Rate My Professor Maria Kovaleva

Dr. Maria Kovaleva serves as a Lecturer in the School of Electrical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical Sciences, part of the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. She is actively involved with the Curtin Institute for Radio Astronomy (CIRA), contributing to research in radio astronomy technologies. Her academic background includes a Doctor of Philosophy in electrical and electronics engineering. Prior to her academic career, she worked as an Antenna Design Engineer. In 2022, Kovaleva received the Fulbright Future Scholarship for a postdoctoral visiting scholar program at Brigham Young University, hosted by Karl Warnick in the field of Electronic Engineering, from August to November 2022. She was part of the team awarded the 2023 Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in connection with CIRA activities.

Kovaleva's research focuses on antenna arrays and propagation in radio astronomy, including beam prediction methods using artificial neural networks, initial beamforming analysis for substations in the SKA-Low radio telescope, electromagnetic simulations of mutual coupling between adjacent SKA-Low stations, and deriving mutual impedance matrices from embedded element patterns with measurement noise. Additional interests encompass the effects of noise in embedded element pattern measurements, metasurface designs for beam-steering in satellite services, system equivalent flux density for polarimetric phased array interferometers and tripole radio interferometers, and optimization algorithms such as evolutionary and cross-entropy methods in electromagnetic engineering. Her work supports sensitivity verification for prototypes like the SKA-Low AAVS2 and advancements in low-frequency polarimetric observations. With over 300 citations across 33 publications, key contributions include: "Beam Prediction Method for Antenna Arrays in Radio Astronomy via Artificial Neural Networks" (2025), "Initial Beamforming Analysis for Substations in the SKA-Low Radio Telescope" (2025), "Electromagnetic Simulation of Mutual Coupling Between Adjacent SKA-Low Stations" (2025), "Deriving Mutual Impedance Matrix of a Large Antenna Array From Embedded Element Patterns With Measurement Noise" (2024), "Effect of Noise in Embedded Element Pattern Measurements on Mutual Impedance Matrix Extraction" (2023), "Guest Editorial Disruptive Beam-Steering Antenna Technologies for Emerging and Future Satellite Services" (2022), and "System equivalent flux density of a low-frequency polarimetric phased array interferometer" (2022). She has served as guest editor for an IEEE AWPL special cluster on disruptive beam-steering technologies and supervises honors and summer research projects in physics and astronomy. Kovaleva engages in public outreach through digital Q&A sessions, innovation panels, and contributions to engineering education guides such as "Advancing Engineering Education Beyond COVID: A Guide for Educators" (2022).