Biography

Kapil R. Dandekar, PhD, is Interim Dean of Drexel University’s College of Engineering and the E. Warren Colehower Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. A member of the Drexel faculty since 2001, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in wireless communications. He led the creation of Drexel’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program, which engages undergraduates and graduate students in long-term, faculty-led research and design teams, and he has provided college-level leadership in the redesign of graduate cooperative education to better align professional experiences with evolving industry and research needs. His teaching also includes a hands-on Software Defined Radio laboratory course for students across Engineering and Computing that integrates analog and digital communications theory with a team-based “Radio Wars” design project.

Dr. Dandekar directs the Drexel Wireless Systems Lab (DWSL), where his research focuses on wireless communications, reconfigurable and intelligent antennas, software-defined radio, and biomedical and wearable sensing. His work has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, DARPA, Army research organizations, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Security Agency, and industry partners. Research from DWSL has resulted in extensive publications, patents, and licensed technology.

Prior to joining Drexel, Dr. Dandekar worked at the U.S. Naval Observatory and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and a Senior Member of IEEE. He previously served on the IEEE Education Activities Board and is a co-founder of EPICS-in-IEEE, a global service-learning program, for which he received a Meritorious Service Award from IEEE and Drexel’s President’s Award for Civic Engagement.

Dr. Dandekar holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia and master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical and computer engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.

Degrees / Education

• PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 2001
• MS, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, 1998
• BS, Electrical Engineering, University of Virginia, 1997

Research Areas

• Advanced Manufacturing
• Cyber and Physical Infrastructure
• Health and Medicine
• Computation
• Engineering Education
• Systems Engineering

Research Interests

Areas of Study

• Computer Engineering
• Cybersecurity
• Electrical Engineering
• Robotics and Autonomy

Academic Distinctions

• 2023 - Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering 
• 2019 - College of Engineering Outstanding Innovation Award
• 2016 - Provost’s Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarly Activity, Drexel University
• 2015 - Drexel University College Outstanding Research Award, Drexel University College of Engineering
• 2013 - President’s Award for Civic Engagement, Drexel University
• 2012 - Meritorious Service Award, IEEE Educational Activities Board
• 2007 - Department Research Award, Drexel University Electrical and Computer Engineering

Select Publications

• M. A. S. Tajin, M. S. Hossain, W. M. Mongan and K. R. Dandekar, "Passive UHF RFID-Based Real-Time Intravenous Fluid Level Sensor," in IEEE Sensors Journal, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 3863-3873, 1 Feb.1, 2024, doi: 10.1109/JSEN.2023.3342129.
• M. A. S. Tajin, K. Anim and K. R. Dandekar, "Incident Power and Relative Phase Distribution Mapping in Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces Using Energy Harvesting," in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 71, no. 7, pp. 6111-6119, July 2023, doi: 10.1109/TAP.2023.3266844.
• M. Jacovic, X.R. Rey, G. Mainland, K.R. Dandekar, "Mitigating RF jamming attacks at the physical layer with machine learning," in IET Commun. 17, 12–28 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1049/cmu2.12461.
• D. Patron, W. Mongan, T. P. Kurzweg, A. Fontecchio, G. Dion, E. K. Anday, and K. R. Dandekar, “On the use of knitted antennas and inductively coupled RFID tags for wearable applications,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 10471057, Dec. 2016, issn: 1932-4545. doi: 10.1109/TBCAS.2016.2518871.
• N. Gulati and K.R. Dandekar, “Learning State Selection for Reconfigurable Antennas: A Multi-Armed Bandit Approach”, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation (Special Issue: Antenna Systems and Propagation for Cognitive Radio), vol. 62, no. 3, March 2014,issn: 0018- 926X. doi: 10.1109/TAP.2013.2276414.
• D. Piazza, N.J. Kirsch, A. Forenza, R.W. Heath, Jr., and K.R. Dandekar, “Design and Evaluation of a Reconfigurable Antenna Array for MIMO Systems” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 56, no. 3, March 2008, issn: 0018-926X. doi: 10.1109/TAP.2008.916908.
• C. Liang and K.R. Dandekar, “Power management in MIMO ad hoc networks: A game theoretic approach,” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 1164-1170, April 2007, issn: 1536-1276. doi: 10.1109/TWC.2007.348307.
• C. Sahin, D. Nguyen, S. Begashaw, B. Katz, J. Chacko, L. Henderson, J. Stanford, and K. R. Dandekar, “Wireless communications engineering education via augmented reality,” in 2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Oct. 2016, pp. 17. doi: 10.1109/FIE.2016.7757366.
• D. Nguyen, C. Sahin, B. Shishkin, N. Kandasamy, and K.R. Dandekar,“A Real-Time, Protocol-Aware Reactive Jamming Framework Built on Software Defined Radios”, in Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Software Radio Implementation Forum (SRIF), 2014, isbn: 978- 1-4503-2995-8. doi: 10.1145/2627788.2627798. [Online]. Available: http://doi.acm.org/10. 1145/2627788.2627798.
• K.R. Dandekar, S. Sinha and N. Ampofi-Anti, “IEEE-Based Implementation of Engineering Projects in Community Service,” Proceedings of the IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Con- ference, 2011, doi: 10.1109/GHTC.2011.70.