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Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Research Interests

•    Scalable wireless communication and networking
•    Wireless sensor networks
•    Signal processing for communication
•    RF and bioelectric energy harvesting
•    Radio hardware/software implementations for wireless transceivers and synthesis of low-cost sensor networks
•    RFID
•    Internet of Plants
•    Time/frequency metrology
•    Inference algorithms
 

Honors

•    IEEE Fellow
•    Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) (2022-2024)
•    Distinguished Lecturer of the Council of RFID (CRFID) (2024-2025)
•    Google Scholar has included 2006 Ph.D. thesis paper as CLASSIC in the Computer Networks & Wireless Communication list, ranking it first (1st)
•    Area Editor, Antennas, Channel Models & Localization (ACML), IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC) (2022-present)
•    Best Poster Award, audience vote, 17th Annual International Conference on RFID, June 2023, Seattle, USA
•    Best Paper Award at IEEE International Workshop on Wireless Communications and Networking in Extreme Environments (WCNEE), July 2021
•    Second Prize in the 2020 IEEE ComSoc "Communications Technology Changing the World" Student Competition. Project: “Recycling Radio Waves for the Wide Adoption of Precision Agriculture”, Role: student team advisor.
•    Best Student Paper Award at International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST) on Electronics and Communications, May 2018, Thessaloniki, Greece (M. Ouroutzoglou)
•    Best Student Paper Award at IEEE International Conf. on RFID Technologies & Applications (RFID-TA) 2017, Sept. 2017, Warsaw, Poland (G. Vougioukas)
•    Best Student Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), April 2015, Brisbane, Australia (P. Alevizos, Y. Fountzoulas)
•    2013 Technical Univ. of Crete (TUC) Annual Outstanding Faculty Research Award
•    Paper Distinction at IEEE Sensors Conf. 2013 (SENSORS), Nov. 2013
•    2013 Best Diploma Thesis Award from IEEE AES/VTS joint Greek Chapter for best 2011-2012 Diploma Thesis in “Advanced Wireless Systems” among all Greek Universities/Research Institutions (Konstantinos Alexandris)
•    2012 Best Diploma Thesis Award from IEEE AES/VTS joint Greek Chapter for best 2009-2011 Diploma Thesis in “Advanced Wireless Systems” among all Greek Universities/Research Institutions (Eleftherios Kampianakis)
•    Second Best Student Paper Award, IEEE RFID Technologies & Applications Conference (RFID-TA) 2011, Sitges, Spain (J. Kimionis)
•    European Research Council (ERC) evaluation A (“Excellent”), ERC Starting Grant 2009 call
•    Paper Distinction at IEEE Int. Symp. on Wireless Commun. Systems (ISWCS) 2009, Siena Italy
•    2008 IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) G. Marconi Prize Best Paper Award
 

Education

•    Ph.D., Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2005
•    M.Sc., Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 2001
•    Diploma, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), 1998
 

Summary

Aggelos Bletsas (IEEE Fellow) received the Diploma degree (Hons.) in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in 1998, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Media Arts & Sciences (Media Lab) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. He has worked with Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL), Cambridge, MA, USA and the RadioCommunications Laboratory (RCL), Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He joined Technical Univ. of Crete in 2009 as assistant professor, promoted to associate professor in 2014 and full professor in end of 2018.

In January 2024 he joined as full professor the Department of ECE, Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey.

His research interests span the broad area of scalable wireless communications and sensor networking, with emphasis on ultra-low power/cost environmental sensing, backscatter radio & RFID, wireless localization and ambiently-powered inference networks. He has offered contributions relevant to wireless, batteryless, backscatter sensors for precision agriculture that cost a few Euros, consume a few microwatts and can be read with commodity receivers and smartphones.

Prof. Bletsas is currently 2022-2024 IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Distinguished Lecturer (DL) and 2023-2025 IEEE RFID Council (CRFID) Distinguished Lecturer (DL). He was co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) 2008 Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications, and various Best (Student) Paper and Poster Awards, e.g., in IEEE RFID-TA 2011, IEEE ICASSP 2015, IEEE RFID-TA 2017, MOCAST 2018, IEEE WCNEE 2021 and IEEE RFID 2023. Prof. Bletsas received the 2012-2013 Technical Univ. of Crete Research Excellence Award. In December 2020, his students won the Second Prize in the 2020 IEEE ComSoc "Communications Technology Changing the World" Student Competition. His students were winners for two consecutive years of the 2009-2011 and 2011-2012 best Diploma Thesis contest among all Greek Universities on "Advanced Wireless Systems", awarded by IEEE VTS/AES joint Greek Chapter. He has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS from 2015 to 2021 and IEEE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS from 2011 to 2016. Since June 2022 he is serving as Area Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS and has been serving as a Technical Program Committee (TPC) member for major IEEE conferences. One of his research proposals has received grade A from European Research Council (ERC). He is regularly listed in the Top 2% Scientists worldwide annual list, compiled by Stanford University and has been included in the Highly Cited Greek Scientists, as well as 45 Highly Cited Greek Scientists under 45 lists. One of his papers is being ranked 1st (for several years) in the Google Scholar list of Classic Papers in Computer Networks and Wireless Communication.