Director

Research scientists and postdocs

Members of the Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems (INSI).

  • Portrait of Hadeel Elayan

    Hadeel Elayan

    Postdoctoral Fellow

    Nano-bio communication networks

    Bio

    Hadeel Elayan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northeastern University working in the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory under the guidance of Dr. Josep Miquel Jornet. She received her Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Toronto, in 2023, specializing in electromagnetic nanonetworks. Her doctoral work earned her recognition as one of the winners of the Innovators Under 35 MENA Awards by MIT Technology Review Arabia. In 2022, she was honored as a Rising Star in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) by the University of Texas at Austin for her research on terahertz-induced protein interactions. Hadeel received the Ontario Graduate Scholarship for academic excellence (International Student Category) twice during her Ph.D. Since 2018, she has served as the vice chair of the IEEE ComSoc Chapter Toronto Section.

  • Portrait of Paolo Testolina

    Paolo Testolina

    Research Scientist

    Spectrum sharing at terahertz frequencies

    Bio

    Paolo Testolina is a Research Scientist at WINES and UN laboratories at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. He got his B.S. degree in Information Engineering in 2013 and M.S. Degree in Telecommunication Engineering in 2016 from the University of Padova, Italy. During his Master's, he visited the Barcelona School of Telecommunications Engineering (ETSETB) Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Spain, for one year under the Erasmus+ Exchange Program. There, he developed his Master's thesis on Error Estimation in Synthetic Aperture Radars under the supervision of Prof. Jordi Mallorqui. The thesis focused on his hometown, Venice, and was rewarded by the Engineers Association of Venice as the best master's Thesis on the City of Venice. After one year as a Research Assistant at the SIGNET Lab at the University of Padova, he started his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Michele Zorzi. During his Ph.D., his research spanned all the layers of the communications stack, from channel modeling at mmWave to traffic modeling for eXtended Reality and vehicular communications. He was a visiting student at the WINES laboratory at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, under the supervision of Prof. Tommaso Melodia, Prof. Josep Jornet, and Prof. Michele Polese. There, he started working on spectrum sharing and coexistence, a topic that brought him back after the Ph.D., when, after one year as a Postdoc Researcher at the SIGNET lab, he joined the WINES and UN laboratories as a Postdoc Researcher, before being promoted to Research Scientist.His current research focuses on the study and design of wireless communications systems, with a keen interest in channel modeling, spectrum science, and everything space-related.

Ph.D. students

Ph.D. students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, graduate research assistants in the lab, and members of the Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems (INSI).

  • Portrait of Sherif Badran

    Sherif Badran

    Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant

    Ultrabroadband signal processing for terahertz communications

    • Elected Associate Member, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society (2026)
    Bio

    Sherif Badran received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2021, and the M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA, in 2023. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at Northeastern University under the supervision of Prof. Josep Miquel Jornet, where he also serves as a Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include terahertz communications, wireless communications, signal processing, and microwave engineering.

  • Portrait of Albert Diez Comas

    Albert Diez Comas

    Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant

    Terahertz reconfigurable surfaces

    • NSF Student Travel Grant, IEEE ICC 2026 (one of 16 recipients among 42 qualified applicants) (2026)
    Bio

    Albert Diez was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1997. He received both his B.S. and M.S. in Telecommunications Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, under the guidance of Prof. Josep Miquel Jornet. During his undergraduate years, he completed a joint bachelor’s thesis at the ALBA Synchrotron Light Facility, where he designed a resonator to perform microwave measurements of dielectric material which would be used in the CERN Future Circular Collider Study. During his graduate years, Albert interned at Ficosa S.A., where he carried out the maintenance and design of laboratory applications. For his master’s thesis, he investigated the use of leaky-wave antennas arrays for terahertz communications as a visiting student at Northeastern University. Since then, he has continued working on the research of novel antennas for the terahertz regime. His current interests include antennas, metasurfaces, and their application in waveform and wavefront engineering for terahertz communications.

