Overview

Gender

male

Dr. Robert McGwier is the Director of Research of the Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology, and Research Professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Tech. He leads the overall execution of the Center's research mission, Blacksburg operations, and lead's the university's program development efforts in national security applications of wireless and space systems. His area of expertise is in radio frequency communications and digital signal processing.

Before joining Virginia Tech, Dr. McGwier spent 26 years as a member of the technical staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses' Center for Communications Research in Princeton, NJ, where he worked on advanced research topics in mathematics and communications supporting the federal government. He received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University in 1988. His work on behalf of the federal government has earned him many awards, including one of the intelligence community's highest honor in 2002.

McGwier is an avid amateur radio operator (call sign N4HY) and has previously served as the vice president of engineering for the Amateur Radio Satellite Corporation as well as on the membership of its board of directors. He is a member and former director of the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio. He won the Dayton Amateur Radio Association Technical Award in 1990 and the Central State VHF Society Chambers Award in 2007 for his work in software defined radio and its application to amateur radio.