Dr Robert Cahill - Retirement
As many of you will know, Robert Cahill will retire from the University on 31 July 2021. He will be sorely missed by us all and we hope that he will stay engaged with us for a long time in to the future. Due to the current restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we haven’t been able to do our usual in-house collection for a present for Robert so we have moved this over to GoFundMe. See below for a short summary of Robert’s many contributions to the Centre for Wireless Innovation (CWI) and the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EEECS) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
Robert joined QUB in 1999, having previously worked in industry for 17 years after completing his PhD at the University of Kent in 1982. He was promoted to Reader in 2005 and has contributed significantly to CWI’s world leading activities in the areas of antennas, electronically tunable materials, and FSS based filters and absorbers. In particular, his pioneering work on filters assisted Airbus UK to secure a 155 million EUR contract to develop a key instrument (MWS) for the payload of the MetOP SG spacecraft – Robert’s technology will be at the heart of a new generation of Earth Observation Instruments which will be launched on three satellites!
He has led numerous industrial collaborations on behalf of the School and CWI, including projects with ESA, UK Space Agency, Airbus, TICRA, RAL Space and Nokia. His scholarly activity has led to over 210 journal and conference publications, as well as three best paper prizes and two prizes for research excellence and innovation (awarded by industry). During his time at QUB, Robert has been the first supervisor for 11 PhD students, mentoring them through to a successful defence of their thesis and helping them to secure positions with the top companies and academic institutions around the globe.
He has contributed significantly to teaching on the EEE pathways, delivering numerous taught modules – most recently ELE3030 Avionics Systems 3 and ELE3037 High Frequency Systems Techniques 3, all receiving excellent feedback from the students. Additionally, Robert has held numerous important administrative positions including acting as the Careers Liaison Advisor and being responsible for the management of the EEE year out placement programme for over a decade.
On behalf of Professor Simon Cotton, all contributions to Robert's retirement would be very much appreciated.