Trang Thai earned both B.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering (with Research Thesis) and Physics from Georgia Institute of Technology in May 2008. She is currently holding a Graduate Research Assistant position in ATHENA group while pursuing the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering at Georgia Tech expected to graduate in Dec 2012. Her PhD thesis is under the supervision of advisor Prof. Manos Tentzeris and co-advisor Dr. Gerald DeJean who is with Microsoft Research (also an alumni of ATHENA).

Her research focuses on passive Radio Frequency (RF) sensing with multidisciplinary approach. Her past and current works include designs and developments of the RF transducers for pressure, temperature, and strain sensing, all of which pioneer a new class of transducers that are based on RF principles. Other works include sensing based on nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes as well as material characterization, front-end devices in microwave engineering, surface plasmon RF sensing applications. Side interests include photonic circuits, condensed matter physics, quantum theories, modern algebra, and complex analysis.

Trang was invited to perform research on a fellowship at Laboratory for Analysis and Architecture of Systems (LAAS-CNRS), Toulouse, France in Fall 2009 and again in Fall 2010 under the supervision of Prof. Herve Aubert. Trang was also selected as a recipient of the Microsoft Research PhD Fellowship in 2011.

Conference Papers

2008

1. Thai T., Haque A., Ratner J., Tentzeris M.M., DeJean G. - Development of a Fully-Integrated Ultrasensitive Wireless Sensor Utilizing Carbon Nanotubes and Surface Plasmon Theory Procs. of the 2008 IEEE-ECTC Symposium, pp.436-439, Orlando, FL, May 2008 Motorola Award Finalist.
2. Thai T., Haque A., DeJean G., Tentzeris M.M. - A novel ultrasensitive gas detector system based on carbon nanotube mixtures and antenna radiation variation Proc. of the 2008 IEEE-APS Symposium, pp.1-4, San Diego, CA, July 2008.

2007

1. Thai T., DeJean G.,Tentzeris M.M. - Design and Development of a Novel COmpact Soft-Surface Structure for the Front-to-Back Ratio Improvement and Size Reduction of Microstrip Yagi Antenna Arrays Proc. of the 2007 IEEE-APS Symposium, pp.1381-1384, Honolulu, HI, June 2007.

2006

1. DeJean G., Thai T., Tentzeris M.M. - Design of Microstrip bi-Yagi and Microstrip quad-Yagi Antenna Arrays for WLAN and Millimeter-Wave Applications Procs. of the 2006 IEEE-APS Symposium, pp.989-992, Albuquerque, NM, July 2006.

Journal Papers

2008

1. Thai T., DeJean G., Tentzeris M.M. - Design and Development of a Novel Compact Soft-Surface Structure for the Front-to-Back Ratio Improvement and Size Reduction of a Microstrip Yagi Array Antenna IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol.7, pp.369-373, 2008.

2007

1. DeJean G., Thai T., Nikolaou S., Tentzeris M.M. - Design and Analysis of Microstrip Bi-Yagi and Quad-Yagi Antenna Arrays for WLAN Applications IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Vol.6, pp.244-248, April 2007.