Scott Rudolph, graduate student in electrical engineering, was selected to receive an IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Graduate Fellowship Award. Only six such fellowships are awarded worldwide.

The Graduate Fellowship Program was established to recognize and provide financial assistance to graduate students who show promise and interest in pursuing a graduate degree in microwave engineering.

Scott has been exploring a new approach to developing metamaterials with broad bandwidths of operation and reduced losses. He has demonstrated the enhanced performance of these new metamaterials analytically, in simulation, and through experiment, verifying subdiffraction focusing in free space at frequencies as high as 10 GHz. The superior performance of these volumetric NRI metamaterials will allow them to be integrated into practical microwave focusing and antenna systems. Future work will include developing novel microwave/antenna devices.

Scott received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from U-M in 2006 and 2008 respectively, and is currently working on his Ph.D. He began his research with his advisor Prof. Tony Grbic, as a summer student under the University of Michigan's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program.

“We are all proud of Scott and the great strides he has made in research these past three years,"  stated Prof. Grbic. "In his work, he has successfully tackled the bandwidth and loss restrictions of earlier metamaterial structures by pursuing an entirely new approach to metamaterial design.”

Mr. Rudolph will be presented with his award at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) this coming June 2009.