Salman Avestimehr, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. The grant provides $441,876 over five years for a project to develop models for advancing wireless-network technologies.

The project will involve a new approach to theory behind information flow over large-scale communication networks. Avestimehr plans to develop simple channel models that capture the main features of the wireless medium and utilize them to approximate more complex models.

The project also includes outreach programs aimed at women and underrepresented minorities in the form of tutorials and workshops.

Avestimehr joined the Cornell faculty in 2009. His research interests include information theory, theory of communications and its applications. He is also interested in networking and compressive sensing.