![](https://signal-kinetics.media.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/01/pic4.jpg)
Sayed Saad Afzal
Research Assistant
afzals@mit.edu
Sayed Saad Afzal is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pursuing a Ph.D. in computer systems, networks, and artificial intelligence. He is working as a research assistant in the Signal Kinetics Lab. His work focuses on underwater backscatter systems and developing low-cost, low-power and scalable underwater distributed sensor networks.
Research Interests
Ocean IoT, Environmental sensing using wireless signals, Computer networks, and Low-power backscatter communication
Ocean IoT
B.S. 2018 LUMS
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Research Originality Award – J-WAFS World Water Day Video Competition (2021)
Ocean Observing Prize, MIT (2020)
US National Academies Ocean Decades selects our work as an Ocean-Shot for this decade (2020)
NMF Gold Medalist in BS Electrical Engineering, LUMS (2018)
Dean’s Honor List Award, LUMS (2014-2018)
Publications
![](https://signal-kinetics.media.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/icon3-e1654127673662.jpg)
Towards Battery-Free Machine Learning and Inference in Underwater Environments
ACM HotMobile ’22
Yuchen Zhao, Sayed Saad Afzal, Waleed Akbar, Osvy Rodriguez, Fan Mo, David Boyle, Fadel Adib and Hamed Haddadi
![](https://signal-kinetics.media.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/underwater-GPS-1-e1608564408199.jpg)
Underwater Backscatter Localization: Toward a Battery-Free Underwater GPS
![](https://signal-kinetics.media.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/node-scaled-1-1024x584.jpg)
IEEE/MTS Oceans ’20
Sayed Saad Afzal, Reza Ghaffarivardavagh, Waleed Akbar, Osvy Rodriguez, and Fadel Adib
![](https://signal-kinetics.media.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/12/Screen-Shot-2020-12-15-at-10.15.37-AM-1024x667.png)
Ultra-Wideband Underwater Backscatter via Piezoelectric Metamaterials
ACM SigCOMM ’20
Reza Ghaffarivardavagh, Sayed Saad Afzal, Osvy Rodriguez, and Fadel Adib