Enrica Martini of University of Siena

The evolution toward higher frequencies in next-generation wireless networks poses significant challenges in terms of propagation losses, coverage, and connectivity, calling for new approaches to engineering the electromagnetic environment. While conventional reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RIS) primarily rely on controlling reflected waves, surface-wave-based metasurfaces offer additional degrees of freedom by enabling electromagnetic energy to be captured, guided, and re-radiated along engineered propagation paths.

This seminar explores how surface-wave engineering can extend the capabilities of conventional RIS, opening new opportunities for the realization of smart wireless environments. By exploiting the interplay between guided surface waves and free-space radiation, these metasurfaces enable advanced functionalities such as beam steering and shaping, lateral beam shifts, propagation around obstacles and corners, and frequency-selective signal routing.

The seminar will introduce the underlying physical principles and present a systematic design methodology for controlling surface-wave propagation and radiation. Selected application examples will illustrate how these concepts can be exploited to manipulate electromagnetic signals in ways that go beyond conventional reflection, highlighting their potential for future intelligent wireless systems.

Biography:

Enrica Martini was born in Spilimbergo (PN), Italy, in 1973. In 1998, she received the Laurea degree (cum laude) in telecommunication engineering from the University of Florence, Italy, where she worked under a one-year research grant from the Alenia Aerospazio Company, Rome, Italy, until 1999. In 2002, she received the PhD degree in informatics and telecommunications from the University of Florence and the Ph.D. degree in electronics from the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, under joint supervision.

In 2002, she was appointed Research Associate at the University of Siena, Italy. In 2005, she received the Hans Christian Ørsted Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark, and she joined the Electromagnetic Systems Section of the Ørsted•DTU Department until 2007. From 2007 to 2017 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Siena, Italy. From 2016 to 2018 she was the CEO of the start-up Wave Up Srl, Siena, Italy, that she co-founded in 2012. She is currently associate professor at the University of Siena, Italy. 

Dr. Martini has authored more than 280 scientific publications and has coordinated and participated in numerous national and international research projects. She is currently Vice Chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Technical Committee on Metamaterials and is actively involved in IEEE AP-S and EurAAP technical activities. She was the General Chair of the 16th International Congress on Artificial Materials for Novel Wave Phenomena (Metamaterials 2022).

Dr. Martini was a co-recipient of the 2016 Schelkunoff Transactions Prize Paper Award, of the Best Paper Award in Antenna Design and Applications at the 11th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation in 2017, of the Best Poster Award at the Metamaterials Congress in 2019 and of the Best Paper Award in Electromagnetics at the 15th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation in 2021.
Her research interests include metasurfaces, metamaterial characterization, electromagnetic scattering, antenna measurements, finite element methods and tropospheric propagation.