EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University’s Jian Ren, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award.

The CAREER award, one of NSF’s most prestigious and competitive awards for junior researchers, recognizes those who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

“These CAREER awards are tangible expressions of validation from Jian’s peers concerning his research goals and plans,” said Satish Udpa, dean of MSU’s College of Engineering. “I am delighted to see his peers confirm that he is on a very productive research trajectory.”

Jian Ren received a five-year $400,000 grant.

Ren’s research will significantly improve the efficiency, security and interoperability of communications between versatile wireless devices. His work introduces innovative methodologies in architecture development, system design and secure and efficient network management.

Ren said that today's “cognitive radio”– an intelligent wireless communication system that is aware of its surrounding environment – can perceive a spectrum hole (or lack of activity on a frequency within a portion of the radio spectrum) and then transmit on the unutilized frequencies.

However, he said, lack of user coordination and network control raises serious issues in efficiency, security and resource waste in wireless environments.

“My research is an effort to develop an ideal human-technology platform for e-commerce, national security, environmental protection, health monitoring and many future applications that could benefit from fast and reliable information exchange,” Ren said.

The technological advances resulting from this project will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate curricula, as well as into K-12 outreach activities. Thus, Ren’s work will have a significant impact on the training of a highly-skilled and diverse work force in the area of cybersecurity and wireless networking.