People, CV and publications

Stefano MACI joined University of Siena (UNISI) in 1997 as an Associate Professor and since 2004 as a Professor and responsible of the AELab of UNISI. His research interest includes high-frequency and beam representation methods, computational electromagnetics, large phased arrays, planar antennas, reflector antennas and feeds, metamaterials and metasurfaces. In 2004-2007 he was WP leader of the Antenna Center of Excellence (ACE, FP6-EU) and in 2007-2010 he was International Coordinator of a 24-institution consortium of a Marie Curie Action (FP6). Since 2010 he has been Principal Investigator of 6 cooperative projects funded by European Space Agency. In 2004 he was the founder of the European School of Antennas (ESoA), a post graduate school that presently comprises 30 courses on Antennas, Propagation, Electromagnetic Theory, and Computational Electromagnetics and 150 teachers coming from 15 countries. Stefano Maci has been a former member of the AdCom of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S), associate editor of AP-Transaction, Chair of the Award Committee of IEEE AP-S, and member of the Board of Directors of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP). He has been Director of the PhD program in Information Engineering and Mathematics of University of Siena from 2008 to 2015, and also member of the National Italian Committee for Qualification to Professor from 2013 to 2015. He is the director of the consortium FORESEEN, presently involving 48 European Institutions, and principal investigator of the Future Emerging Technology project “Nanoarchitectronics” of the 8th EU Framework program. He was co-founder with his PhD students of 3 spin-off companies. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) (since 2013) and first distinguish lecturer of the EurAAP Ambassador Program (2018). He was recipient of the EurAAP Award in 2014, of the IEEE Shelkunoff Transaction Prize 2015, of the IEEE Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator award 2016 and of the URSI J. H. Dellinger Gold Medal in 2020. His research activity is documented in 160 papers published in international journals, (among which 100 on IEEE transaction and letter journals), 11 book chapters, and about 400 papers in proceedings of international. His Google Scholar h-index is 42 (7000 cit), Scopus h-index: 35 (5000 cit).

Alberto TOCCAFONDI obtained his Laurea degree (cum laude) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Florence in 1989. He received the Ph.D. degree in telecommunications from the same University in October 1994. From 1995 to 2001 he was at the Department of Information Engineering, of the University of Siena, Italy. Since October, 2001 he is an Associate Professor of Electromagnetic Fields. His research interests are concerned with antennas, microwave devices, electromagnetic compatibility and with numerical and asymptotic techniques in electromagnetic. He was responsible at the Department of Electronic Engineering of several industrial research projects funded by IDS (Pisa, Italia), Teknè (Roma, Italia), (Aldena Telecomunicazioni, Milano). He has involved as a pricipal investigator and as a researcher in several research projects and contracts supported by the Italian Ministry of Scientific Research (Prin, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008), the University of Siena (PAR 2003, 2005), the Italian Space Agency (ASI, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001) the National Research Council (CNR, 1995, 1996, 1997) the European Space Agency (ESA-ESTEC, Noordvjiik. Within the IV Framework Program, he is involved in the European Networks of Excellence entitled “Antenna Center of Excellence” and “Metamorphose”.
He has authored or co-authored more than 140 publications in refereed journals and international conferences. He served as a reviewer of several international journals, such as IEEE Transaction on antennas and propagation, IEEE Trans. on Ant and Wireless Propagation Letter, and IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurements. Since 1993 Alberto Toccafondi is member of the IEEE. Since 2008, he is senior member of the IEEE. From 2002 to 2005 he served as a secretary and treasurer of the Central and South Italy Section as well as of the AP/MTT Joint Chapter of the IEEE. He served as a Treasurer (2006-2007) and then as a Secretary (2008-2009) of the recently established IEEE Italy Section. He served (2008-2013) as a member of the Executive Committee of the CNIT.

