The annual list Rising Stars in Computer Networking and Communications recognizes ten up-and-coming female researchers to honor their great career start. This year’s list features Samira Hayat, doctoral graduate from the University of Klagenfurt and now researcher at Lakeside Labs and founder. She is the first Austrian-based scientist to receive this award.
Written by Christian Bettstetter
Samira Hayat joined my team at the University of Klagenfurt with a master degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Trento. During her PhD under my supervision, she focused on wireless connectivity and path planning in multi-drone systems and developed interest in the ethical and societal implications of drones. She also spent a semester as a guest researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. As a result of her research, Samira received her doctoral degree in technical sciences in 2021 for her dissertation “Drone networks for search and rescue.” She is now a researcher at Lakeside Labs, where she works in the research field “5G and drones,” and is also in the process of planning a startup.
Samira became quite well known for her work on multi-drone system design and planning. She covers a wide range of methods: from system architectures to algorithms and experimental analysis. Social and ethical aspects are not left out either, but have been deliberately addressed in several talks, like those at TEDxCERN and re:publica. As thesis advisor, I was pleased that Samira always keeps the overall system in mind and ventures into territory where little work had been done before.
Her publication record is impressive for a scientist at her career stage. A survey article on drone communications that she wrote with her co-advisor Evsen Yanmaz and with Raheeb Muzaffar hit the mark and received more than 1,000 citations within five years. A research paper on path planning for search and rescue missions was also well perceived and quickly passed the threshold of hundred citations.
Samira was very pleased to receive this nomination. “It’s an honor I don’t have words to express my joy for. I am proud to be a woman in engineering, and lucky to have people who believe in me,” she wrote on LinkedIn. Her career goal is to combine her passion for research with the desire to bring drone technology to market for commercial use cases, existing and emerging.