AP/MTT/EMC/ED Turkey Joint Chapter Lecturer Talks Assoc. Prof. Zahra Abbasi

Sensing the Invisible: Microwave Platforms for Environmental and Biomedical Monitoring Many of the signals that matter most to our health and environment, such as a contaminant in water, a nutrient in soil, or a biomarker in surgical fluid, are invisible to conventional sensing, which often remains costly, lab-bound, and slow. This talk presents a research program built on microwave sensing as a versatile answer: compact, low-cost resonator-based platforms that read the dielectric signature of a sample in real time, without contact and without labels. I will show how a single sensing principle extends across two fronts. On the environmental and precision-agriculture side, I will cover microplastic detection in water and real-time nutrient monitoring for sustainable farming. On the biomedical side, I will discuss early detection of post-surgical complications through amylase monitoring, label-free tracking of bacterial growth, and non-contact mobility assessment for healthy aging. I will close with the open challenges of selectivity, robustness, and integration that define where these platforms go next.