Life Fellows
Dr. Sudakhar Rao
Life Fellow WAMS society receiving medal
Dr. Sudhakar Rao is the president & CEO of RaoS Consultants LLC providing technical consultancy to several companies. Over the past 47 years of his professional career, he worked at Northrop Grumman Space Systems (2010-2022), Lockheed Martin (2003-2010). Boeing Satellite Systems (1996-2003), Spar Aerospace Ltd, Montreal (1983-1996), University of Mani- toba (1982-1983), University of Trondheim, Norway (1981-1982), LRDE, Ban- galore (1980-1981). IIT Madras (1977-1979) and ECIL, Hyderabad (1976-1977). He developed and successfully implemented antenna pay- loads for 90 different satellites and 10 aircraft, vehicular and ground com- munications programs. Dr. Rao’s work on complex satellite antenna pat- tems was adopted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)/C- CIR in 1992 as the world-wide standard for satellite manufacturers and op- erators. He authored over 230 technical papers and was awarded with 57 patents (51 US & 6 European) and 5 trade secrets. He received several awards from IEEE, Boeing’s, Lockheed Martin’s, IEEE Region 6 Outstanding Engineer Award for 2017 and the 2017 Northrop Grumman’s President Award. He received Distinguished Alumni Professional Achievement Award from his alma mater NIT Warangal in 2016, IETE’s Prof. S.N. Mitra Me- morial Award, and IETE’s Biman Behari Sen Memorial Award. Dr. Rao served as the IEEE APS DL and AdCom member. He was the founder and Chair for the IEEE APS “Industry Initiatives Committee”, served as IEEE APS Fellow Evaluation Committee member, founder and Editor of the IEEE An- tennas & Propagation Magazine’s “Antenna Applications Comer”, Asso- ciate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Antennas & Propagation, and As- sociate Editor of IEEE AWPL. He is the founding EC member of the WAMS series of conferences in India. He instituted IETE-Dr. Sudhakar Rao Award in 2020 to recognize and honor outstanding antenna engineers.
Dr. Nacer Chahat
(NASA/JPL)
Life Fellow WAMS society receiving medal
Dr. Nacer Chahat (NASA/JPL) received the Master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Ecole Supérieur d’ingénieurs de Rennes (ESIR), Rennes, France, in 2009; the Master’s degree in telecommunication and the Ph.D. degree in signal processing and telecommunications from the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications of Rennes (IETR), University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France, in 2009 and 2012, respectively. He is a Senior Antenna/Microwave Engineer with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Califomia Institute of Technology, Pasade na, CA. Since 2013, he has been a Microwave/Antenna Engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and he has been Technical Section Staff and Product Delivery Manager since 2017. He has authored and coau- thored more than 100 technical journal articles and conference papers. has written four book chapters, and also holds several patents. He also wrote the textbook entitled “CubeSat Antenna Designs” published by Wiley describing all of his innovative work on CubeSat antennas devel- oped at JPL. He has developed key antenna technologies enabling new types of mission for Deep Space Exploration. He is co-inventor of the iconic deployable reflectarray used on the Mars Cube One (MarCO) mission, the world’s first interplanetary CubeSat. He also co-invented the award-win- ning Raincube mesh lector antenna used on the first active radar on a CubeSat. He also invented the Europa Lander antenna enabling direct communication from the surface of Europa (600 million km away), capa- ble of surviving the harsh environment of icy moon of Jupiter.He was awarded by Foundation of Rennes 1. Best Ph.D. of University of Rennes. In 2013, he received the Best Ph.D. thesis in France in electrical engineering awarded by club EEA. In 2013, he was awarded the Airbus Group Founda- fion’s Best Thesis Prize in France. In 2015, he received a French Early Career Award for Researchers (Prix Bretagne Jeune Chercheur) for his significant scientific contribution in his early career.
Dr. Navin Kumar
Dr. Mahesh Appajappa receiving medal of
Dr. Navin Kumar
Dr. Navin Kumar serves as Chairperson and Professor at the Department of Electronics and Communication, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bengaluru. Dr. Navin obtained his Ph.D. in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Porto, Aveiro and Minho – Portugal, Europe (2007-2011) and M.Tech in Digital System Engineering from Motilal National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, India in the year 2000. He did his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, New Delhi in 1996. Dr. Navin has over 24 years of working experience in Government, Industry and academia in IT and Telecommunication area. He has over 10 years of overseas experience in teaching, research and development. Navin has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and IEEE conference proceedings. In addition, he has also authored a book, edited books and book chapters. Dr. Navin has been awarded the Fraunhofer Challenge award (Portugal-EU) in the academic year 2010-2011 for the best PhD thesis work. He also received a research grant from Govt. of Portugal towards his Ph.D. research work. Navin is the recipient of the Gowri Memorial award, India in the year 2009 for the best journal paper and many best international conference papers. He is Fellow of Institution of Engineers (FIE-India), Charter Engineer (IE-India), Fellow European Association for Innovation (F-EAI), Sr. Member of IEEE, Life Member IETE-India, Life Member AIENG (HK). Dr. Navin has been giving tutorial at IEEE flagship conferences like ICC, WCNC. He regularly speaks and delivers talks as keynote, invited speakers in conferences and workshops. He has successfully guided 3 PhD and 6-PhD scholars are working with him, most of them in 5G Wireless Technology. He leads 5G India Forum (5GIF) at ITU towards evaluation of IMT 2020 candidate technology. His research area includes 5G (mmWave, Architecture and Massive MIMO), Intelligent Transportation Systems, Visible Light Communication, Optical Wireless Communication, IoT& Smart City and Wireless/Mobile Communications & Networks. He is very active in organizing workshops (local and international), conferences etc. He is the Vice Chair Membership Activity in IEEE Bangalore Section and Chair, IEEE VTS Bangalore.