Matteo ALBANI  received the Laurea degree in electronic engineering and Ph.D. degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Florence, Florence, Italy, in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Information Engineering and Mathematics Department, University of Siena, Siena, Italy, where he is also the Director of the Applied Electromagnetics Laboratory. From 2001 to 2005, he was an Assistant Professor with the University of Messina, Messina, Italy. He coauthored more than 80 journal papers and book chapters, more than 200 conference papers, and 5 patents. His research interests are in the areas of high-frequency methods for electromagnetic scattering and propagation, numerical methods for array antennas, antenna analysis and design, metamaterials and metasurfaces.Dr. Albani received the “G. Barzilai” Young Researcher Best Paper Award, at the XIV RiNEM, Ancona, Italy 2002, and the URSI Commission B Young Scientist Award at 2004 URSI EMTS, Pisa, Italy. He was Co-author and Advisor of the winners of the Best Paper Award, at the First European AMTA Symp. 2006, Munich, Germany and of the “3rd Prize Young Scientist Best Paper Award” 2010 URSI EMTS, Berlin, Germany. With his co-authors, he was awarded with the Antenna Theory Best Paper at the EuCAP 2014 in den Haag, the Netherlands and with the Antenna Theory Best Paper at the EuCAP 2018 in London, UK. He is a member of EurAAP and URSI and a Fellow of IEEE.

Enrica MARTINI (S’98-M’02-SM’13) was born in Spilimbergo (PN), Italy, in 1973. In 1998, she received the Laurea degree (cum laude) in telecommunication engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, where she worked under a one-year research grant from the Alenia Aerospazio Company, Rome, Italy, until 1999. In 2002, she received the PhD degree in informatics and telecommunications from the University of Florence and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, under joint supervision. In 2002, she was appointed Research Associate at the University of Siena, Italy. In 2005, she received the Hans Christian Ørsted Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark, and she joined the Electromagnetic Systems Section of the Ørsted, DTU Department until 2007. From 2007 to 2017 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Siena, Italy. From 2016 to 2018 she was the CEO of the start-up Wave Up Srl, Siena, Italy, that she co-founded in 2012. She is currently assistant professor at the University of Siena, Italy. Dr. Martini was a co-recipient of  the 2016 Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award and of the Best Paper Award in Antenna Design and Applications at the 11^th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation.Her research interests include metasurfaces, metamaterial characterization, electromagnetic scattering, antenna measurements, finite element methods and tropospheric propagation.

Alice BENINI was born in Montevarchi, Italy, in 1987. She received the Bachelor degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, in 2009 after four months of collaboration with ABB-Power One Italy.  In 2013  she spent seven months at TNO, The Hauge and Delft, working on metamaterials for the Master thesis. She received the Master degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, in 2014 with a score of 110/110 cum laude. She received the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2018, with thesis entitled “Antenna Engineering by Metasurfaces”.She is currently working as Post-Doc reasercher at the University of Siena in collaboration with THALES S.A..Her research interests include electromagnetics, metasurface, and electromagnetic and optical reconfigurability.

Federico PUGGELLI was born in Prato, Italy, in 1978. He received the Laurea Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, in 2007 and the Ph.D. Degree in Information Engineering from the University of Siena, Italy, in 2012.
Since 2012, he has been collaborating with the ElectroScience Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA, where he was an Invited Visiting Scholar from March to September 2012, under the supervision of Professor P. H. Pathak.
Since 2018, he has been collaborating with  PNRA (Italian Antarctic research program). He took part in the XXXIVth Italian expedition to  the antarctic continent (austral summer 2018 – 2019) and he is about to take part in the XXXVth (austral summer 2019 – 2020).
His research interests include electromagnetics, modeling of fading channels, and the electromagnetic characterization of antarctic firn in the microwave range.

