2026 AESS Award Recipients
Congratulations to all AESS and RadarConf'26 Award Recipients on these remarkable achievements. Thank you for your hard work, dedication, and contributions to the AESS and Radar communities!
2026 IEEE Dennis J. Picard Medal
Yoshio Yamaguchi - For contributions to polarimetric synthetic aperture radar imaging and its utilization.
As it stands today, the IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest. Congratulations to the AESS members who were elevated to IEEE Fellow in 2026!
Igal Bilik - for the development of automotive radar technology
Andrew Dempster - for contributions to space engineering research and management
Boris Pervan - for contributions to satellite navigation integrity
Roberto Sabatini - for leadership in digital avionics for sustainability and trusted autonomy
2026 IEEE AESS Judith A. Resnik Space Award
Daniel A. Erwin - For exemplary leadership, contributions to aerospace systems engineering, and sustained mentorship of the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory student team leading to the world altitude record for a student-built rocket.
Maria Sabrina Greco - for contribution to radar detection, clutter modeling and cognitive radars
2026 Fred Nathanson Memorial Radar Award
Xiangrong Wang - for contributions on reconfigurable sparse array design and signal processing with application to radar
2026 Industrial Innovation Award
Mark Levendahl and John Glass - For the improved batch least-squares algorithm provides dynamic calibration and compensation of ephemeral errors that cannot be removed by static calibration, such as non-uniform temperature gradients on the array or local atmospheric disturbances altering actual refraction, maintaining low relative error between tracks in conditions that can cause significant disturbance to the track picture without the iBLS algorithm.
Rong Yang - For contributions to advance resilient position, navigation, and timing and enhance GNSS performance in challenging environments.
2025 IEEE AESS Robert T. Hill Best Dissertation Award
Sharbel Kozhaya - In recognition of the Ph.D. dissertation “Exploiting unknown LEO satellite signals: From beacon estimation to satellite tracking to PNT”
2026 IEEE Michael C. Wicks Radar Student Travel Grant
- Matteo Pardi for the paper entitled "A Unified Maximum-Likelihood Framework for 3D InISAR Phase Unwrapping with Outlier Rejection"
2024 Harry Rowe Mimno Award
Terahertz-Band Integrated Sensing and Communications: Challenges and Opportunities
Ahmet M. Elbir, Mehdi Bennis, Kumar Vijay Mishra, and Symeon Chatzinotas
2022 M. Barry Carlton Award
Acquisition, Doppler Tracking, and Positioning With Starlink LEO Satellites: First Results
Mohammad Neinavaie, Joe Khalife, Zaher M. Kassas
2025 IEEE AESS Technical Panel of the Year Award
Glue Technology for Space Systems, chaired by Claudio Sacchi
2025 AESS Chapter of the Year Award
Tunisia Section Chapter, chaired by Jinene Ben Said
2025 AESS Student Branch Chapter of the Year Award
Yarmouk University Student Branch Chapter, chaired by Hassan Marwan Ibrahim Abu Sarris
2026 IEEE AESS Engineering Scholarship
Graduate
Samer Hayek, The Ohio State University
Undergraduates
Timothy Ayelagbe, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Maxwell Mamishev, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
RadarConf'26 Awards
Student Paper Award
Finalists
- 🥇 FIRST PLACE: Matteo Pardi, University of Pisa, “A Unified Maximum-Likelihood Framework for 3D InISAR Phase Unwrapping with Outlier Rejection”
- 🥈 SECOND PLACE: Fabian Hochberg, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, “Synchronization of a Multistatic High Resolution Imaging Radar Using Low-Cost Satellite TV Receiver Hardware”
- 🥉THIRD PLACE: Khuda Burdi, University of Oklahoma, “Maximizing Pattern Yield in UAS-Based Far-Field Characterization of Polarimetric Phased Array Radars with Optimal Polarization Configurations”