Sensing the Invisible: Microwave Platforms for Environmental and Biomedical Monitoring

The IEEE AP/MTT/EMC/ED Türkiye Joint Chapter is pleased to welcome Assoc. Prof. Zahra Abbasi, University of Calgary, Canada, for the invited lecture: "Sensing the Invisible: Microwave Platforms for Environmental and Biomedical Monitoring." Many signals that matter most to human health and the environment-such as contaminants in water, nutrients in soil, and biomarkers in surgical fluids-remain difficult or expensive to detect using conventional sensing approaches. In this lecture, Dr. Abbasi will present a research program based on microwave sensing as a versatile platform for compact, low-cost, and label-free detection. Resonator-based microwave platforms can detect the dielectric signature of a sample in real time without direct contact and without requiring chemical labels. The presentation will demonstrate how a common microwave sensing principle can be extended across two major application areas. On the environmental and precision-agriculture side, the lecture will cover microscale detection in water and real-time nutrient and soil monitoring toward more sustainable and data-driven farming. On the biomedical side, Dr. Abbasi will discuss applications including early detection of post-surgical complications through amylase monitoring, label-free monitoring of bacterial growth, and contactless mobility assessment for healthy aging. The lecture will conclude with a discussion of current challenges in sensor selectivity, robustness, system integration, and the broader directions that microwave sensing platforms may take in future environmental and biomedical applications. The event is organized by the IEEE AP/MTT/EMC/ED Türkiye Joint Chapter with local collaboration and support from Boğaziçi University. The lecture is open to students, researchers, academics, and professionals interested in microwave engineering, antennas, sensing systems, biomedical engineering, environmental monitoring, RF technologies, and emerging interdisciplinary applications of electromagnetics. Participation is free of charge and registration is not required.