In the fourth year of his Electrical and Computer Engineering PhD, Morteza Shoushtari (picture on the right) recently received the best paper award at the annual International Telemetry Conference (ITC). He was awarded due to his extensive research and innovative solutions for the telemetry industry.
More specifically, his paper centered around the application of post-quantum cryptosystems as a future security solution in aeronautical mobile telemetry systems with a focus on code-based techniques. “The paper was the result of around four months hardworking on this new hot topic.”
The reflection of Shoushtari’s hard work is evident because out of 68 other papers presented at the ITC, he was deemed the best. In this paper, Shoushtari collaborated with his wife Farah Arabian and his advisor, Dr. Willie Harrison. Dr. Arabian received her PhD from the ECE program at BYU earlier this year in March. Currently, she’s working at Apple in Cupertino, CA.
Between the two of them, Morteza and his wife are no strangers to the spotlight with their graduate research. In fact, she won three different awards during her graduate studies, with two of them being at the ITC conference.
Morteza Shoushtari placed second at the ITC last year when he proposed a secure coding technique for the Integrated Network Enhanced Telemetry (iNET) communications system that could be paired with modern encryption schemes.
He provided a valuable road map for studying the next generation of cryptosystems in the telemetry industry in his recent papers.
Shoushtari is near completion of his doctoral degree and has had a distinguished career as a student at BYU. If he could advise other students who are considering joining the program, he would recommend that “being extremely patient is the most important factor you need when conducting research at the grad level, especially in a PhD, because you will experience many more days of failure than success.”
His persistence speaks for itself--Shoushtari made history this year after presenting his paper. Not only did he walk away with a first-place trophy, but his paper also marked the first time that the ITC had a paper outlining the post-quantum cryptosystems topic.
Morteza and Farah are the only PhD couple who have won the award in ECE and ITC history. To say we’re proud of their accomplishments is an understatement. We’re excited to see what they accomplish next!