University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Innovations for Humanity
Karu Esselle, FRSN, FIEEE, FIEAust, is the Distinguished Professor in Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering at University of Technology Sydney. He is Australia’s 2022 Professional Engineer of the Year, and the leader of the MetaSteerers Team that won Australia’s national 2023 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia. Eureka Prizes are considered Oscars of Australian Science. Karu is the only person to receive both a Eureka Prize and the Professional Engineer of the Year Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales, IEEE and Engineers Australia. In the 24-month period to December 2023, ten new awards and prizes expanded Kau’s portfolio of Research Excellence accolades. These include the most prestigious Space award in Australia – the “Winner of Winners” Excellence Award – as well as the Academic of Year Award at the 2022 Australian Space Awards, 2022 Chancellor’s Medal, both the Excellence Award and the Academic of the Year Award at 2021 Australian Defence Industry Awards, and 2019 Motohisa Kanda Award (from IEEE USA) for the most cited paper in IEEE Transactions on EMC in the past five years.
Karu has authored over 750 research publications and his papers have been cited over 15,000 times. His h-index is 61. Since 2002, his research income is over 33 million dollars. Karu has provided expert assistance to more than a dozen companies in USA, Europe and Australia. From 2018 to 2020, Karu chaired the prestigious Distinguished Lecturer Program Committee of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation (AP) Society. He has served or is serving in 8 global committees of this IEEE society. In addition, Karu has been a Senior Editor of IEEE Access and has served as an Associate Editor for nearly all major journals in his fields including IEEE Transactions on Antennas Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, IEEE Access and IET MAP. Previously he was Director of WiMed Research Centre and Associate Dean – Higher Degree Research (HDR) at Macquarie University. He has also served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council and the Division Executive. Karu is a Director of Innovations for Humanity Pty Ltd.
Karu’s other recent accolades include Engineers Australia 2022 Sydney Professional Engineer of the Year and Bradfield Awards (in addition to the national title mentioned previously), Finalist for 2021 Australian national Eureka Prize for Outstanding Mentor of Young Researchers, Runner-up to the same prize in 2020, 2021 IEEE Region 10 (Asia-Pacific) Outstanding Volunteer Award, and 2020 IEEE NSW Outstanding Volunteer Award. According to the Special Report on Research published by The Australian national newspaper, he is the 2019 National Research Field Leader in Australia in both Microelectronics and Electromagnetism fields.
Previously he received 2019 Macquarie University Research Excellence Award for Innovative Technologies, 2019 ARC Discovery International Award, 2017 Excellence in Research Award from the Faculty of Science and Engineering, 2017 Engineering Excellence Award for Best Innovation, 2017 Highly Commended Research Excellence Award from Macquarie University, 2017 Certificate of Recognition from IEEE Region 10, 2016 and 2012 Engineering Excellence Awards for Best Published Paper from IESL NSW Chapter, 2011 Outstanding Branch Counsellor Award from IEEE headquarters (USA), 2009 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervision and 2004 Innovation Award for best invention disclosure. His mentees have been awarded many fellowships, awards and prizes for their research achievements. Fifty-eight international experts who examined the theses of his PhD graduates ranked them in the top 5% or 10%. Two of his students were awarded PhD with the highest honour at Macquarie University – the Vice Chancellor’s Commendation, and one received University Medal for Master of Research.
In addition to the IEEE Kanda Award mentioned above, several of his papers have been among most cited or most downloaded. Often one or two of his papers are ranked by Web of Science and Clarivate as Highly Cited Papers (top 1% in the academic field of Engineering). For example, two papers are ranked so, for citations received in Jan-Feb 2022. Some papers have been ranked as Hot Papers as well (top 0.1% in Engineering), e.g. A Scientific Reports paper for citations received in Jan-Feb 2022.
His R&D projects since 2002 include 16 Australian Research Council projects and 15 defence (Australian and US) projects. His research has been supported by many national and international organisations including Australian Research Council, Intel, US Air Force, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Australian Department of Defence/DSTG, Australian federal Department of industry, Australian federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer Office, SmartSat Corporative Research Centre, NSW Space Research Network and German and Indian governments.
Karu received BSc degree in electronic and telecommunication engineering with First Class Honours from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and MASc and PhD degrees with near-perfect GPA in electrical engineering from the University of Ottawa, Canada. Previously he was Director of WiMed Research Centre and Associate Dean – Higher Degree Research (HDR) of the Division of Information and Communication Sciences and directed the Centre for Collaboration in Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering at Macquarie University. He has also served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council and the Division Executive and as the Head of the Department several times.
From 2018 to 2020, Karu chaired the prestigious Distinguished Lecturer Program Committee of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation (AP) Society – the premier global learned society dedicated for antennas and propagation - which has close to 10,000 members worldwide. After two stages in the selection process, Karu was also selected by this Society as one of two candidates in the ballot for 2019 President of the Society. Only three people from Asia or Pacific apparently have received this honour in the 68-year history of this Society. Karu is also one of the three Distinguished Lecturers (DL) selected by the Society in 2016. He is the only Australian to chair the AP DL Program ever, the only Australian AP DL in almost two decades, and second Australian AP DL ever (after UTS Distinguished Visiting Professor Trevor Bird). He has served the IEEE AP Society Administrative Committee in several elected or ex-officio positions 2015-20. Karu is also the Chair of the Board of management of Australian Antenna Measurement Facility, and was the elected Chair of both IEEE New South Wales (NSW), and IEEE NSW AP/MTT Chapter, in 2016 and 2017.
Karu has provided expert assistance to more than a dozen companies including Intel, Hewlett Packard Laboratory (USA), Cisco Systems (USA), Audacy (USA), Cochlear, Optus, ResMed and Katherine-Werke (Germany). His led the team that designed the high-gain antenna system for the world’s first entirely Ka-band CubeSat made by Audacy, USA and launched to space by SpaceX in December 2018. This is believed to be the first Australian-designed high-gain antenna system launched to space, since CSIRO-designed antennas in Australia’s own FedSat launched in 2002.
Karu is in the College of Expert Reviewers of the European Science Foundation (2019-22) and he has been invited to serve as an international expert/research grant assessor by several other research funding bodies as well, including the European Research Council and funding agencies in Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Finland, Hong-Kong, Georgia, South Africa and Chile. He has been invited by Vice-Chancellors of Australian and overseas universities to assess applications for promotion to professorial levels. He has also been invited to assess grant applications submitted to Australia’s most prestigious schemes such as Australian Federation Fellowships and Australian Laureate Fellowships. In addition to the large number of invited conference speeches he has given, he has been an invited plenary/extended/keynote/distinguished speaker of several IEEE and other venues over 30 times, including EuCAP 2020 Copenhagen, Denmark; URSI’19, Seville, Spain; and 23rd ICECOM 2019, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Karu has been a Track Chair of the world’s top international conference in antenna/EM field – the IEEE AP-S/URSI: 2023 Portland, 2022 Denver, 2021 Singapore and 2020 Montreal, and 2024 APMC; Technical Program Committee Co-Chair of ISAP 2015, APMC 2011 and TENCON 2013 and the Publicity Chair of ICEAA/IEEE APWC 2016, IWAT 2014 and APMC 2000. His research activities are posted in the web at https://www.uts.edu.au/staff/karu.esselle and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karu_Esselle .
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