Short Biography
Ted Rappaport is the William and Bettye Nowlin Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and is the founding director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) at the university’s Austin campus, a center he founded in 2002. Prior to joining UT Austin, he was on the electrical and computer engineering faculty of Virginia Tech from 1988 to 2002, where he founded the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), one of the world’s first university research and teaching centers dedicated to the wireless communications field. Prof. Rappaport has been a pioneer in the fields of radio wave propagation and wireless communication system design. His research has influenced many international wireless standard bodies over the past two decades, and his work has led to the broad acceptance of site-specific radio frequency (RF) channel modeling and design for broadband wireless network deployment. Dr. Rappaport is one of the most highly cited authors in the wireless field, according to ISI Highly Cited, having published over 200 technical papers. As a faculty member, Rappaport has advised approximately 100 students who continue to accomplish great things in the communications and electromagnetics fields throughout industry, academia, and government.
In 2006, Rappaport was elected to serve on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc), and was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) in 2008. He is a fellow of the IEEE and serves on the editorial boards of several academic and technical journals. He received the Marconi Young Scientist Award in 1990, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship in 1992, the Sarnoff Citation from the Radio Club of America in 2000, the Fredrick E. Terman Outstanding Electrical Engineering Faculty Award from the ASEE in 2002, and the Stuart F. Meyer Award from the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society in 2005. In 2004 Rappaport was named an Outstanding Electrical and Computer Engineering Alumni from his alma mater, Purdue University. Rappaport has over 100 U.S. or international patents issued or pending and has authored, co-authored, and co-edited 18 books in the wireless field, including Wireless Communications: Principles & Practice (translated into 9 languages), Principles of Communication Systems Simulation with Wireless Applications, and Smart Antennas for Wireless Communications: IS-95 and Third Generation CDMA Applications. In 1999, his work on site-specific propagation received the IEEE Communications Society Stephen O. Rice Prize Paper Award. In 1989, he founded TSR Technologies, Inc., a cellular radio/PCS software radio manufacturer that he sold in 1993 to what is now CommScope, Inc (NYSE: CTV). In 1995, he founded Wireless Valley Communications Inc., a pioneering creator of site-specific radio propagation software for wireless network design and management that he sold in 2005 to Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT). Rappaport has testified before the US Congress, has served as an international consultant for the ITU, has consulted for over 25 major telecommunications firms, and works on many national committees pertaining to communications research and technology policy. He is a highly sought-after consultant and technical expert. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1982, 1984, and 1987, respectively.
