Mehdi Zafari
Portrait of Mehdi Zafari

Mehdi Zafari

Ph.D. Candidate, UC Irvine

Signal processing and AI/ML for next-generation (5G/6G) wireless systems

I design distributed algorithms and learning methods for cell-free MIMO and integrated sensing and communication, and test them with over-the-air experiments and RF digital twins.

View publications Download CV (PDF)

Cell-free beams converging on a targetFive distributed access points, connected by fronthaul to a central processing unit, each steer a beam toward one target that follows the pointer. The target sends out sensing echoes, as in integrated sensing and communication.CPU
AP1
345°
AP2
290°
AP3
205°
AP4
157°
AP5
18°

Beam azimuth of each access point toward the target (0° points east).

Latest news

  • Presenting our paper Feasible but Not Safe, on constraint violations and report-channel attacks in learned cell-free ISAC association, at the ACM S3 workshop of MobiCom 2026 in Austin, Texas, on October 30. Read the paper

  • Presenting our new paper CORDIS-Track, on tracking-aware coordinated resource allocation for distributed cell-free ISAC, in a lecture at the 60th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers on October 27. Talk details

  • Presented TiamiTwin, our digital twin for bistatic ISAC drone sensing and a collaboration with Tiami Networks, at the ISAC4CIP workshop of IEEE MILCOM 2026 near Washington, DC. Read the paper

  • Released 3gpp-tr-library, hand-verified 3GPP channel-model parameters from TR 38.901 and TR 36.777 as queryable tables, with the Python package tr3gpp on PyPI. See the software

  • Our paper TiamiTwin, a digital twin for bistatic ISAC drone sensing validated against measurements, was accepted to the ISAC4CIP workshop at IEEE MILCOM 2026. Read the paper

All news

Selected publications

Full list of publications

Journal and magazine papers

IEEE TWC Journal

CORDIS: A Scalable Coordinated Resource Allocation Framework for Distributed Cell-Free ISAC

M. Zafari, B. Ottersten, and A. L. Swindlehurst

Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications

Under review

IEEE TGRS Journal

Robust Wildfire Forecasting under Partial Observability: From Reconstruction to Prediction

C. Yang, M. Zafari, Z. Duan, and A. L. Swindlehurst

Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

Under review

IEEE WCM Magazine

Multi-Domain Optimization Framework for ISAC: From Electromagnetic Shaping to Network Cooperation

R. Liu, M. Li, M. Zafari, B. Ottersten, and A. L. Swindlehurst

IEEE Wireless Communications (magazine)

IEEE TVT Journal

An Analytical and Experimental Study of Distributed Uplink Beamforming in the Presence of Carrier Frequency Offsets

M. Zafari, D. Pandey, and R. Doost-Mohammady

IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology

Conference papers

MILCOM 2026 Workshop Conference

TiamiTwin: A Digital Twin for Bistatic ISAC Drone Sensing, Validated Against Measurements

M. Zafari, S. Enayati, A. L. Swindlehurst, and A. Mukherjee

IEEE MILCOM 2026 Workshop on Integrated Sensing and Communication for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ISAC4CIP)

Accepted

ICC 2026 Conference

ASSENT: Learning-Based Association Optimization for Distributed Cell-Free ISAC

M. Zafari and A. L. Swindlehurst

IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)

Asilomar 2025 Conference

Coordinated Decentralized Resource Optimization for Cell-Free ISAC Systems

M. Zafari, R. Liu, and A. L. Swindlehurst

59th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers

Best Paper Award Finalist

All publications, datasets, and software

Curriculum vitae

Download CV (PDF) Full CV

Education

  • Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

    University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Advisor: Prof. A. Lee Swindlehurst

    June 2024 – December 2028, expected

  • M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Thesis: Distributed Multi-User Beamforming in the Presence of CFO: An Analytical and Experimental Study

