Established in 2012, the Vice-Chancellor's Research Prizes recognise and reward those whose research has impact beyond academia, whether on health, society, public policy, business, education, the environment or quality of life. The winners were announced in December 2020 by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ian Greer.

Professor Ian Greer said: “With collaboration with more than 50 researchers from 10 countries and significant impact on the field of research, Hien has shown clear research excellence in terms of leadership, initiative and innovation and is a very worthy winner of this prize.” Watch the virtual awards ceremony here.

Dr Ngo joined the team at ECIT’s Centre for Wireless Innovation in 2017 and has worked tirelessly to develop novel low cost and eco-friendly solutions for future wireless systems. His research over the last five years has focused on Massive MIMO, a core technology of 5G and beyond wireless networks.

Dr Ngo commented: “I am delighted to receive the Early Career Researcher prize for 2020. The standard of research taking place at QUB is excellent and I am truly honoured to be selected for this award. I would like to thank all of my colleagues at Queen’s for their support along the way. I look forward to continuing innovative research on Massive MIMO.”

In 2019, Dr Ngo won a Future Leaders Fellowship from UK Research & Innovation to develop a new and revolutionary technology in mobile networks called “Cell-free massive MIMO", expected to significantly improve data speeds, reliability and connectivity, and therefore, meet the demands of users of future wireless systems.He is also the recipient of the IEEE ComSoc Leonard G. Abraham Prize (2017) and of the IEEE ComSoc Stephen O. Rice Prize (2015).

Congratulations to Dr Ngo and all of this year’s award winners!