Background
Prof. Whittow is a Professor in Radiofrequency Materials and Head of the Wireless Communications Research Group. He has > 20 years of experience in RF devices and materials. He became a Lecturer in 2012, a Senior Lecturer in 2014, a Reader in 2018 and a Professor in 2020. He has > 300 publications including > 100 journal papers and > 40 invited talks. His h-index is 34 with > 3,500 citations. He is a named Investigator on grants totalling > £14m (GoW). He has successfully led two EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account Innovation projects on dielectric measurements alongside industry sponsors. He has completed more than 20 consultancy projects. He has delivered invited seminars on material characterisation at the European School of Antennas (ESoA) in Greece and in Loughborough. He has published an IET book on Bioelectromagnetics in Healthcare Advanced sensing and communication applications in 2022.
This 70 second Video showcases his research on 3D printed RF devices.
Key awards
Prof. Whittow is a strong advocate for Women in Engineering and was the inaugural winner of the Women’s Engineering Society “Men As Allies” Award in 2017.
- Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology
- Associate Fellow of the Women’s Engineering Society
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- 15 of his students have won prizes based on their work / research
CV
Executive summary
Professor◊ Antenna Engineer ◊ Manager
- I have 22 years of research experience related to antennas, electromagnetics and Radiofrequency Materials. I have > 260 published / submitted papers andabstractsand am PI/CI on > £13M income from grants / industry (FEC). My multi-disciplinary active research interests include 3D printing; and inkjet printing; 3D substrates; anisotropic materials for satellite antennas; material characterisation; ceramics; metamaterials; reconfigurable antennas, RFID tags; phantoms for on body communication; specific absorption rates (SAR); synthetic materials and wearable antennas. In parallel to my research, I was previously the Coordinating Chair of the Loughborough Antennas & Propagation Conference (LAPC).
Current position
- Professor in Radiofrequency Materials Loughborough University, UK
- Lecturer from April 2012, Senior Lecturer from 2014, Reader from 2018, Professor from 2020
- Supervising 3 PhD students; have supervised 10 to graduation; have examined 12 students
- Developing novel metamaterials & antennas using synthetic materials (EPSRC EP/N010493/1)
- Director of the Connected Infrastructure Research Hub
- Director of PG Admissions in WSMEME, 2017 – Current
- Member of IEEE Technical Committee on Additively Manufactured Electronics Systems
- Invited Lecturer: European School of Antennas “Advanced Materials for Antennas”, 2014, 2019
- Teaching: Antennas, Radar, and Metamaterials; and Engineering Project Management.
- Teaching feedback scores average 4.71 / 5 on all modules since 2012 that I have data for
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
- Winner of the 2017 Inaugural Women in Engineering Men as Allies award
- Highly Commended at the 2017 Loughborough Academic Awards for going above & beyond in support of my personal tutees, project students and taught students
- UG Admissions Tutor, 2014 - 2017: Strategizing; Open Day talks; Outreach activities
- BAE Systems Bronze Chairman’s Award on covert body worn antennas, 2013
- Associate Editor (AE) for IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation; Board Member for Electronics Journal, and IoT and Sensor Networks;Guest Editor for 2 Journal Special Issues in 2019; Reviewer for IEEE TAP, APWL, Phys. in Med. & Biol.; EuCAP (AE)
Publications
> 260 publications incl. 90 Journal Papers + 10 submitted (> 75 in last decade)
Can be downloaded here: http://publications.lboro.ac.uk/publications/all/collated/elwgw.html
1 Book: Bioelectromagnetics (IET, May 2022), 3 Book Chapters; > 25 Invited Talks
> 3,400 citations (> 2,376 in last 5 years), h-index = 30;i10-index = 87
Funded grants
- £13M (FEC) income as a named Investigator with > £7M (FEC) as PI; £9.2M from EPSRC (GoW)
- EPSRC EP/S030301/1, EP/S030794/1. £1.1M as PI. Anisotropic Metamaterials for Satellites (ANISAT), 2019
- EPSRC EP/P027482/1. £1.6M as CI. Embedded Integrated Intelligent Systems…, 2017
- Enterprise Grant. £67k as PI. Development of a fast dielectric measurement system…, 2017
- EPSRC EP/N010493/1. £4M as PI. SYnthesizing 3D METAmaterials (SYMETA)…, 2016
- Enterprise Grant. £40k as PI. Development of a fast dielectric material measurement…, 2016
- CDT Ph.D Student. £20k as PI. Inkjet printing on curved surfaces, 2015
- Enterprise Grant. £9k as PI. Market Research for dielectric measurements, 2015
- EPSRC Equipment Grant from LU: £25k as PI. Dielectric measurement equipment, 2014
- EPSRC Case Studentship. £125k as PI. Energy harvesting for mobile devices, 2013
- EPSRC Equipment Grant from LU. £8k as PI. Specialist embroidery machine, 2013
- EPSRC EP/K011383/1, £100k as PI. 3-Dimensional wearable antennas…, 2012
- EPSRC EP/I01490X/1. £500k as R-CI. Synthetic antenna structures…, 2011
- EPSRC EP/K014137/1. £1.9M as CI, Adaptive informatics for intelligent manufacturing, 2012
- Knowledge Transfer Account. £43k as CI. Indoor TV antenna with integrated tuner, 2011
Career track
- Research associate, Loughborough University, UK November 2010 – November 2011
- Knowledge Transfer Account to exchange knowledge between industry and academia
- Designed, fabricated and measured wearable VHF circularly polarised antenna
- Coordinating chair, Loughborough Antennas & Propagation conference, UK December 2007 – November 2011
- Responsible for all day-to-day logistics of LAPC 2008 & 2009 and advised on LAPC 2010 & 2011
- The team expanded the conference from 80 to 280 delegates from > 50 countries
- LAPC has enhanced Loughborough’s reputation as one of the world’s leading antennas Groups
- Served on LAPC Advisory Committee & Technical Programme Committee until 2018.
