Muhammad Usman Afzal is a senior IEEE member and working as a Research Fellow at University of Technology Sydney. He received the Bachelor in Electronics Engineering and Masters in Computational Science and Engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, in 2009 and 2011, respectively. He has completed PhD in Electronics Engineering from Macquarie University, Australia, in 2017.

Muhammad doctoral research led to two breakthroughs in the field of electromagnetics and antennas. His work on near-field phase-correction is a game-changing practical design approach to develop low-profile high-gain antennas as this method uses actual electric field (vectors) phase and not the ray tracing technique, traditionally used in phase-correcting lenses. The method provides freedom to a designer in performing phase correction at a distance as close to as half of the free-space wavelength spacing from antenna, which is traditionally performed in the far-field regions or at least 3-5 wavelengths spacing. His second contribution is the development of near-field meta-steering (NFMS) technology, which is an IP protected invention. This technology yields beam-steering antenna systems that are superior to both electronically steered active phased arrays and all mechanically steered/tilted reflector dishes or flat panel antennas. His innovative work on beam-steering technology received the “Highly Commended” certificate in the Five Future-Shaping Research Priorities category in the 2017 Academic Staff Awards at Macquarie University.

Muhammad has been working in the field of electromagnetics and antennas for more than ten years. He started his career as a Lab Engineer in 2010 at Research Institute for Microwave & Millimetre-Wave Studies (RIMMS) NUST, Islamabad. In 2012, he was promoted to the position of lecturer, which he continued till Feb 2013. In 2017, after PhD, he was offered a post-doctorate for three years on a project funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) through the Discovery grant scheme at Macquarie University. Since 2020 he has been working as a Research Fellow at University of Technology Sydney. Muhammad is an active researcher and has been publishing more than ten research papers each year and also involved in research supervision. In the last five years, Muhammad co-supervised: five PhD, three Masters of research, and several undergraduate thesis students.

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muhammad_Usman_Afzal/publications