  • Portrait of Amin Pishehvar

    Amin Pishehvar

    Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant

    Terahertz quantum communications

    Bio

    Amin Pishehvar was born in Shiraz, Iran, in 1996. He received his B.S. in Telecommunications Engineering from Shiraz University (Pahlavi University). During his undergraduate studies at Shiraz University, he collaborated with the ACL (Advanced Control Lab) lab on WSN and IoT projects under the supervision of Prof. Safavi and published a paper on wireless sensor networks. In 2019, he started his MS program under supervision of Prof. Dehkhoda and Prof. Tavakoli in the Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab, Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic), working on the shielding effectiveness of cylindrical shells. His master’s thesis project utilized cylindrical-FDTD for accurate simulation of the cylindrical shells with anisotropy in radial and azimuthal directions and introduced a new way of implementing CPML in cylindrical coordinates. After receiving his M.S. degree, he is currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree under the guidance of Professor Josep Miquel Jornet at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. His research in the UN lab focuses on enabling quantum communication in the terahertz regime.

  • Portrait of Sergey Petrushkevich

    Sergey Petrushkevich

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Terahertz networking and security

    Bio

    Sergey Petrushkevich is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Northeastern University (NU). He is a Graduate Research Assistant at the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking (UN) Laboratory, affiliated with the Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems (INSI). His research focuses on mobile Sub-THz/THz wireless communication systems.

    He received his B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering (Magna Cum Laude) in 2023 and his M.S. in Computer Engineering (Computer Networks and Security, GPA: 3.9/4.0) in 2025, both from Northeastern University. He joined the UN Lab as an undergraduate researcher in 2021. He also has industry experience through co-op positions at Kythera Space Solutions (Systems Development) and Boston Engineering (Embedded Software). Since January 2025, he has been a Graduate Researcher at Lockheed Martin, contributing to the development of next-generation 5G/6G wideband software-defined radios.

    His research interests include high-speed wireless systems (80Gbps+), fast adaptive beam tracking, multi-sensor fusion, software-defined radios (SDRs) using Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoCs, real-time signal processing, and experimental validation of new communication techniques. He is a key contributor to the THzAlign project, an experimental platform for testing beam realignment algorithms in sub-THz frequencies. His work has been published in leading conferences and journals.

  • Portrait of Ahmad Masihi

    Ahmad Masihi

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Coexistence at terahertz frequencies; pointing and ground-station lead for TeraLink-1

    Bio

    Ahmad Masihi is a Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern Univerity. He received the B.S. degree in electrical and telecommunications engineering from Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2019, and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2022. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering under the guidance of Dr. Josep Miquel Jornet in the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory.

  • Portrait of Andrew Benincasa

    Andrew Benincasa

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Terahertz non-terrestrial networks and hypersonic reentry communications; payload lead for TeraLink-1

    • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention (2026)
    Bio

    Andrew Benincasa received the B.S. in electrical engineering from Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY, USA, in 2024. In completion of this degree, he conducted his senior capstone project working with BAE Systems and Adaptive Adventures on developing wireless, voice-controlled shifting and braking mounts for handcycles and trikes to aid veterans who are unable to use conventional bike interfaces due to disabilities. From June to August 2022, he worked at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory through the Griffiss Institute in Rome, NY as an Information Directorate Intern researching GPS simulation through software-defined radios. The following summer from May to August 2023, he worked as a Systems Engineer Intern at Black River Systems Company in Utica, NY developing a smart traffic safety system for early curve alert using mmWave radars. Additionally, in June 2023 he attended the IEEE ComSoc School series in Boston at Northeastern University completing a week-long workshop on 6G and next-generation wireless technologies. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA under the guidance of Dr. Josep Miquel Jornet.

  • Portrait of Rob Dotson

    Rob Dotson

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Biological effects of terahertz radiation

    Bio

    Rob Dotson received the B.S. degree in computer science and the M.S. degree in software engineering from Harvard University. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in computer engineering with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern University, investigating the effects of terahertz communication technologies on biological systems, under the guidance of Dr. Josep Miquel Jornet in the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory.