Francesca MAGGIORELLI received the Bachelor’s degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Siena, Siena, Italy, in 2009, and the master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, in 2015. During her Ph.D., received from the University of Siena in 2018, she worked in collaboration with the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN – Pisa Division, Italy) and the IMAGO7 Foundation, (Pisa, Italy), focusing her research activity on the design and development of RF double tuned coils for magnetic resonance imaging at ultra-high field. Her current research interests inhomogeneous lenses analysis and design.

Marco FAENZI was born in Siena, Italy. He received the M.Sc. degree in Telecommunications Engineering (with a score of 110/110) from the Dept. of Information Engineering and Mathematics at University of Siena, Siena, Italy, in 2011. In the same year he won a Ph.D. position at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Mathematics at the University of Siena, focused on development of high gain apertures for space applications based on modulated metasurface structures realized by inductive or capacitive textures. He successively gained the Ph.D. degree in 2015. In 2015 he won a co-financed Post-Doc grant in the Networking/Partnering Initiative framework by the European Space Agency and University of Siena. In 2016 he was co-recipient of the Sergei A. Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. He is currently working as  Post-Doc researcher at the IETR (Institut d’Électronique et de Télécommunications) of Rennes, University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France. He has worked on metasurfaces holographic patterning for the optimization of aperture efficiency of dipoles excited planar resonator. During his Post-Doc activity he worked towards characterization, optimization and synthesis of modulated metasurface apertures for of multi-frequency and broadband operativity. He also worked toward application of metasurface technology for implementation multibeam and highly efficient monopulse apertures in linear and circular polarization.

Anastasios PARASKEVOPOULOS was born in Athens, Greece in 1988. He received the Diploma degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece, in 2012. He was awarded the PhD degree from Loughborough University, UK for his research entitled: “Body-Centric Wireless Communications: Wearable Antennas, Channel. Modelling, and Near-Field Antenna Measurements” in 2017. Between 2016-2019, he
worked as a research assistant in the Department of Digital Systems at the University of Piraeus, Greece participating in European Union’s Horizon 2020 projects. His current research interests include the design and fabrication of reconfigurable active and parasitic antenna arrays and phased arrays. He is also involved in antenna characterisation through near-field and far-field measurements in anechoic chamber environment.

Kirill Klionovski received the specialist degree with honors in electrical engineering from the Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow, Russia, in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in radiophysics from the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, in 2015. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, in 2016-2020. His current research interests include metasurface-based antennas and arrays, and applied electromagnetics.

Cristina YEPES received her M.Sc. degree (honors) in Telecommunication Engineering from Public University of Navarra, Navarra, Spain, in 2015, and her Ph.D. degree in Electromagnetics from Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands, in 2020. Her Ph.D was carried out in collaboration with the Antenna Group of the Radar Technology department at TNO Defense, Safety and Security, The Hague, Netherlands.  From February 2020 Cristina Yepes is with the Electromagnetic group at University of Siena as a Posdoc researcher.  Her scientific research activities include analysis and design techniques for phased array antennas and frequency selective surfaces, and analytical and numerical methods for antenna characterization.
Ms. Yepes was a co-recipient of the Best Innovative Paper Prize at the 39th ESA Antenna Workshop in 2018

Iram NADEEM is PhD student in Electromagnetics Innovation Joint Lab with Huawei. She received her M.Eng degree in Information & Communication Engineering from Chosun University in South Korea at 2018 on Full time scholarship from Korean Government. She also did M.S. in Telecommunication Engineering (Major: Optical Fiber Communication) & B.S. in Electrical Engineering (Major: Power Systems) from the University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Taxila, Pakistan in 2014 and 2010. She had worked as researcher in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Chosun University from 2018 ~ 2019. Moreover, she had also worked as Lecturer and Lab Engineer in different engineering institutes of Pakistan during 2011 ~ 2015. Her research interests include UWB, MIMO antenna design, Waveguide, optical fiber communication, microwave and satellite communication.

Laura PASSALACQUA is PhD student in Electromagnetics Innovation Joint Lab with Huawei. She did B.S. in Computer and Information Engineering and M.S. in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Siena in 2018 and 2020. Her research interests include the concept of DoF of the electromagnetic fields, the investigation of the maximum antenna directivity and gain. 

