Young Scholar Award recipient

"It's a privilege to join a community that includes so many esteemed members who have been a personal inspiration to me; interacting with them will only bolster my ambitions in this field. I am eager to contribute to the society's vision of using technology for social good, and I look forward to being involved in outreach and student mentorship. I'm also keen to be a part of conversations around better spectrum utilization and regulation."

Raghav Subbaraman, 2025

Research Area

Spectrum awareness: the ability to see, understand, and act on real-time radio frequency usage. 

Current Position

WiFi R&D Engineer, Apple Inc.

Education

  • University of California San Diego, CA
  • Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India

Young Scholar Research

Raghav’s research focuses on the radio frequency (RF) spectrum, the invisible public resource that powers everything from our cellphones, Wi-Fi, or even our garages. As we depend on more wireless devices, this resource is becoming incredibly crowded, leading to slower speeds and unreliable connections. He solves the problem of how to use this limited spectrum more efficiently, fairly, and securely. His approach is hands-on; as Raghav believes you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Therefore, he built practical tools and created new types of sensors that “see” and “understand” real-time spectrum use. This awareness allows his systems to act intelligently, leading to better spectrum coordination and utilization—like finding open channels or enabling more devices to communicate simultaneously. This solution also provides the foundation for better spectrum regulation and gives us the ability to see and prevent malicious actors from exploiting the resource. Raghav is also passionate about open-sourcing his work, which promotes reproducibility and helps the entire research community move forward.

Other Honors

  • Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship winner 2022-23.
  • Commencement award for the best graduate student service in ECE, UC San Diego, May 2021.
  • Secured All India Rank 479 (amongst 0.5 million students) in IIT–Joint Entrance Exam 2015.
  • Recipient of the Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) and National Talent Search (NTS) Scholarships by the Govt. of India.