Dr. Wahaj Abbas Awan (SM’19, M’26) received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from COMSATS University Islamabad, Sahiwal Campus, Pakistan, in 2019. He subsequently joined the Department of Integrated IT Engineering at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul, Republic of Korea, where he served as a Research Assistant from 2019 to 2021. In August 2025, he completed the integrated MS–Ph.D. program in Information and Communication Engineering at Chungbuk National University (CBNU), Cheongju, Republic of Korea.
During his graduate and early career research, he worked as a Research Associate from September 2021 to August 2025 in the Optical Information Processing (OIP) Laboratory under Prof. Nam Kim and in the ResonantWave Technologies (RWT) Laboratory under Dr. Niamat Hussain. Following his Ph.D., he served as a Postdoctoral Fellow both at the OIP Laboratory (September 2025 to February 2026) and at the BK21 Chungbuk Information Technology Education and Research Center at CBNU (November 2025 to February 2026). His doctoral research was recognized with the Best Thesis Award from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at CBNU.
Dr. Awan previously served as an Assistant Professor at Gachon University, Seongnam, South Korea, from March 2026 to August 2026. Since September 2026, he has been serving as an Assistant Professor at Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea.
Dr. Awan has established a strong research profile, authoring more than 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications in the areas of antennas, reconfigurable RF systems, and advanced electromagnetic technologies. Dr. Awan’s research impact has been acknowledged internationally; he has been listed among the World’s Top 2% Scientists based on standardized citation metrics compiled through Stanford University’s global database of influential researchers since 2022, reflecting his high citation influence and scholarly contributions across his field. He is also the recipient of the prestigious URSI Young Scientist Award (URSI-GASS 2026), Kraków, Poland.
He has also contributed to scholarly publishing through editorial leadership, serving as Guest Editor for special issues in Micromachines (MDPI) on “Recent Advancements in Flexible, Reconfigurable, and Wearable Antennas for 5G and Beyond,” and in Electronics (MDPI) on “Recent Research in Reconfigurable Antenna and Metasurfaces for 5G and Beyond.” From May 2025 to August 2026, he served as an Associate Editor for Wireless Personal Communications. In addition to his editorial activities, he is an active reviewer for numerous international journals and conferences, including Sensors, Micromachines, Applied Sciences, Electronics, Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves, Scientific Reports, Radioengineering, PLOS ONE, and the International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Energy Technologies. His professional contributions span research, peer review, and academic service within the wireless and electromagnetic engineering community.