Ehsan Afshari was born in 1979. He received the B.Sc. degree in Electronics Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran and the M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, in 2003, and 2006, respectively. In August 2006, he joined the faculty in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012. In Fall 2016, he joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, as an Associate Professor. His research interests are mm-wave and terahertz electronics and low-noise integrated circuits for applications in communication systems, sensing, and biomedical devices.
Prof. Afshari serves as the Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society and a member of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC). He was the chair of the IEEE Ithaca section, the chair of Cornell Highly Integrated Physical Systems (CHIPS), a member of International Technical Committee of the IEEE Solid-State Circuit Conference (ISSCC), a member of the Analog Signal Processing Technical Committee of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, a member of the Technical Program Committee of the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), and a member of Technical Program Committee of the IEEE International Conference on Ultra-Wideband (ICUWB).
He is selected as one of 50 most distinguished alumni of Sharif University. He was awarded National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2010, Cornell College of Engineering Michael Tien excellence in teaching award in 2010, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award in 2008, and Iran's Best Engineering Student award by the President of Iran in 2001. He is also the recipient of the best paper award in the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), September 2003, the first place at Stanford-Berkeley-Caltech Inventors Challenge, March 2005, the best undergraduate paper award in Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering, 1999, the recipient of the Silver Medal in the Physics Olympiad in 1997, and the recipient of the Award of Excellence in Engineering Education from Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage (APSIH), May 2004.
Hamad Alotaibi (Ph.D.) received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering with the highest honors from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia and M.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2017 and 2021, respectively. He joined the UNIC laboratory in 2021 as a Ph.D. Student. His research interests include millimeter-wave and THz circuits design.
James Gruber (Ph.D.) received his Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2021 and his Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Engineering and Music from the University of Florida in 2019. He joined UNIC in 2019, where he studies THz circuit designs for multiplexed communication systems, novel microwave structures, and THz systems fabricated on GaN processes.
Amirata Tabatabavakili (Ph.D.) received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2021. He worked in the ISDL group at the Sharif University on the mm-wave power amplifiers design. He joined University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 2022. His research interests include mm-wave and terahertz circuits and for imaging and radar systems.
Ali Ghazizadeh Ghalati (Ph.D.) Received his B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Shahrood University of Technology and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2020 and 2023, respectively. He worked in AICDL group on the Low-Power Circuits and Data Converters. He joined UNIC Lab in 2023, where he researches and studies High-Frequency and THz Circuits and Systems.
Chen Shen (Ph.D.) was born in Shanghai, China, in 2001. He received his B.S.E degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2023. He joins the UNIC group in 2023, where he studies and researches in mm-wave and terahertz integrated circuits.
Mohammaderfan Ramesh (Ph.D.) Received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology and Caltech, respectively. He joined the UNIC Lab in 2025 as a Ph.D. student. His interests lie in high-frequency circuit design, optics/photonics, antennas, and related areas for communication and astronomy applications.
Seyed Mehdi Banihashemi (Ph.D.) received his B.S.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2022. He joined the UNIC lab in 2022 and received his M.S.E. in 2025. His research interests include mm-wave and THz circuit design for radar imaging, spectroscopy, and communications.
Amirali Ebrahimzadeh (M.Sc.) is a second year Masters student at the University of Michigan, studying Computer Science and Engineering. He received a B.Sc. from Sharif University of Technology in Computer Engineering, and currently works on applying ML/AI and Optimization Theory in automated circuit design, with an interest in formal verification.
Christopher Choueiry (Undergraduate Researcher) is a third-year undergraduate student in Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He joined the UNIC lab in 2026. His research interests include mm-wave technology for sensing applications and continuous-wave radar systems.
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The Best Student Paper Award in IMS-RFSA (Ali Ghazizadeh Ghalati), 2026
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The Best Student Paper Award in IMS-RFSA (Hossein Naghavi, Amirata Tabatabavakili, Morteza Tavakolitaba), 2026
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The Best Industry Paper Award in IMS-RFSA, 2026
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International Microwave Symposium (IMS) Graduate Student Challenge Award (Ruonan Han), 2014
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The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Predoctoral Achievement Award (Ruonan Han), 2012
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Best Student Paper Award in RFIC (Ruonan Han), 2012
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The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Predoctoral Achievement Award (Yahya Tousi), 2011
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International Microwave Symposium (IMS) Graduate Student Challenge (Yahya Tousi), 2011
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IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship (Yahya Tousi), 2011
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Cornell ECE Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (Omeed Momeni), 2011
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IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Predoctoral Fellowship (Wooram Lee), 2010-2011
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Best paper award at the IEEE Workshop on Passive Microwave Circuits (Omeed Momeni and Wooram Lee), 2010
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Best student paper award in IEEE RadarCon (Wooram Lee), 2009
Are you interested in joining our team? We have a few openings for motivated and talented students. Generally, students interested in our specific research will receive higher consideration than the ones which are interested in "circuits" or "analog circuit design", send generic emails, or ask general questions. Usually sending "mass-emails" does not increase your admission chance. If you are serious about our group, please carefully look at this homepage and possibly read a few of our papers and if you are still interested, please contact Ehsan Afshari.