- Antenna Consultant, LUEL (part time) March 2010 – Present
- Commercial projects for Antrum Ltd., BSKYB, BAE Systems, ESA and MBDA
- Research Associate, Loughborough University, UK March 2008 – March 2012
- Investigated novel integrated microwave antennas using nanomaterials
- Theoretical, simulation and measurement analysis of heterogeneous substrates
- Instrumental in assembling international world class team of physicists, nano-fabrication experts and industrial partners and writing EPSRC grant
- This work led to three international Invited papers
- Assessed video streaming performance in presence of electromagnetic interference
- Research Associate, Loughborough University, UK July 2005 – JULY 2007
- EPSRC proposal EP/C517490/1 that assessed SAR in the head in the presence of metallic jewellery – part of the technical content for this grant was written by myself as a PhD student
- This work has been discussed at SAR Standards Meetings: IEC 62209 MT1 and ICES TC34 SC2
- Due to this project and subsequent research, I was asked to present an Invited 4 Day Workshop on this topic at the University of Malaysia Perlis in November 2011
Education
Ph.D, Sheffield University, UK October 2000 – October 2004
- Computational Electromagnetics in Electrical and Engineering Department
- Dissertation topic: “Specific absorption rate perturbations in the eyes and head by metallic spectacles at personal radio communication frequencies”
- Wrote 3D FDTD code in FORTRAN with perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundaries and validated this with measurements and commercial code
- Wrote and implemented Genetic Algorithm code to optimise results
- Bachelor of Physics 2(i), Sheffield University, UK October 1996 – May 2000
- Electromagnetics, quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology and particle physics
- Problem solving, essay writing, individual and group projects, HTML programming
Network of influence
- LinkedIn (22,400+ Connections); Twitter: @willwhittow (20,300+ Followers) with promoting (Women in) Engineering; Authored several Invited Articles and Talks; Mentor for MenterSET;
- Judge for two WES Awards in 2019: “Top 100 (Historical) Women in Engineering”; and also “The 2019 Top 50 Women in Engineering: Current and Former Apprentices.”
Research areas:
Prof. Whittow has specialist expertise in metasurfaces, metamaterials, 3D printed RF devices, measurement of dielectric properties, inkjet printed antennas, RFID tags, and wearable antennas.
More than 100 of his peer reviewed journal papers can be freely downloaded here.
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- 3-D printing of RF devices
- Anisotropic materials
- Antennas
- Artificial dielectrics
- Dielectric property measurements
- Embroidered antennas
- Heterogeneous substrates
- Implanted antennas
- Inkjet printing
- Metamaterials
- Microwave sintering of materials
- RFID tags
- Specific absorption rates (SAR)
- Wearable antennas
Grants and contracts
Prof. Whittow is PI on EPSRC grant: Transparent Transmitters and Programmable Metasurfaces for Transport and Beyond-5G (TRANSMETA)
He is PI of the EPSRC Grant: Anisotropic Microwave/Terahertz Metamaterials for Satellite Applications (ANISAT).
He was PI on EPSRC Grand Challenge Grant: Synthesizing 3D Metamaterials for RF, microwave and THz applications (SYMETA). Video
Additional EPSRC Grants include 3D printed 3D patch antennas (PI, EP/K011383/1); Embedded intelligence and RFID tags for manufacturing (CI, EP/P027482/1; CI, EP/K014137/1); Synthetic nanomaterials and artificial dielectrics (R-CI, EP/I01490X/1).
Current teaching responsibilities
- Prof. Whittow is the Responsible Examiner for Antennas, Radar and Metamaterials.
- Project Deputy for UG CEE, EEE, RMCE Eng Courses.
Current administrative responsibilities
Prof. Whittow is the Director of the Connected Infrastructure Research Priority.
Publications
Prof. Whittow has > 260 publications in total. More than 90 of his peer reviewed journal papers can be freely downloaded here.
These papers encompass the following areas: 3D printed RF devices; 3D printed materials; Inkjet printing; Measuring dielectric properties; Metamaterials; Microwave ceramics; On-body antennas and RFID tags.