  • Portrait of Jordan Elijah Denen

    Jordan Elijah Denen

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Near-field terahertz communications and sensing

    • Alsaif Fellowship Award, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University (2026)
    Bio

    Jordan Denen received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Cedarville University and the M.S. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Before joining the UN Lab, Jordan spent 9 years in various engineering roles at Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. He spent time at Lockheed Martin as a Mechanical and Systems Engineer. He then moved to Raytheon to pursue his interests in systems and electrical engineering by helping upgrade legacy analog systems into new digital receiver/exciter architectures for a global radar system and investigating new capabilities that can take advantage of this new architecture.

  • Portrait of Pau Sabater Nacher

    Pau Sabater Nacher

    Ph.D. Student and Graduate Research Assistant

    Near-field terahertz communications and sensing

    • Fundación Rafael del Pino Fellowship (2026)
    Bio

    Pau Sabater Nácher was born in 2003 in Algemesí, Valencia. With a strong foundation in mathematics, fostered through participation in regional and national competitions, he was awarded (2021) a full merit-based scholarship to move to Barcelona to pursue a B.Sc. in Mathematics and B.E. in Physics at the Centre de Formació Interdisciplinària Superior (CFIS), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC BarcelonaTech). Throughout his undergraduate studies, he actively engaged in multidisciplinary research and engineering projects. He began his applied work with the UPC EcoRacing Formula Student Team (2021), contributing to the development of high-performance electric vehicles. He later received a research grant at the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI, CSIC-UPC), where he worked on high-dynamics control systems and intelligent robotics, focusing on drones and quadruped platforms (2022). Driven by an interest in high-performance computing and machine learning hardware, Pau joined Esperanto Technologies, where he contributed to the development of RISC-V-based ML accelerators for AI workloads (2023). He is further expanding his research experience at the i2CAT Foundation / NEC Laboratories, working on next-generation communication systems and affective computing, applying transformer-based models to 3D point cloud data.He is currently completing his studies as a visiting researcher at Northeastern University, where he conducts research at the Ultrabroadband Nanonetworking Laboratory on THz-based wavefront engineering to enable robust, long-range wireless communications in obstructed environments. In parallel, he works at REVER (Y Combinator S22), contributing to AI-driven financial modeling and decision-support systems within large-scale reverse logistics operations. He is also part of the YCombinator-backed REVER (S22) team working on AI-supported financial decision-making.

Undergraduate researchers

  • Edmund Chin

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Ground station for the terahertz satellite communication system

Visiting scholars

  • Portrait of Sofia Figueiredo

    Sofia Figueiredo

    Visiting Research Assistant

    Ph.D. Student, Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal

    Bio

    Sofia Figueiredo is a Ph.D. student in Information Science and Technology at ISCTE-IUL and a researcher at the Institute of Telecommunications, where she is part of the Radio Systems and Organic Electronics research groups. She holds both a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in telecommunications and computer engineering from ISCTE-IUL. Her research focuses on emerging communication technologies, particularly nanonetworks, molecular communications, and the Internet of Bio-Nano Things, while also encompassing areas such as MIMO systems, signal processing, machine learning, electronics, and embedded systems.

  • Portrait of Junhyeong Jo

    Junhyeong Jo

    Visiting Research Assistant

    Ph.D. Student, Yonsei University, South Korea

    Bio

    Junhyeong Jo received the M.S. degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea, in 2023. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea. His research interests include the physical layer of non-terrestrial networks, artificial intelligence for communications, and inter-satellite links.

