In this episode, Stefano Maci, Professor in University of Siena, discusses with Eva Rajo-Iglesias, Professor in University Carlos III de Madrid. Stefano highlights the importance of mentorship, drawing inspiration from key figures who shaped his approach to guiding students. He emphasizes the role of empathy in mentorship and the benefits of gender diversity in fostering collaboration. The discussion also addresses the growing female participation in engineering while underscoring the need for continued support and initiatives to ensure equal opportunities for all members of the AP community.
Main points of the discussion
| Timestamps | Questions |
|---|---|
| 01:10 | Introduction |
| 03:05 | Have you ever had an inspiration, role model, someone around your career that has inspired you to be a good mentor, or has inspired you to inspire and help the people around you? |
| 06:54 | What are the key elements to making an impactful relationship in terms of mentorship? |
| 10:44 | How do you encourage students to develop independent thinking? |
| 14:27 | Do you think that diversity can help to produce new significant advancements? |
| 17:37 | Do you think than having women in a research group is something that is changing the dynamics or helping somehow? |
| 20:28 | Are there initiatives that we have nowadays to try to increase the number of women in the AP Society or to retain the ones that are there and support their careers? |
About Stefano
Professor Stefano Maci has been a faculty member at the University of Siena since ‘97, where he currently leads a research group of 15 scholars. From 2008 to 2015, he directed the PhD program in Information Engineering and Mathematics, coordinating approximately 60 PhD students annually across various disciplines.
From 2004 to 2007, he served as one of the leaders of the Antenna Center of Excellence (ACE, FP6-EU). Between 2007 and 2010, he acted as the International Coordinator for a 24-institution consortium under a Marie Curie Action (FP6). In 2004, he founded the European School of Antennas (ESoA), a postgraduate institution offering 34 specialized courses in Antennas, Propagation, Electromagnetic Theory, and Computational Electromagnetics. With over 150 teachers from 15 countries, he has served as the ESoA Director since its inception.
Professor Maci is an IEEE Fellow and has held numerous leadership roles within professional organizations. These include serving on the AdCom of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) from 2012–2014, as an associate editor of the IEEE AP Transactions, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the European Association on Antennas and Propagation (EurAAP). He has also been part of the Antennas and Propagation Executive Board of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, UK). He served as President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society in 2023 and is currently Chair of the Field Award Committee for IEEE AP-S, Chair of the EuRAAP Kildal award committe, and Chair of the AP-S Felsen grant committee.
Professor Maci has played a principal investigator roles in multiple projects, including founding and directing the FORESEEN consortium from 2014 to 2018, which comprised 48 European institutions. He has been the principal investigator for the Future Emerging Technology project "Nanoarchitectronics" (8th EU Framework program) and the EU program "Metamask." Since 2010, he has acted as principal investigator and university coordinator for over 50 projects, including 15 funded by the European Space Agency. Additionally, he co-founded two spin-off companies.
Recognized globally as an educator and researcher, Professor Maci has been a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) and a EurAAP Distinguished Lecturer in its Ambassador Program. He has received several prestigious awards, including the EurAAP Award (2014), the IEEE Schelkunoff Transaction Prize (2016), the Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator Award (2016), and the URSI Dellinger Gold Medal (2020), and as Italian Knowledge Leader Award (2024).
Over the past two decades, he has served on the Technical Advisory Board for 20 international conferences and on the Review Board for six international journals. In the last decade, he has delivered 60 keynote addresses or distinguished lectures at international conferences. He served as the Technical Program Committee Chair for the METAMATERIAL 2020 conference and as the General Chair of the European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP) in 2023.
Professor Maci's research interests include high-frequency and beam representation methods, computational electromagnetics, large phased arrays, planar antennas, reflector antennas and feeds, metamaterials, and metasurfaces. His prolific academic output includes over 200 journal papers, 14 book chapters, and approximately 600 conference papers.
About Eva
Eva Rajo-Iglesias was born in Monforte de Lemos, Spain, in 1972. She received the M.Sc. degree in telecommunication engineering from the University of Vigo, Spain, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree in telecommunication engineering from the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, in 2002.
She was a Teacher Assistant with the University Carlos III of Madrid from 1997 to 2001. She joined the Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Spain, as a Teacher Assistant, in 2001. She joined University Carlos III of Madrid as a Visiting Lecturer in 2002, where she has been an Associate Professor with the Department of Signal Theory and Communications since 2004. Since 2018 she is Full Professor in the same department. She visited the Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden, as a Guest Researcher, in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, and has been an Affiliated Professor with the Antenna Group, Signals and Systems Department, since 2009 to 2016. She has co-authored more than 100 papers in JCR international journals and more than 150 papers in international conferences. Her research interests include microstrip patch antennas and arrays, artificial surfaces and periodic structures, gap waveguide technology, higher symmetries and 3D printing.
Dr. Rajo-Iglesias was the recipient of the Loughborough Antennas and Propagation Conference Best Paper Award in 2007, the Best Poster Award in the field of Metamaterial Applications in Antennas, at the conference Metamaterials 2009, the 2014 Excellence Award to Young Research Staff at the University Carlos III of Madrid and the Third Place Winner of the Bell Labs Prize 2014.
She has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION MAGAZINE (2009-2019)and Associate Editor of the IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS (2011-2017) and is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION.
Recent research published by Stefano and Eva in TAP
- Maximizing Independent Channels and Efficiency in BTS Array Antennas via EM Degrees of Freedom, F. Puggelli, B. Biscontini, E. Martini and S. Maci, 2025
- Dual Circularly Polarized Metasurface Antenna Based on Inward and Outward Surface Wave Duplexing, R. Thanikonda, M. Faenzi, A. Toccafondi, E. Martini and S. Maci, 2025
- A 3-D-Printed Broadband Wide-Angle Multibeam Flat GRIN Lens Aided by Multifocal Ray-Path Analyses, L.-Z. Song, Y.-Z. Diao, P.-Y. Qin, M. Ansari, J. von Loesecke, S. Maci, and Y. J. Guo, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 22-32, Jan. 2025
- Broadband H-Plane Horn Antenna Design Based on Ridge Gap Waveguide, M. Khalily, A. Mallahzadeh, S. Danesh, E. Rajo-Iglesias, R. Tafazolli and A. A. Kishk, 2025
- Array of Stacked Groove Gap Waveguide Leaky Wave Antennas for the Synthesis of a Broad-Beam Radiation Pattern, N. Castro and E. Rajo-Iglesias, vol. 73, no. 3, pp. 1515-1522, March 2025
- Unified Design: Sub-6 GHz Conformal Patch Antennas Integrated With Millimeter-Wave Reflector for Fixed Wireless Access Terminals, J. -M. Poyanco, A. Fernández-Durán and E. Rajo-Iglesias, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 635-640, Jan. 2025