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Centre for Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering (CELANE) is situated in the Department of Engineering of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, and is directed by Professor Karu Esselle. It is part of the Concentration of Research Excellence (CoRE) in Wireless Communications. The aim of CELANE is to advance electromagnetic and antenna research for humanity and a better quality of life. Its current focus is on next-generation wireless technologies for better health, communication and sensing. CELANE has conducted high-quality research in the areas of Electromagnetic and Antenna Engineering for almost two decades. Some of our research interests are:

• Antennas for wireless computer networks, mobile communications and locating systems, including electromagnetic band gap (EBG) resonator antennas, dielectric-resonator antennas (DRA), printed multi-strip antennas, microstrip antennas, E-shaped patch antennas, planar inverted F antennas (PIFA), stacked patch antennas, hybrid resonator antennas, ultra-wideband (UWB) antennas, wide slot antennas, millimeter-wave antennas and arrays, ultra-broadband pulse transmitting and pulse receiving antennas, resistively loaded dipole and loop antennas, Luneberg lens antennas, surface integrated short horns, focal plane arrays and antenna systems for radio astronomy; 

• Frequency selective surfaces, Artificial magnetic conductor surfaces and other such engineered surfaces including UWB multi-layer reflectors, absorb/transmit FSS, FSS on energy saving glass windows, dual-band AMC surfaces;

• New theoretical methods in Electromagnetics, including new closed-form Green's functions for microstrip and other layered structures, enhanced FDTD method for diagonal metal edges, FDTD techniques for 2D and 3D photonic crystals, new close-form frequency-domain Method of Moments, time-domain Method of Moments for resistively loaded antennas, semi-analytical Bessel expansion method for loop antennas, analytical and semi-analytical methods for biological (bioelectromagnetic) systems (e.g. magnetic stimulation of neurons) and geological (geoelectromagnetic) systems, solving large electromagnetic problems with supercomputers and parallel computers;

Prospective PhD Students

PhD scholarships are available for highly qualified international (overseas) and domestic (Australia and New Zealand) students. Please contact Karu Esselle if you are interested in postgraduate research studentships.

WHY PhD in CELANE is special?

• Excellent scholarships with full tuition waivers and an excellent living allowance (about $23,000 per year) that is tax-free. These include MQRES (unique to Macquarie University), APA and IPRS.
• Access to excellent funding schemes for your project and travel expenses
• Funding to travel to conferences and to visit collaborators overseas through funding schemes
• Possibility of getting TWO PHD DEGREES for the same work and same thesis, one from Macquarie University and other from European, North American university through Cotutelle-type inter-university arrangements
• Supervision by staff who are known worldwide for their research achievements
• Excellent research facilities worth over millions of dollars (details on research page), including modern PCs for PhD students, latest software etc. Facilities are frequently updated through external and internal grants. (see RIBG and LIEF grants in the Grants List.)
• Collaboration with top research groups around the world, and CSIRO - the Australian government research organisation
• Availability of supplementary scholarships from Faculty of Science and CSIRO (from $4,000 to $12,000 per year)
• Availability of teaching assistantships for additional income and/or teaching experience
• Qualified candidates can apply for MQRES, obtain scholarship and start studies anytime during the year.

Awards & Acheivements

• 2012 - Honorable Mention (Basit), IEEE AP-S International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation (to be held in Chicago, USA) Student Paper Competition
• 2011 - Imperial College Press Prize (Basit), Student Paper Competition, Metamaterials'2011 Conference, Spain
• 2011 - Best Student Paper Presentation Prize (Basit), Twelfth Australian Symposium on Antennas 
• 2011 - 2nd Place, 3 Minute Thesis Competition (Basit) , Faculty of Science, Macquarie University
• 2011 - IEEE Exemplary Student Branch in Asia-Pacific Region, 2nd Prize (team of mentees)
• 2011 - Outstanding Branch Counselor Award (Esselle) – IEEE (USA)
• 2010 - Best UWB antenna design (Ranga), EuCAP/European SOA Italy
• 2010 - Best mark in Antenna Test (Thalakotuna), EuCAP/European SOA Italy
• 2009 - Marie-Curie Fellowship (Matekovits: 2009 -12), European Union 7th Framework 
• 2008 - Excellence in HDR Supervision (Esselle), Macquarie University Vice Chancellor’s Award
• 2008 - Best Student Paper Award (Kiani), Workshop on Applications of Radio Science, Canberra
• 2007 - Lund University Department Award for extraordinary performance in research project (Kiani), Sweden
• 2007 - LUCID Best Engineering Poster Award (Isik), Division of ICS, Macquarie University 
• 2006 - URSI Young Scientist Award (Nasimuddin), Belgium
• 2005 - Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Fellowship (Ge:2005 -2007)
• 2005 - Macquarie University Research Fellowships (Ge:2005-2007) 
• 2004 - Macquarie University Innovation Award for best invention disclosure (Ge with Esselle)
• 2004 - ARC Linkage CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowships (Weily:2004-2007)
• 2003 - Macquarie University Research Fellowships (Weily:2003-2006)
• 2002 - IEEE NSW Max Symons best student paper award (Ge)
• 2002 - IEEE AP-S Raj Mittra Senior Researcher Award (Esselle)
• 2000 - IEEE MTT-S Graduate Fellowship (Ge)