Lingjia Liu and Yi Shi, wireless experts, elected fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Two Virginia Tech wireless communications researchers – Lingjia Liu and Yi Shi, Ph.D. ’07 – have each been elevated to the status of fellow as part of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)’s 2025 class. This honor highlights their excellence in solving the real-world challenges of wireless security, incorporating machine learning, and building the future of 6G.
To be named a fellow, IEEE members must demonstrate significant contributions to their field, show evidence of technical accomplishments and realization of significant impact to society, and a record of service to professional engineering societies, among other criteria.
Fewer than 0.1 percent of voting members in the institute are selected annually for this highest career milestone of IEEE.
“Virginia Tech and Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) researchers are leading advances in wireless communications that impact people around the globe,” said Luiz DaSilva, CCI executive director and the Bradley Professor of Cybersecurity. “Contributions by Lingjia Liu and Yi Shi are changing how we interact with our smart devices and more by making them faster, more reliable, and secure. Being named an IEEE Fellow is a well-deserved career milestone.”
Multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO)
Liu is the director of Wireless@Virginia Tech and an inaugural Innovation Campus faculty member. He’s being elevated to fellow for his work on multi-cell multi-user, multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and for intelligent spectrum access.
MIMO is a key technology for 4G, 5G, and in the future, 6G. Liu, professor and Bradley Senior Faculty Fellow in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), is also collaborating with colleagues from MIT and Duke University on combining online real-time machine learning and MIMO to enable truly intelligent spectrum access for "6G and Beyond."
Liu’s work positions Virginia Tech as a global leader by bringing Wireless@Virginia Tech, CCI, the Virginia Tech National Security Institute, and the Innovation Campus together in partnership. Liu’s research efforts have been supported in part by $135 million in research funding, with him serving as the principal investigator (PI) on more than $28 million of those projects. Currently, he is pursuing the future of wireless communications through leading numerous grand research initiatives, including:
- A $9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to support work focused on mobile distributed MIMO for Next Generation (NextG) wireless networks — one the top 5 research programs at Virginia Tech in 2024.
- Learning-Based O-RAN [Open-Radio Access Networks] Testing, a $2 million project supported by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to utilize machine learning for improving testing efficiencies for O-RAN systems.
- Nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation to support bridging the Digital Divide by creating the NextG mobile broadband networks through machine learning and non-terrestrial networks.
Liu has received over 20 US patents, authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, and recently completed research leave as a visiting professor at MIT. He has presented more than 40 invited talks, lectures, seminars, and keynotes around the world, including his most recent keynote speech at the IEEE Virtual Conference on Communications. Liu was awarded the College of Engineering’s Dean's Award for Excellence in Research in 2021 and also received the research excellence award from Virginia Tech’s Office of Research and Innovation in 2023 and 2024.
Liu received a bachelor's degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.
Securing the wireless network
Yi Shi, Ph.D. ’07 is a researcher for CCI, a research associate professor, by courtesy, in ECE, and affiliate faculty in the Intelligent Systems Division of the Virginia Tech National Security Institute. Shi was elevated to IEEE fellow for his contributions to wireless network performance optimization and wireless security.
Shi’s work enhances the security of personal data and boosts network reliability, and has helped advance mobile communications from 3G to 5G and NextG. He has also worked on everyday wireless technology, such as
- smart homes
- wearable devices
- vehicle networks
- augmented and virtual reality
Shi holds three patents on wireless communications and social networks. His research has been published in IEEE and the Association for Computer Machinery Journals, and is a recipient of the Test of Time Paper award at IEEE INFOCOM 2023. He currently serves as an editor for IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials and IEEE Transactions on Cognitive Communications and Network, the latter for which he was recognized as an Exemplary Editor in 2023.
He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Science and Technology in China, and a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Virginia Tech.
