Series to Highlight Young Professionals in Signal Processing: Dr. Behrooz Makki

This issue brings to you our interview with Dr. Behrooz Makki [M’19, SM’19]. Behrooz received his Ph.D. degree in Communication Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. In 2013-2017, he was a Postdoc researcher at Chalmers University. Currently, he works as a Senior Researcher in Ericsson Research, Gothenburg, Sweden. Behrooz is the recipient of various research grants including the VR Research Link grant, Sweden, 2014, Ericsson’s Research grant, Sweden, 2013, 2014, and 2015, the ICT SEED grant, Sweden, 2017, as well as the Wallenbergs research grant, Sweden, 2018. Also, Behrooz is the recipient of the IEEE best reviewer award, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 2018.

Currently, he works as an Editor in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, IEEE Communications Letters, the journal of Communications and Information Networks, as well as the Frontiers in Communications and Networks. He was a member of European Commission projects “mm-Wave based Mobile Radio Access Network for 5G Integrated Communications” and “ARTIST4G” as well as various national and international research collaborations. His current research interests include integrated access and backhaul, millimeter-wave communications, free-space optical communication, and wireless backhauling. He has co-authored 57 journal papers, 45 conference papers, and 40 patent applications.

We approached Dr. Behrooz Makki with a few questions:

Q. How does your work affect society?

My main research focus is on developing (ultra) reliable high-rate wireless backhauling methods. Compared to fiber optics, wireless backhauling not only reduces the network cost significantly but also increases the network flexibility and reduces the time-to-market. These are key enablers for network densification which is one of the key techniques to provide the quality-of-service requirements in 5G.

Q. How is your work related to signal processing?

To optimize the backhauling performance, we use different signal processing, wireless communications as well as machine-learning techniques for efficient resource allocation, interference management, and network topology optimization. Here, focusing on integrated access and backhaul (IAB) which is one of the key features of 5G, we develop stochastic geometry techniques to analyze finite-but-dense IAB networks, and study the effect of different rain, tree foliage, blockage, and antenna properties on the network performance.

Q. How has your involvement with the IEEE SPS helped you in building your career?

IEEE is the biggest source of knowledge sharing in my field of research. From journal publications to attending conferences/workshops, IEEE has helped me to increase my networking and present my works in the best venues of the field. Moreover, volunteering works such as paper review, TPC membership in conferences, and editorship in different journals have given me the chance to be updated about the related works and be invited for different research collaborations.