Group Members

The microwave & RF research group at the University of Colorado is advised by Dr. Zoya Popović. Since its inception in 1990 more than 60 PhD theses have been completed, as well as several MS degrees. The group is typically comprised of between 10-15 graduate students, 1-2 postdoctoral researchers and a few visting researchers.

Principal Investigator

Faculty Researchers

Graduate Students

Awards

Professor Popovic

  • Elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2023
  • Elected as Member of the National Academy of Engineering, 2022
  • Doktora Honoris Causa (Honorary PhD), Carlos III Univ. of Madrid, Spain, 2022
  • Chair of Excellence, Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain, 2018-2019
  • Carnegie Mellon Judith Resnik Distinguished Lecture, 2017
  • University of Colorado Distinguished Research Lecture, 2015
  • IEEE Rudy Henning Distinguished Mentoring award, 2015
  • IEEE MTT Distinguished Educator, 2013
  • Holland Teaching Award, University of Colorado, 2011
  • Distinguished Professor, University of Colorado, 2010
  • Coleman Research Fellow, Coleman Institute, 2008
  • Faculty Research Award, College of Engineering and Applied Science, 2007
  • Elected Foreign Member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2006
  • Microwave Prize, IEEE MTT Society, 2005, best journal paper award
  • Microwave Prize, IEEE MTT Society, 1993, best journal paper award
  • Fellow, IEEE, 2002
  • ASEE HP/Terman Award 2001, for combined teaching and research excellence
  • Humboldt Research Award for Senior Scientists, German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, 2000/2001
  • Margaret Willard Award, University of Colorado, 1997, as female role model
  • Eta Kappa Nu professor of the year award, 1997, by student vote
  • URSI Issac Koga Gold Medal, Lille, France, 1996, awarded once every three years
  • White House NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow Award, 1993
  • URSI Young Scientist, Kyoto, Japan, 1993
  • Best Student Award for the division of Electronics, University of Belgrade, 1985
  • City of Belgrade October Award for the Diploma Thesis in 1985

Student Papers

  • Jack Molles received an honorable mention for best student oral presentation at IMPI 2023 with his paper "Experimental Study of Microwave Heating in Mixed Waste Materials"
  • Connor Nogales received 2nd place at the WAMICON 2023 Student Paper Competition with his paper "Dynamic Supply Modulation of a 6 – 12 GHz Transmit Array"
  • Tony Romano received a Best Student Paper Award at WAMICON 2022 for his paper "A W-Band GaN MMIC Continuous 90° Reflective Phase Shifter"
  • Tim Sonnenberg was awarded the Tom Brazil Award at EuMW 2021, which honors microwave research contributing to the realization of a more sustainable world.
  • Mike Litchfield won the student paper competition at the Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium (CSICS) October 2015 with his paper titled "Multi-Level Chireix Oupthasing GaN MMIC PA".
  • Sean Regalia-Korhummel won best paper at Wireless Power Transfer Conference (WPTC) 2013. 
  • "A Transmit/Receive Active Antenna with Fast Low-Power Optical Switching," J. Vian and Z. Popović, 2000 IEEE IMS Symposium Digest, pp 847-850, Boston, June 2000 [Received 2nd place, Student Paper Competition]
  • "A Frequency Tunable Half-Wave Resonator using a MEMS Variable Capacitor," Bell, P., Hoivik, N., Bright, V., Popovic, Z., 35th International Symposium on Microelectronics (IMAPS) 2002, Denver, CO, Sept 2002 [Received 2nd place, Best Student Paper]
  • "Recycling Ambient Microwave Energy with Broadband Antenna Arrays," J.A. Hagerty, F. Helmbrecht, W. McCalpin, R. Zane, Z. Popovic, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Techn., pp. 1014-1024, March 2004 [Winner of IEEE Microwave Prize]

Group

  • Parisa Momenroodaki placed second in the International Microwave Symposium 2015 Wireless Energy Harvesting Competition (Phoenix, Arizona).
  • Parisa Momenroodaki received an Honorable Mention for the 2014 Communication Society Student Competition "Communications Technology Changing the World."
  • Graduate students Mike Litchfield and Scott Schafer placed 2nd in the IMS Power Amplifier contest IMS 2014 (Tampa Bay, Florida).
  • Graduate students Ignacio Ramos placed 2nd in the IMS Wireless Powering contest IMS 2014 (Tampa Bay, Florida).
  • Graduate students Rob Scheeler and Sean Regalia-Korhummel won the IMS Wireless Powering contest achieving highest efficiency in IMS 2013 (Seattle). (,Ìý)
  • Graduate student Bradley Lindseth won the NXP PA competition with a 449MHz 2.6kW 63% efficient circuit in IMS 2011, Baltimore. (,Ìý)
  • Graduate student Michael Roberg participated in IMS Power Amplifier contest and achieved highest efficiency (83% PAE at 2.11GHz) prize and overall second prize in IMS 2010 (Anaheim). ()
  • Jacques Hung Loui received the Sandia Truman Fellowship in 2006 (Sandia National Laboratories established the President Harry S. Truman Fellowship in National Security Science and Engineering to attract the best nationally recognized new Ph.D. scientists and engineers).
  • A number of students received Lincoln Laboratory, Sandia, Navy, NSF and Dept of Education GAANN fellowships.

