Our Team
The IMPRESS Lab brings together researchers working across signal processing, machine learning, radar, remote sensing and communications. See our Alumni for former members, and Join Us if you would like to work with us.
Director
Dr. Ali Cafer Gurbuz
Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering · Director, IMPRESS Lab
aligurbuz@ncsu.edu · Google Scholar · LinkedIn · Website
Research: Signal processing and machine learning for radar, remote sensing and communications, including learning-based sensing, computational imaging, integrated sensing and communication, and passive radar.
Awards:
- NSF CAREER Award
- EURASIP Best Paper Award, Signal Processing journal
- TUBA-GEBIP Turkish Academy of Sciences Best Young Scholar Award
- European Union Marie Curie Fellowship
Research Scientists and Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Wahab Ali Gulzar Khawaja
Research Scientist
Google Scholar · LinkedIn · CV
Research: Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), UAV detection and tracking with cellular and passive RF signals, and wireless propagation for aerial networks.
Ph.D. Students
Ahmed Manavi Alam
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Aug 2020 –
Research: Deep learning for radio frequency interference detection and mitigation in passive microwave sensing, radiometer calibration, and spectrum coexistence between active communication and passive sensing systems.
Awards:
- IEEE IGARSS 2022 Best Student Paper Finalist
Sultan M. Manjur
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Aug 2023 –
Research: Machine learning for underwater acoustic sensing, including automated detection of seafloor gas seeps in multibeam echosounder imagery, and multimodal radar–video fusion for sign language recognition.
Cemre Omer Ayna
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Aug 2023 –
Research: Learning-based computational imaging and task-driven sensing: jointly optimizing measurement and reconstruction, learnable color filter arrays for demosaicing, hyperspectral band selection, and antenna selection for direction-of-arrival estimation.
Krishna K. Rokkam
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Fall 2025 –
krokkam@ncsu.edu · Google Scholar · LinkedIn
Research: Machine learning for radar signal processing.
Longwei Yang
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Spring 2026 –
Google Scholar · LinkedIn
Research: Signal processing and machine learning for sensing systems.
Alaa Zahra
Ph.D. Student, ECE, Fall 2026 –
Google Scholar · LinkedIn
Research: Signal processing and machine learning for sensing systems.
Undergraduate Researchers
Parker Trzebunia-Niebies
Undergraduate Researcher, ECE, Spring 2026 –
Google Scholar · LinkedIn
Research: Undergraduate research in RF sensing and machine learning.
Interested in joining? We are looking for motivated Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers — see Join Us.