CERF Poster and Three-Minute Thesis Awards

Best Poster Award Program was established in 2015 to recognize excellence in the dissemination and the presentation of ESL research at the Annual CERF Technical Meeting & Affiliates Dinner. 

The award is designed to:

  • Promote interest in the dissemination of EM and RF research.
  • Increase the quality of poster presentations.
  • Acknowledge excellence in this valuable medium.

The award is presented annually to the poster presenters receiving the most number of votes for first place (Best Poster) and second place. The authors of the first and second best posters receive a cash prize of $200 and $100, respectively. Each author and co-author of the first and second place posters receive a certificate acknowledging their successful poster presentation. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CERF poster program transitioned into Three-Minute Thesis competition to accommodate an online meeting format.

2023 CERF Three-Minute Thesis Winners

  • First Place: Krutant Mehta, Electrically Small Antenna Arrays for DOA Estimation of More Sources than Sensors

  • Second Place: Joe Vinci, Preliminary Phased Array Data from the Coastal Land-Air-Sea Interactions Mission, Florida, 2023

  • Third Place: Indranil Nayak, Accelerating Time-Domain Electromagnetic Solvers using Real-Time Machine Learning (ML)

2023 CERF Three-Minute Thesis Winners

  • First Place: Sharbel Kozhaya, Opportunistic Navigation with Multi-Constellation LEO Satellites
  • Second Place: Luke Newton, Characterization of Antenna Arrays via Open-air-Fixture Model of Backscattered Signals
  • Third Place: Sam Coogle, Classifying Cognitive Workload from MagnetoCardioGraphy Data

Past Award Winners

2022

Three-Minute Thesis Winners

  • First place: Trevor Dean, Improved Phase Modular for Outphasing Transmitters
  • Second place: Indranil Nayak, Forecasting Electromagnetic Fields Using Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD): A Data-Driven Approach
  • Third place: Connor Jenkins, Magnetoinductive Waveguides for Wireless Body Area Networks

Best Poster Winners

  • First place: Jacob Compaleo, Spectral Domain Sparse Representation for DOA Estimation of Signals with Large Dynamic Range
  • Second place: Justin Kuric, Development of a Software Defined Antenna Electronic (SDAE) System
  • Third place: Dustin Horton, Comparison of Time-Series-Soil Moisture Retrieval Bounds Using S-Band Backscatter from the SMEX02 Campaign

2021

Three-Minute Thesis Winners

  • 1st place: Jack Eichenberger, "Mechanically Reconfigurable slot Array Using Accordion-like Microactuator," Advised by Nima Ghalichechian.  
  • 2nd place: Aditya Nechiyil, "Anomalous IC Detection using a Cavity Resonator" Advised by Rob Lee
  • 3rd place: Brandi Downs, "Using Reflected GNSS Signals Observed from Space to Monitor Wetland Inundation," Advised by Andrew O'Brien and Joel Johnson

View a full list of past winners