Rate My Professor Nan Yang

Professor Nan Yang is a Professor of Wireless Communications and Signal Processing in the School of Engineering at the Australian National University, where he leads the Information and Signal Processing Cluster, the multi-scale communications research team, and the Emerging Communications Laboratory. He previously served as Associate Dean (Higher Degree Research) from 2019 to 2021. Nan Yang received his B.S. degree in Electronics from China Agricultural University in 2005, M.S. degree in Electronic Engineering from Beijing Institute of Technology in 2007, and Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering from the same institution in 2011, during which he was a visiting Ph.D. student at the University of New South Wales from 2008 to 2010. Before joining ANU in July 2014 as a Lecturer and Future Engineering Research Leadership Fellow, he was an OCE Postdoctoral Fellow at CSIRO ICT Centre from 2010 to 2012 and an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of New South Wales from 2012 to 2014. His career at ANU progressed to Senior Lecturer and Future Engineering Research Leadership Fellow from 2017 to 2020, Associate Professor from 2021 to 2024, and Professor from 2025.

Nan Yang's research focuses on communications theory and signal processing, including terahertz communications, ultra-reliable and low-latency communications, cyber-physical security, intelligent communications, next-generation multiple access, massive antenna systems, and molecular communications. He has produced 106 journal articles, 65 conference papers, and other outputs. Key publications include "Safeguarding 5G wireless communication networks using physical layer security" (2015, 1083 citations), "Transmit antenna selection for security enhancement in MIMO wiretap channels" (2012, 483 citations), "Terahertz communications for 6G and beyond wireless networks: Challenges, key advancements, and opportunities" (2022, 315 citations), "Short-packet downlink transmission with non-orthogonal multiple access" (2018, 287 citations), and "On the design of secure non-orthogonal multiple access systems" (2017, 241 citations). His impact is evidenced by the IEEE ComSoc Asia-Pacific Outstanding Young Researcher Award (2014), co-recipient of Best Paper Awards at IEEE ICC 2024, IEEE GlobeCOM 2022, IEEE GlobeCOM 2016, and IEEE VTC Spring 2013, IEEE ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer (2023-2024), IEEE VTS Distinguished Lecturer (2025-2027), Exemplary Editor Award from IEEE Communications Letters (2023), Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher (2024 cross-field), and recognition among the World's Top 1% Scientists in Electronics and Electrical Engineering by Research.com (2025). He serves on editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications, IEEE Communications Letters, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, and Frontiers in Communications and Networks, and has co-organized over 30 workshops at IEEE flagship conferences.