Vijay K. Shah Wins Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Vijay Shah on receiving an NSF CAREER Award for his project, “O-DSM: An Open Dynamic Spectrum Management Framework for Enhanced 6G Coexistence.”

Congratulations to Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Vijay Shah on receiving a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This prestigious award supports early-career faculty who serve as role models in both research and education.

Shah’s continuing grant of $682,278 will support his project, “O-DSM: An Open Dynamic Spectrum Management Framework for Enhanced 6G Coexistence.” His award is effective July 1, 2025 through June 2030. 

“Receiving this NSF award is a true honor, a deep personal affirmation of my research vision and an incredible source of motivation as an early-career wireless researcher,” said Shah. “It provides the freedom and support to take intellectual risks and push boundaries on problems that are both technically complex and nationally critical. The opportunity to reimagine how our nation manages its spectrum, one of our most critical natural resources, while mentoring the next generation of wireless innovators is both humbling and empowering.”

A New Kind of Natural Resource

The radio frequency (RF) spectrum is an invisible, shared and finite natural resource that serves as the foundation for all things connectivity, from cell phones to critical public safety operations. Shah’s research focuses on building intelligent, open and adaptive spectrum access frameworks that can keep pace with the evolving demands of emerging technologies like 6G, private networks and autonomous systems.

There is growing pressure on the shared mid-band spectrum, particularly in bands like 3.1–3.45 GHz and 7.125–8.4 GHz. These bands are critical for 5G and 6G expansion, yet older methods of Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) have created an artificial scarcity within bands, and are not keeping up with the increasing complexity and mobility of next-generation systems. New, open frameworks need to avoid creating harmful interferences, be AI-native, real-time and scalable. 

“I’m a researcher, so I want to solve complex problems that matter,” said Shah. “I don’t have the expertise to solve all of those problems, but this is a problem that matters, and it’s one I believe I can solve. With this approach, we can create ample frequencies to deploy another hundreds of billions of devices, increasing connectivity all across the nation.”

Sharing the Spectrum

This project aims to design an Open Dynamic Spectrum Management (O-DSM) system to revolutionize spectrum sharing between commercial networks and federal/non-federal incumbents across various mid-band frequencies. Key techniques include:

• Developing AI-driven methodologies and algorithms to enable rapid (sub-second), precise and efficient detection and prediction of incumbent radars
• Developing intelligent, content-aware and closed-loop algorithms using digital twin and Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) capabilities to facilitate efficient spectrum sharing between commercial broadband networks and federal incumbents
• Developing a comprehensive AI-assisted testing framework to evaluate real-time performance and security of the O-DSM system, ensuring it meets industry and regulatory standards
• Prototyping the O-DSM system and evaluating its effectiveness in enabling efficient 6G coexistence within mid-band frequencies

If successful, this project will enable “whole-of-nation” 6G network deployments across various mid-band frequencies, reinforcing the U.S.’s position as a global leader in wireless technology.

This CAREER award is critical in that it won’t just support Shah, it will support the research group at the NextG Wireless Lab, where Shah advises and works with multiple Ph.D., M.S. and undergraduate students. This project further underscores the importance of centers, labs and funding to the department’s research enterprise. 

“The prestigious NSF CAREER grants recognize highly talented faculty for their cutting edge research and education mission. We are so proud of Vijay Shah winning this award,” said Department Head Veena Misra. “Through these NSF-supported opportunities, we advance science and technology, generate patents, launch startups and help guide industry research roadmaps. But most importantly, the NSF empowers us to mentor and train hundreds of students who now shape the future of technology as engineers, researchers and leaders in industry and academia.”