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Robert Heath

Adjunct Professor
Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Robert W. Heath Jr. is an Adjunct Professor and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin.

He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and the Ph.D. from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 2002, all in electrical engineering. From 1998 to 2001, he was a Senior Member of the Technical Staff then a Senior Consultant at Iospan Wireless Inc, San Jose, CA where he worked on the design and implementation of the physical and link layers of the first commercial MIMO-OFDM communication system. Since January 2002, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin where he is a Cullen Trust for Higher Education Endowed Professor, and is a Member of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group. He is also President and CEO of MIMO Wireless Inc.,  Chief Innovation Officer at Kuma Signals LLC. His research interests include several aspects of wireless communication and signal processing: limited feedback techniques, multihop networking, multiuser and multicell MIMO, interference alignment, adaptive video transmission, manifold signal processing, and millimeter wave communication techniques. He is a co-author of the book “Millimeter Wave Wireless Communications” published by Prentice Hall in 2014 and "Digital Wireless Communication: Physical Layer Exploration Lab Using the NI USRP," published by the National Technology and Science Press in 2012.

Dr. Heath has been an Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communication, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology,  and lead guest editor for an IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications special issue on limited feedback communication, and lead guest editor for an IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing special issue on Heterogenous Networks. He was on the steering committee for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications from 2011-2014. He was a member of the Signal Processing for Communications Technical Committee in the IEEE Signal Processing Society and is a former  Chair of the IEEE COMSOC Communications Technical Theory Committee. He was a technical co-chair for the 2007 Fall Vehicular Technology Conference, general chair of the 2008 Communication Theory Workshop, general co-chair, technical co-chair and co-organizer of the 2009 IEEE Signal Processing for Wireless Communications Workshop, local co-organizer for the 2009 IEEE CAMSAP Conference, technical co-chair for the 2010 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory,  the technical chair for the 2011 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, general chair for the 2013 Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, founding general co-chair for the 2013 IEEE GlobalSIP conference, and was technical co-chair for the 2014 IEEE GLOBECOM conference.

Dr. Heath was a co-author of best paper awards at IEEE  VTC 2006 Spring, WPMC 2006, IEEE GLOBECOM 2006, IEEE VTC 2007 Spring, IEEE RWS 2009, and IEEE GLOBECOM 2015, as well as co-recipient of the Grand Prize in the 2008 WinTech WinCool Demo Contest.  He was co-recipient of the 2010 and 2013 EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking best paper awards, the 2012 Signal Processing Magazine best paper award, a 2013 Signal Processing Society best paper award, the 2014 EURASIP Journal on Advances in Signal Processing best paper award,  the 2014 Journal of Communications and Networks best paper award,  the 2016 IEEE Communications Society Fred W. Ellersick Prize, and the 2016 IEEE Communications Society and Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award. He was a 2003 Frontiers in Education New Faculty Fellow. He is also a licensed Amateur Radio Operator, a registered Professional Engineer in Texas, and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Research Interests
millimeter wave
5G cellular
MIMO communication systems