] beamforming inventions are used in wireless communication standards.”

Well known as an inventor of space-time block coding, which is widely used to improve wireless transmission quality, he joined the UC Irvine faculty in 2001. His research encompasses communication theory, with emphases on coding and wireless communication and networks.

A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the IEEE, an ISI Highly Cited Researcher and author of the book “Space-Time Coding: Theory and Practice,” Jafarkhani is the Samueli School’s Conexant-Broadcom Endowed Chair and director of its Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing.

He also has amassed recognition closer to home, receiving the engineering school’s Fariborz Maseeh Best Faculty Research Award and its Excellence in Research Senior Career Award, as well the UCI Academic Senate’s Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Award for Research.

“It's an honor to receive such a recognition and be part of such an accomplished group,” said Jafarkhani, who will receive his award in a ceremony later this year.

- Anna Lynn Spitzer