Student Mentoring Luncheon
All registered students are invited to attend the Student Mentoring Luncheon, which will be held after the plenary session during the NRSM. Students receiving support from the USNC-URSI (to attend the NRSM) are required to attend the luncheon. The cost of this luncheon is included with registration. Food is served buffet style. Professionals from the field of applied electromagnetics will spread out to sit at different tables with students. A panel session will also be held, during which students can ask questions.
Moderator:
Charles Baylis
Dr. Charles Baylis is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. He serves as Director of SMART Hub (Hub for Spectrum Management with Adaptive and Reconfigurable Technology), a Department of Defense Spectrum Innovation Center headquartered at Baylor, with 14 universities and 29 researchers. Since its funding in 2023, Dr. Baylis has overseen this nationwide effort to improve wireless spectrum technologies in the United States and develop a next-generation spectrum workforce. Since 2008, he has directed the Wireless and Microwave Circuits and Systems Program at Baylor, founded to provide wireless and microwave education and research in a caring, Christian environment. His research interests are reconfigurable circuit and system technologies for adaptive spectrum-use systems.
Panelists:
Daniel Farkas
Daniel is a patent agent assisting in patent prosecution, litigation, patentability determinations, and infringement analyses in cases involving various technologies, including lasers and optics, photonics, applied electromagnetics, quantum systems, artificial intelligence, electronics, and software.
Prior to joining the firm, Daniel was a patent agent with an Am Law 200 firm. Daniel's background is in experimental physics, with laboratory experience in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Earlier in his career, Daniel served as both manager of Contract Research and Development and lead scientist at a start-up quantum technology development and design company.
Daniel earned his undergraduate degree in physics, magna cum laude, from Yale University and his graduate degrees in physics from Harvard University. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and JILA (University of Colorado, Boulder).
Alyson Ford
As Associate Director of Steward Observatory and an Associate Research Professor at the University of Arizona, Dr. Ford oversees the Arizona Radio Observatory and Mountain Operations. Her research focuses primarily on the gaseous content of galaxies and the processes that shape this gas, with an emphasis on faint neutral hydrogen that can only be detected using large, single-dish radio telescopes. Dr. Ford also has a strong interest in space debris, near earth asteroids, and passive, bistatic and active radar. As Lead Scientist for the RadioAstron Green Bank Earth Station, she was heavily involved in the commissioning and operation of the updated National Radio Astronomy Observatory 140ft Telescope, receiver, and monitor and control software for satellite communications and has led several proof-of-concept tests for space domain awareness activities. She is also a member of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration and currently serves as a Member at Large for the United States National Committee for the International Union of Radio Science (USNC-URSI).
Mehment Ogut
Mehmet Ogut received his B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey (2007-2011), M.S degree in electrical engineering from the George Washington University, Washington, DC (2011-2013) and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins, CO, USA (2015-2018).
He is currently working at NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, USA as a technologist in Microwave Instrument Science Group. He is the CO-I and JPL lead of Ultra-Wideband Photonic Spectrometer for Planetary Boundary Layer Sensing funded under NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Advanced Component Technology (ACT-20), the CO-I of Smart Ice Cloud Sensing (SMICES) high frequency radiometer (250-670 GHz), sounder (380 GHz) and radar (240 GHz) awarded under NASA ESTO IIP-19, the CO-I of Compact Fire Infrared Radiance Spectral Tracker (c-FIRST) funded by NASA ESTO IIP-21, the CO-I of the Ultra-Wide RF ACT-22 project. He is the instrument manager of the Passive Active L-Band Sensor (PALS) Airborne instrument of JPL. His expertise is design, testing, calibration and analysis of microwave and millimeter-wave radar/radiometer instruments, developing innovative concepts in radiometry, artificial intelligence and photonic applications in remote sensing. He is currently the chair of IEEE GRSS Young Professionals and the USNC URSI Commission-F Secretary. He is the recipient of the 2023 best paper award from IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology. He has received NASA's Exceptional Bravery Medal in 2024 and NASA JPL's Voyager award in 2023.