News

WNCG professor Todd Humphreys has received the Institute of Navigation’s (ION) “highest honor.” Humphreys was elected to the membership rank of Fellow at ION’s International Technical Meeting in January. He is one of only three recipients of the honor for 2020. Humphreys’ election cited his “significant and fundamental contributions to PNT security and precise GNSS positioning for the mass market, and for dedication to GNSS education and outreach.”

WNCG alumnus Kyle Wesson was selected as the 2016-2017 Institute of Navigation’s (ION) Congressional Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Sponsored through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), ION’s congressional fellow is selected from among eligible ION members to serve a one year appointment in Washington, DC, as a member of the personal staff of a US Senator or House Representative or to the professional staff of a Congressional Committee.

Engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the AMOLF institute in the Netherlands have invented the first mechanical metamaterials that easily transfer motion effortlessly in one direction while blocking it in the other, as described in a paper published on Feb. 13 in Nature. The material can be thought of as a mechanical one-way shield that blocks energy from coming in but easily transmits it going out the other side.

Prof. Andrea Alù was recently appointed as a Simons Investigator in Physics. This program aims to provide a stable base of support for outstanding scientists, and enables them to undertake long-term investigations of fundamental questions in their fields. Each year, the Simons Foundation invites nominations from universities in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom for the Simons Investigators in Mathematics, Physics, Theoretical Computer Science and the Mathematical Modeling of Living Systems (MMLS) programs.

The third annual Simons Conference will explore the mathematics of stochastic processes and graphs for large graphs. The four-day conference, which will take place from May 9-12, 2016 at the Blanton Museum of Art on the UT Austin campus, brings together top researchers from various communities to provide a global picture of this broad subject. Each year, the Simons program alternates between an emphasis on either mathematics or network applications.

Hosted by the Department of Mathematics and the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) at the University of Texas at Austin, the Simons Conference on Networks and Stochastic Geometry is an annual event that brings together a diverse set of world-class researchers from various scientific communities to foster interdisciplinary engagement. The multi-day conference focuses on the intersection of mathematics and applications to drive the future of wireless, transportation, social and distribution networks. Simons Conference 2015 was chaired by WNCG Profs.

Manassas Virginia, January 28, 2015 - The Institute of Navigation (ION) presented its Thomas L. Thurlow Award to Dr. Todd Humphreys at the ION International Technical Meeting (ITM)in Dana Point, California, January 26-28, 2015. Dr. Humphreys was recognized for contributions that enhance radionavigation security and robustness in the face of intentional spoofing and natural interference.