Dr. Howitt holds a BEE and MSEE from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of California, Davis. His early career was spent developing hardware emulators and discrete time event software simulators. He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech and a research associate at the Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG) and has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. In 2002, he joined the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC) as an Associate Professor.
Over his career, he has addressed a number of issues facing the wireless communication industry, tying together the interrelating components of theory, empirical measurement and simulation. Specifically, the development of novel approaches for using adaptive antennas and innovative signal processing techniques for multi-rate/multi user detection.
His research group has been in the forefront of research in understanding and developing techniques to address coexistence issues between wireless technologies operating in the unlicensed frequency bands. They have provided fundamental work on understanding the interaction between WiFi, Bluetooth and ZigBee technologies. His current work on wireless network resource management has grown out of his experiences with unlicensed band coexistence. His research group is developing a deep understanding of how energy is dissipated within the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless technology. |