News Story

Safar Appointed Director of Master's in Telecom Program

Dr. Zoltan Safar

Dr. Zoltan Safar has been appointed as the Director of the Master’s in Telecommunications Program at the University of Maryland, effective October 11, 2010.

"Dr. Safar has a valuable combination of academic and industry experience, having served on the faculty of the University of Copenhagen as an Assistant Professor, and as a senior engineer at Nokia, Samsung, and Bloomberg," said Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Chairman, Dr. Patrick O'Shea. "I am confident that Dr. Safar will serve the Master’s in Telecommunications Program with distinction."

Zoltan Safar most recently served as assistant professor in the Department of Innovation at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He received a University Diploma in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary in 1996, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2001 and 2003, respectively.

During his time at Maryland, he was advised by Prof. K. J. Ray Liu. Dr. Safar was the recipient of the Outstanding Systems Engineering Graduate Student Award from the University of Maryland's Institute for Systems Research in 2003. His dissertation research focused on the development of efficient coding and decoding methods for multi-antenna wireless communication systems.

His current research interests include wireless communications and multimedia signal processing, with particular focus on indoor and outdoor mobile positioning systems and algorithms, MIMO communication systems, space-time and space-frequency coding.

The Master's Program in Telecommunications at the University of Maryland is jointly run by the Smith School of Business and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The program combines fresh, innovative, and cutting-edge technical courses with management, regulatory, and public policy instruction, creating a telecommunications professional who is technically savvy, business-minded, and acutely in tune with the policy issues that surround a constantly changing industry. More information is available at www.telecom.umd.edu.

October 3, 2010