Thomas Marzetta

Thomas Marzetta is Distinguished Industry Professor at NYU Tandon School of Engineering’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and Director of NYU WIRELESS. Born in Washington, D.C., he received the Ph.D. and SB in Electrical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978 and 1972, and the MS in Systems Engineering from University of Pennsylvania in 1973. Prior to joining NYU in 2017, he had three industrial research careers: petroleum exploration (Schlumberger-Doll Research, 1978 – 1987), defense (Nichols Research Corporation, 1987 – 1995), and telecommunications (Bell Labs, 1995 – 2017). At Bell Labs, he directed the Communications and Statistical Sciences Department within the former Mathematical Sciences Research Center, and he was elected a Bell Labs Fellow. He originated Massive MIMO, one of the cornerstones of fifth-generation wireless technology. He is lead author of the book Fundamentals of Massive MIMO.

Professor Marzetta was on the Advisory Board of MAMMOET (Massive MIMO for Efficient Transmission), an EU-sponsored FP7 project, and he was Coordinator of the GreenTouch Consortium’s Large Scale Antenna Systems Project. Recognition for his contributions to Massive MIMO include the 2017 IEEE Communications Society Industrial Innovation Award, the 2015 IEEE Stephen O. Rice Prize, and the 2015 IEEE W. R. G. Baker Award. He was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2003, and he received an Honorary Doctorate from Linköping University in 2015.