Ilir Gashi is currently a PhD student at the University of Siena, from where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in Management Engineering in 2018 and his MSc student in Electronics and Communications Engineering in 2021. During his second year of the MSc program he spent one semester in Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), where he has taken exams in Communications Engineering. His current research interests are the development of a ray tracing code for the analysis and the design of inhomogeneous refractive index lens antennas.

Camilla Tondi obtained her MSc in Electronics and Communications Engineering with honors during 2020, at the University of Siena. During her MSc, she spent one semester in Germany, at Technische Universität Darmstadt, where she had the opportunity to investigate her interest in Antennas’ applications. Her current research field includes the study of metasurfaces, with a Master Thesis with the title “Reflecting Metasurfaces with non-specular reflection properties for 5G application“.

Natalia Graziuso was born in Narni, Italy, in 1998. She is currently finalizing her B.Sc. Degree in Computer and Information Engineering at the Dept. of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, Italy. During the B.Sc third year course her major consisted in Telecommunications curriculum.  She is currently working towards her Bachelor’s Degree thesis which is devoted to an aperture sharing design of a modulated metasurface aperture operating in Ka-band.The aperture features simultaneous highly efficient radiation of RH and LH circularly polarized beams in boresight direction.

 Ravikanth Thanikonda was born in India, Andara Pradesh, in 1995. He received his master’s degree in 2020  from the University of Siena in electronics and communication engineering and he is currently a PhD student in the same University. He has one year of work experience in the thesis program during his academic career, where he learned valuable technical skills such as experimental design and research and development in ultra-wideband Antennas for radiometer applications. His current research interests in leaky-wave scanning on periodic structures.

Ernest Addo received the B.S. degree in computer engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, in 2016 and he obtained the M.S. degree in Electronics and Communications Enginering at the University of Siena in 2021. He is currently a PhD student at University of Siena. From 2016 – 2018, he was with the Texas Instruments Microelectronics Laboratory, Ghana, where he designed and tested analog/mixed signal circuit and systems. He worked on the EU’s Horizon 2020 SINATRA project and has collaborated with CNIT towards convergent 5G satellite-terrestrial communication systems. His current research interests are in the areas of radar design at millimeter waves, antenna analysis and design; and microwave measurement techniques.

Federico Giusti was born in Poggibonsi, Italy, in 1997. He received the Laurea degree (cum laude) in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the University of Siena, in 2021, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree. His research interests include higher symmetric periodic structures, electromagnetic scattering, metasurfaces and metamaterials.

Talha Arshed was born in Pakistan, Punjab, in 1990. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan, in 2013 and 2016, respectively. His master’s thesis was on filtering antenna and frequency selective surface for ultrawideband applications. Moreover, he had also worked as a lecture, teaching undergraduate mathematics, in an engineering institute in Pakistan from 2016 to 2021. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Siena. His research interests include applied electromagnetics, metasurfaces, and leaky-wave structures.

Liana SMALDORE was born in Potenza, Italy, in 1983. She received the Bachelor in Political Science in 2005 and the Master degree in International Sciences in 2007 both from the University of Siena, Italy, and both with a score of 110/110 cum laude. In 2009 she obtained an Advanced Master in “Politics in Europe: Interactions between domestic and supranational arenas” from University of Siena and University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014 she obtained a Ph.D Degree in European and Comparative Politics from University of Siena with a thesis entititled “Opposition and Europe: an oxymoron or a new step in the politicization and democratization of the EU? An analysis of MEPs voting behaviour”. After working as collaborator with the New York University (Florence, Italy) and the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy), in 2016 she obtained an advanced Master in “European Funds Management”. Since 2017 she is working at the University of Siena on management of national, European and international projects and since 2018 she is also the administrative responsible at Wave Up s.r.l.