Student honors

Alumni

NameRole in the labYearsNow
Vitaly PetrovPostdoctoral Fellow2016–2024Tenure-track assistant professor at KTH, Sweden
Viduneth AriyarathnaPostdoctoral Fellow2020–2021Senior Engineer at Samsung
Samar ElmaadawyURSI Young Scientist Award, URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference (AP-RASC) 2025, Sydney, for “Cerebral Organoids Respond to Sub-Terahertz and Terahertz Radiation” (2025); NSF Student Travel Grant, IEEE GLOBECOM 2024 (2024); Travel Grant, International Conference on Mobile and Miniaturized Terahertz Systems (ICMMTS) 2025, Dubai (2024); IEEE ComSoc Student Travel Grant, IEEE Future Networks World Forum 2023 (2023)Ph.D. Student2020–2026Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Sergi AliagaHonorary Mention, IEEE ComSoc Student Competition 2024 (“Communications Technology Changing the World”), with Duschia Bodet and Matthew O’Rourke (2024); Student Travel Grant, IEEE GLOBECOM 2024 (2024)Ph.D. Student2021–2026Sweep 360
Xavier CantosPh.D. Student2019–2026Indra (Space)
Duschia BodetINSI/Qualcomm Travel Grant, Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems, Northeastern University (IEEE GLOBECOM 2025) (2026); Best Poster Award, INSI Industry Day 2026, Northeastern University (2026); Richard M. Horwitz Memorial Fund Award for Excellence in Electrical Engineering, Northeastern University (2025); IEEE Student Travel Grant, IEEE GLOBECOM 2025 (2025); Honorary Mention, IEEE ComSoc Student Competition 2024 (“Communications Technology Changing the World”), with Sergi Aliaga and Matthew O’Rourke (2024); Paul Baran Young Scholar Award, Marconi Society (2024); Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award in Research, Northeastern University (2024); First prize, Four-Minute Thesis (4MT) Competition, IEEE GLOBECOM 2023 (2023); College of Engineering M.S. Leadership Award, Northeastern University (2021)Ph.D. Student2020–2025Postdoctoral researcher at MIT, with Muriel Médard
Hussam AbdellatifPh.D. Student2018–2025Google
Ali Al QaraghuliNASA Postdoctoral Fellowship at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2023); IEEE AP-S C.J. Reddy Travel Grant for Graduate Students (2022)Ph.D. Student2018–2023Founder and Lead, Teralink Technologies
Justin CrabbPh.D. Student2018–2023Seagate
Amit SangwanRunner-up, University at Buffalo EE Poster Competition 2018 (2018)Ph.D. Student2016–2022Tenure-track assistant professor at SUNY Polytechnic
Innem Venkata Anudeep Kumar ReddyPh.D. Student2018–2022Corning
Priyangshu SenPh.D. Student2017–2022Tenure-track assistant professor at SUNY Polytechnic
Arjun SinghPresidential Fellowship (2017)Ph.D. Student2017–2021Associate Professor (tenured) at SUNY Polytechnic Institute
Honey PandeyPh.D. Student2017–2020Texas Instruments
Qing XiaPh.D. Student2014–2019Nokia
Mona NafariPh.D. Student2014–2018Nokia
Zahed HossainPh.D. Student2015–2018Amazon
Pedram JohariPh.D. Student2015–2017Research Associate at Northeastern University (Boston, NU)
Christopher BossoM.S. Student2016–2022Software Engineer at Mastodon Design LLC
Claire ParisiM.S. Student2021–2022US Air Force Research Laboratory, Information Directorate
Jacob HallM.S. Student2020–2022US Air Force Research Laboratory, Information Directorate
Christopher Tjahjadi-LopezM.S. Student2015–2019Northrop Grumman
Michael AndrelloM.S. Student2018–2019
Viswajith SingamaneniM.S. Student2018–2019Embedded Software Engineer-WLAN at Qualcomm
Doraditya NandanamudiM.S. Student2017–2018Koch Engineered Solutions (OnPoint)
Paulo DemeloM.S. Student2016–2018Application Engineer at Northrop Grumman
Pulkit HanswalM.S. Student2017–2018Modem Systems Engineer at Qualcomm
Sree HariniM.S. Student2017–2018Qualcomm
Luke ZakrajsekNSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2016)M.S. Student2015–2017RF Engineer at XCerra
Mahasweta BhattacharyaM.S. Student2016–2017Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UB
Ajeya GuptaM.S. Student2014–2015Advanced Network Electrical Engineer at Ford Motor Company (Michigan)
Prateek K. SinghM.S. Student2014–2015Ph.D. student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Sreya VedantM.S. Student2014–2015Application Engineer in the Internet of Things (IoT) Group at Intel (Michigan)
Ryan BrideM.S. Research Assistant2023–2024Northeastern University
Kevin YuM.S. Research Assistant2019–2020KMC Systems
Abhilash JoshiM.S. Research Assistant2017–2018Performics
