Nazanin Rahnavard

Nazanin Rahnavard is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF), College of Engineering and Computer Science, with a Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology (2007). Her research bridges theoretical signal processing and practical wireless networking applications.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007

Research Focus: She pioneers work in Compressive Sensing for spectrum efficiency, Radio Frequency Cartography for dynamic spectrum access, and Deep Learning applications in high-dimensional wireless data analysis. Her projects address critical challenges in cognitive radio networks and energy-aware sensor systems through tensor frameworks and spin-based device integration.

Scientific Recognition:

• National Science Foundation CAREER award (2011)
• Outstanding Research Award, Center for Signal and Image Processing, Georgia Tech (2007)
• UCF CAMP-YES Mentor of the Year Award (2016)

Research Leadership: As Principal Investigator, she directs four major funded projects: NSF's Tensor-based Radio Cartography framework, Energy-Aware Spectrally Sparse Signals research, STEM Transfer Students STRONG program, and IARPA's Deep Intermodal Video Analytics. Her mentorship extends through UCF's CAMP-YES program for underrepresented students.

Laboratory: She leads the Computational Wireless Networking Lab (CWN Lab) at UCF, evidenced by her research portal cwnlab.eecs.ucf.edu, focusing on next-generation wireless network architectures and AI-driven spectrum management.