Ghasempour, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, was one of 48 researchers selected for the program this year. Each award comes with up to $450,000 in research funding over three years, representing a total of $21.5 million for this year’s recipients. Projects span a wide range of science and technology, including quantum computing, advanced materials design and artificial intelligence. The program is part of a mission is to discover, shape, champion and transition high-risk basic research that profoundly impacts the future Air and Space Forces.

Ghasempour's work for the Air Force program will look into using terarhertz frequencies — a high-frequency band between radio and infrared signals that holds promise for next-generation wireless technologies — for agile aerial sensing. She has previously won an NSF CAREER Award, a Marconi Young Scholar Award and an ACM SIGMOBILE Dissertation Award. Last year, she and her research team won best paper awards at the ACM MobiCom and USENIX NSDI conferences. She joined Princeton in 2021.