Ashwin ChannawarM.S. Research Assistant2017–2018Qualcomm
Sumit KulkarniM.S. Research Assistant2017–2018Qualcomm
Chance BowmanUndergraduate Researcher2026
Laura TeixeiraPEAK Summit Fellowship, Northeastern University (2025)Undergraduate Researcher2025–2026
Alexander PerviziPEAK Ascent Award, Northeastern University (2022)Undergraduate Researcher2021–2025
Matthew GeiselUndergraduate Researcher2022–2025
Michelle UvaydovUndergraduate Researcher2025
Rachel RakushkinPEAK Summit Fellowship, Northeastern University (2026)Undergraduate Researcher2025–2026
Sarah NinanUndergraduate Researcher2022–2025
Tianyi SuUndergraduate Researcher2025
Anthony NgumahPEAK Ascent Award, Northeastern University (2022)Undergraduate Researcher2021–2024
Ollaya KrikibUndergraduate Researcher2022–2024Mechanical Engineering & Criminal Justice student at Northeastern University
Owen MotherwayUndergraduate Researcher2024Student at the University of Massachusetts Lowell
Paulitte NgangaUndergraduate Researcher2024
Satish NatarajanUndergraduate Researcher2020–2023
Daniel DevoryPEAK Base Camp Award, Northeastern University (2021)Undergraduate Researcher2020–2022
Isabelle BrandicourtUndergraduate Researcher2020–2022
Alejandra MorenoUndergraduate Researcher2021
Omar ShouraUndergraduate Researcher2021
Rachel JohnsonUndergraduate Researcher2021
Rohan SeelanUndergraduate Researcher2020
Taehoon YangUndergraduate Researcher2020M.S. student at Stanford University
Daniel UvaydovUndergraduate Researcher2016–2018Ph.D. student at Northeastern University
Sambhavi BellaryUndergraduate Researcher2017–2018Buro Happold
Yangyong ZhangUndergraduate Researcher2014–2015Ph.D. student at Texas A & M University
Isaac ChanHigh School Scholar2024
Kenneth SantizoHigh School Scholar2024
Logan RobertsHigh School Scholar2022Student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Andres Scully MoralesHigh School Scholar2021Math and Computer Science student at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell
Connie YangHigh School Scholar2021Bioengineering student at the University of Pennsylvania
Dongwook KimHigh School Scholar2018Electrical and Computer Engineering student at Seoul National University
Jeongjae LeeHigh School Scholar2018KAIST
Bharathi AsokVisiting Scholar, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering (SSN)2026
Daniel Ulied GuevaraVisiting Scholar, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche and i2CAT Foundation, Spain2025–2026
Harini SathyanarayananVisiting Scholar, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering (SSN)2026
Lukas BrandVisiting Scholar, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany2026
Rafael Ruiz OrtizVisiting Scholar, IMDEA Networks Institute, Spain2025–2026
Saranathan Iyengar SVisiting Scholar, Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering (SSN)2026
Timo JakumeitVisiting Scholar, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany2026
Andreia Rodrigues LopesVisiting Scholar, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV), Chile2024–2025
Hossein AmininasabVisiting Scholar, Tampere University, Finland2025
Marco LanzettiVisiting Scholar, University of Pavia, Italy2024–2025
Mustafa AlawadVisiting Scholar, The University of Texas at Dallas, USA2025
Sota UchimuraVisiting Scholar, University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan2024–2025
Anna GaydamakaVisiting Scholar, Tampere University, Finland2024
Gerard Bou CapdevilaVisiting Scholar, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain2024
Jofre Bonillo MessegueVisiting Scholar, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain2023
Daniel MoralesVisiting Scholar, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain2020
Chaochao WangVisiting Scholar, Zhejiang University of Technology, China2017–2018
Guillem CanoVisiting Scholar, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain2017–2018
Michael BarrosVisiting Scholar, TSSG, Waterford Institute of Technology2018
Joonas KokkoniemiVisiting Scholar, University of Oulu, Finland2017
Stefanus Arinno WirdatmadjaVisiting Scholar, Tampere University of Technology, Finland2017
Lucas Fernando SantolinVisiting Scholar, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil2016
Xin-Wei YaoVisiting Scholar, Zhejiang University of Technology, China2015–2016
Gonzalo Martinez SotoVisiting Scholar, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain2014–2015