    August 2021 – May 2024

  • B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering

    University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

    Thesis: Design and Hardware Implementation of a MIMO-OFDM System Using High-Level Synthesis Techniques

    September 2015 – September 2019

Experience

  • Jul 2024 – present Graduate Student Researcher EECS, UC Irvine Conduct research on reinforcement learning and graph neural network (GNN)-based models for cooperative ISAC networks, and design distributed algorithms based on ADMM/consensus for beamforming and resource allocation in cell-free ISAC systems.
  • Jun – Sep 2026 Wireless AI Engineering Intern Tiami Networks, Sacramento, CA Investigated ISAC channel models and constructed high-fidelity RF digital twins using NVIDIA Sionna and ray-tracing engines.
  • Aug 2021 – Apr 2024 Graduate Research Assistant ECE, Rice University Conducted research on distributed multi-user MIMO beamforming with over-the-air experiments on the RENEW massive MIMO testbed; published four research papers and released over 200 datasets.
  • Jan – Apr 2024 Research Fellow Rice D2K Lab Mentored five undergrad students on a Rice EMS-sponsored project to analyze operational data across multiple domains.
  • Dec 2018 – Dec 2020 Undergraduate Research Assistant Array Processing Lab, University of Tehran Conducted research on the hardware implementation of MIMO OFDM systems on the Xilinx ZedBoard platform, from theoretical modeling in MATLAB/Python to hardware implementation via Vivado-HLS.
  • May – Nov 2020 Part-Time R&D Engineer Transportation Innovation Center, Tehran Designed and implemented hybrid radio links (FM analog and OFDM digital) for radio-controlled camera drones.
  • May – Nov 2020 Part-Time R&D Engineer Sadr Electronic Dena, Tehran Developed a 2.4GHz ISM band IoT system to enable remote control functionality for elevator central control boards.

Honors and awards

  • 2026 Wireless History Foundation Scholarship Award Wireless History Foundation
  • 2026 Pia Gratton Endowed Graduate Student Award UC Irvine
  • 2026 1st Place, UCI EECS Annual Technology Showcase UC Irvine
  • 2026 3rd Place, UCI Grad Slam Competition UC Irvine
  • 2025 Best Paper Award Finalist, 59th Asilomar Conference IEEE Asilomar Conference
  • 2024 Graduate Dean’s Recruitment Fellowship Award UC Irvine
  • 2022, 2023 SIAWE Scholarship Award for Distinguished International Students Rice University Society of Iranian-American Women for Education (SIAWE).

Teaching

  • Fall 2026 Introduction to Control Systems + Lab EECS 160A/LA UC Irvine
  • Spring 2025 Introduction to Digital Logic Laboratory UC Irvine
  • Spring 2024 Applied Machine Learning & Data Science Rice University
  • Fall 2023 Modern Communication: Theory and Practice Rice University
  • Fall 2022 Modern Communication: Theory and Practice Rice University
  • Spring 2020 Wireless Multimedia Communications University of Tehran
  • Fall 2019 Signals and Systems Analysis University of Tehran
  • Spring 2019 Digital Communications University of Tehran

Teaching assistant for every course listed.

Talks

Workshop talk

Feasible but Not Safe: Constraint Violations and Report-Channel Attacks in Learned Cell-Free ISAC Association

17th ACM Workshop on Wireless of the Students, by the Students, and for the Students (S3 '26) at ACM MobiCom 2026, Austin, TX

Lecture

CORDIS-Track: Tracking-Aware Coordinated Resource Allocation for Distributed Cell-Free ISAC

60th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, Pacific Grove, CA

Workshop talk

TiamiTwin: A Digital Twin for Bistatic ISAC Drone Sensing, Validated Against Measurements

IEEE MILCOM 2026 Workshop on Integrated Sensing and Communication for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ISAC4CIP), Rockville, MD

Joint work with Tiami Networks.

Videos

Tutorials and talks. New videos come to my YouTube channel, @MehdiZD97. Subscribe

All videos