Group Alumni

PhD graduates and post-docs

  • Paige Danielson (Ph.D 2024)
  • Tony Romano (Ph.D 2024) is with
  • Connor Nogales (Ph.D 2024) is with
  • Tim Sonnenberg (Ph.D 2024) is with
  • Rob Streeter (Ph.D 2023) is with
  • Megan Robinson (Ph.D 2023) is with
  • Akim Babenko (Ph.D 2022) is with
  • Laila Marzall (Ph.D 2022) is a research faculty with ²ÊÃñ±¦µä
  • Shane Verploegh (Ph.D 2021) is with 
  • Philip Zurek (Ph.D 2021) is with 
  • José Estrada (Ph.D 2021) is with 
  • Maxwell Duffy (Ph.D 2020) is with 
  • Mauricio Pinto (Ph.D 2019) is with
  • Sushia Rahimizadeh (Ph.D 2019) is with
  • Patrick Bluem (Ph.D 2018) is with 
  • Parisa Momenroodaki (Ph.D 2017) is with
  • Mike Coffey (Ph.D 2017)
  • Ignacio Ramos (Ph.D 2016)
  • Mike Litchfield (Ph.D 2016) is with 
  • Scott Schafer (Ph.D 2015) is with 
  • Andrew Zai (Ph.D. 2014) is with 
  • Frank Trang (Ph.D. 2013) is with 
  • Asmita Dani (Ph.D. 2013) is with 
  • Rob Scheeler (Ph.D. 2013) is with
  • Dan Kuester (Ph.D. 2012)
  • Michael Roberg (Ph.D. 2012) is with 
  • Brad Lindseth (Ph.D. 2012) is with 
  • Erez Falkenstein (Ph.D. 2011) is with 
  • Jonathan Chisum (Ph.D. 2011) is on the faculty of the 
  • Evan Cullens (Ph.D. 2011) is with 
  • Nicola Kinzie (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • Luke Sankey (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • Milos Janković (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • John Hoversten (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • Mike Elsbury (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • Negar Ehsan (Ph.D. 2010) is with 
  • Mabel Ramirez (Ph.D. 2009) is with 
  • Qianli Mu (Ph.D. 2009) is with 
  • Charles Dietlein (Ph.D. 2008) is with the 
  • Nestor Lopez (Ph.D. 2008) is with 
  • Sebastien Rondineau (research professor) now owns 
  • Alan Brannon (Ph.D. 2007) is with 
  • Ken Vanhille (Ph.D. 2007) is with 
  • Patrick Bell (Ph.D. 2006) is with 
  • Narisi Wang (Ph.D. 2006) is with  in North Carolina
  • Jason Breitbarth (Ph.D. 2006) started  in Boulder, CO
  • Hung (Jacques) Loui (Ph.D. 2006) is a Ìý²¹³ÙÌý in New Mexico
  • Stefania Römisch (post-doc) is the president of , an engineering partnership that develops prototypes for high-quality systems for the time and frequency community
  • Srdjan Pajić (Ph.D. 2005) is the co-owner of with Dr. Joe Hagerty
  • Paul Smith (Ph.D. 2005)
  • Joseph Hagerty (Ph.D. 2003) is with 
  • Darko Popović (Ph.D. 2002) is in the Optical Platform Division at Intel in California
  •  (Ph.D. 2002) is a Professor at 
  • Gary Rait (Ph.D. 2002) is with  in Boulder, CO
  •  (Ph.D. 2001) is now Principal Member of the Technical Staff (PMTS) in the Microsystems Design and Integration group for  in Livermore, California (colocated with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories)
  • Jan Peeters Weem (Ph.D. 2001) is with 
  • Tom Madar (Ph.D.) is the CTO of 
  • Jonathan Schoenberg (Ph.D.) is a Lt. Colonel in the  and Technical Staff at
  • Todd Marshall (Ph.D. 2000) is with 
  • James Vian (Ph.D. 2000) is with  in Boston, Massachusetts
  • Eric Bryerton (Ph.D. 1999) is with the  in Charlottesville, VA
  • Stein Hollung (Ph.D. 1998) is with  in Norway
  •  (Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at 
  •  (Ph.D. 1996) is a Professor at the 
  • Michael MacDonald (Ph.D. 1996) is with  in Boston, Massachusetts
  • Scott Bundy (Ph.D. 1994) is with 

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  • Eric Kwiatkowski (M.S. 2020) is with 
  • Dan Fishler (M.S. 2020)
  • Will Haines (M.S. 2017)
  • Caitlyn Cooke (M.S. 2017)
  • Xavier Palomer (M.S. 2012)
  • Jennifer Imperial (M.S. 2012) is with 
  • Naoyuki Shino (M.S. 2000) is with  in Japan
  • Vesna Radisć (M.S.)
  • Linda Develin (M.S.)
  • Pete Kirkpatrick (M.S. 1999) is Founder and Chief Architect of 
  • Thomas Bozic
  • Tore Berg
  • Robert Brown (M.S.)
  • Henrik Barth (M.S.)

Alumni Entrepreneurs

  •  (Jason Breitbarth)
  •  (Srdjan Pajić and Joseph Hagerty)
  •  (Andrew Zai; expected to graduate Fall 2014)

Past Visiting Researchers

  • Stefan Edstaller, Technical University of Munich
  • Tommaso Cappello, University of Bologna
  • Jérôme Tissier, Associate Professor at ESEO Angers, France
  • Gregor Lasser, Vienna University of Technology
  • Gonzalo Expósito
  • César Sánchez Pérez
  • Christoph Ullrich, Technische Universiät München
  • Marcelo Perotoni, Sao Paulo University (USP) 2003-2004.
  • Florian Helmbrecht, Technische Universitat Munchen, (Diplomarbeit, 2002)
  • Johannes Russer, Univ. of Karlsruhe
  • Pal Matyas, Technische Universitat Munchen
  • Holger Mater, Technische Universitat Munchen
  • Ileana Carrasquillo, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez
  • Martin Kaleja, Technische Universitat Munchen