- Class: 2025 (Master's Degree)
- Graduate Program: Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Out-of-Classroom Experiences/Interests:
- Research project with Air Force Research Lab (AFRL)
- Multiple internships
Why Miami?
When I came to Miami, it was such a beautiful campus, and it felt very homey. Feeling like I like I fit in here at Miami was a quality that I liked about it. Then I got to meet some of the staff here, and I instantly knew that they were really smart people, doing really cool things, and they were going to be supportive people that I really wanted to work with.
Why Did You Decide To Pursue Your Master's at Miami?
When I was a senior, I didn't initially have plans to get my master's. I hadn't decided one way or the other. Then Dr. Gvarnichuk approached me with this research topic, and I thought was really interesting and worth pursuing, especially with the potential to have it funded by the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL).
We had to compete with projects from several other universities in order to get this funding and I was lucky enough to be one of the product research projects chosen to be funded.
What Is The Research About?
My research idea is combining both radar and communications into a single system so that you can scan for things with radar, while at the same time be transmitting data to other people.
A good civilian application of this technology would be in a disaster scenario, say post-hurricane, when you're trying to find survivors. You can use this radar to scan for survivors in the ground while also communicating with the first responders working on the ground.
In a military scenario, you can have an airplane flying overhead that wants to scan for enemy targets, but you also have allies on the ground that you want to communicate a message to. You can scan the scene for the enemies while simultaneously communicating back and forth with your allies on the ground.
Why Is This Important?
Radar and communications are two separate fields that have lots of applications, both civil and military. As separate systems, though, they both have their inefficiencies that requires multiple people to work both systems. It's a lot of time and money for individual systems for both things. So my research is that you combine the two systems to operate simultaneously so that you can both scan with radar and also be able to transmit data with the same signal.
How is Miami Preparing You For Your Future?
Miami is really preparing me for my future career. They have a really broad education in all fields of engineering. I've done internships in multiple fields. And in each one, I felt like I had skills to bring to it and that I wasn't going in lacking any sort of preparation. They also have lots of hands-on work that they give us. So you're not just sitting in a classroom, learning from a textbook. You're actually applying the skills you're being taught, developing the new technology, and working with what's being used in the field.