Buckeyes win radio science award

Tinae Bluitt
Thu, 21 Jan 2016 02:53:42 +0000
Campus, Ersin Yetisir, U.S. National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science, Ushemadzoro Chipengo

Ushemadzoro Chipengo (left) and Ersin Yetisir (right). Credit: Courtesy of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Two Buckeyes joined academics at the annual U.S. National Committee of the International Union of Radio Science meeting in Boulder, Colorado, to compete in the National Radio Science meeting’s research paper competition. The pair took both first and second place.

Ushemadzoro Chipengo and Ersin Yetisir were the Ohio State duo who joined the competition participants and presented their papers from Jan. 6 through Jan. 9.

Chipengo’s winning paper was about backward wave oscillators, which convert the energy of a high-power electron beam into radio frequency signals.

“This interaction occurs in an electromagnetic structure called a ‘slow-wave structure,’ a wave guide which supports electromagnetic waves at velocities slower than the speed of light,” he said in an email.

“Getting that award is an excellent opportunity to get your name out there,” said Chipengo, who is working toward his doctorate’s degree in electrical and computer engineering. “It validates the importance of your work.”

Chipengo said his research involves improving wave structure for extremely efficient wave oscillators.

He said he does his work at the Electroscience Laboratory as a graduate research assistant with his colleague, Yetisir, a former electrical science and engineering student who graduated in Autumn 2015.

They don’t just share a lab, but also the same advisor, Professor John Volakis, who is the Electroscience Laboratory director. He helped co-write his student’s full papers, in which he played a pivotal role in their success at the meeting.

Chipengo won the first-place cash prize of $1,000, and Yetisir took home $750 for second place, which were the award amounts given to the winners, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine website.

Yetisir, a former electrical science and engineering student, said he hoped to take the industry route in his profession with a focus on antenna design.

The participants of the competition had an option to submit their final papers to a journal to be published, too. Yetisir said his work, titled, “A Novel Array with 6:1 Bandwidth and 70-degree Scanning using Frequency Selective Surface Superstrate,” is currently under review.