Ana Inês Inácio: TNO Researcher Advancing Wireless Tech

These invisible RF signals are only part of what has earned this senior IEEE member its worldwide recognition.

Inácio recently received the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Young Professional Award for “his leadership among IEEE young professionals, promoting innovation and inclusion, and pioneering advances in RF sensor systems, connecting technical excellence with impactful community engagement.”

The IEEE honor society recognition reflects a career built along two parallel paths: advancing RF circuit design while helping engineers around the world build professional communities.

“I’ve always loved building things,” says Inácio. “Sometimes that means home runs; sometimes that means helping people connect and grow together. »

This blend of technical innovation and global leadership gives his work impact far beyond the laboratory.

EE lessons at the kitchen table

Inácio grew up in Vales do Rio, a rural village near Covilhã, in central Portugal.

The area was known for agriculture and textiles, she said. Many residents worked in the textile industry, including his grandfather, who repaired machines such as industrial looms. He became its first engineering professor without ever holding the official title.

Through correspondence courses delivered by mail, he taught himself electrical systems. At home, he explained electricity to his granddaughter while he repaired appliances and wiring.

“He would show me why something broke and how we could fix it,” she remembers. This aroused his curiosity.

Her mother was a tailor and later managed other tailors. Her father left his factory job to attend culinary school and now cooks in an aged care facility. Curiosity was a trait that ran in the family.

In high school, Inácio was drawn to math and physics as much as biology and geology, she said. Encouragement from teachers and an engineer uncle eventually steered her toward electronic engineering.

Conduct research on integrated circuits

In 2008, she enrolled in an integrated master’s program in electrical and telecommunications engineering at the Universidade de Aveiro in Portugal, a five-year degree combining undergraduate and graduate studies.

The opportunity to study abroad changed his path. In 2012, she moved to the Netherlands to study at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) as part of a six-month European exchange program with UAveiro.

A professor encouraged her to stay and so she completed her final year of her master’s degree in the Netherlands. She focused on techniques to improve the linearization of RF power amplifiers at Thales. The company, based in Hengelo, the Netherlands, designs and produces electronic products for defense and security.

She received her master’s degree from UAveiro in 2013. After graduation, she joined the integrated circuit design group at the University of Twente, Netherlands, conducting collaborative research in a nationally funded program on linearization techniques for RF front-end systems. This experience introduced her to the international research culture and persuaded her to pursue a career abroad, she says.

Designing the future of wireless

Inácio joined TNO in 2018 as a young scientist and innovator: her first professional job in the industry. Today, it designs integrated RF front-end systems, circuits that allow devices to transmit and receive signals wirelessly.

Components are at the heart of modern communications, enabling sensor networks, satellite links and emerging 6G technologies.

His work aims to address a central challenge: achieving better performance with smaller chips.

“As communications evolve, we need more bandwidth to transfer more data at higher speeds,” she explains. “The question is how much complexity you can fit into a system and still keep it efficient. »

Unlike commercial laboratory environments, which reuse established designs, research projects often start from scratch. Each transmit-receive chain (the signal path that converts digital data into radio waves and vice versa) is tailored to specific requirements.

His work focuses on improving key circuit characteristics, including linearity (ensuring that signals coming out of the antenna are not distorted) as well as noise reduction (so that design blocks can be optimized). Advanced design techniques help devices communicate more reliably while consuming less power, a critical need for large sensor networks such as the Internet of Things, she says.

Artificial intelligence is starting to influence her field, she says: “AI is already helping us work faster. The real challenge is learning how to use it to create better designs, not just faster designs.”

A parallel vocation with the IEEE

While his technical career flourished in research labs, an additional journey took place within the IEEE.

Inácio joined the organization in 2009 as a student after discovering the student branch of UAveiro. What started as curiosity turned into a long-term leadership path.

She progressed through roles within Region 8, covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East, one of the most culturally diverse regions in the organization. She served as vice president of the student branch and as the region’s student representative to more than 22,000 IEEE members. She also served as chair of the Young Professionals Affinity Group for the IEEE Benelux section, which includes Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Currently, she is Past Chair of the Region 8 Young Professionals Committee, and Vice Chair and Representative of IEEE Membership and Geographic Activities on the IEEE Young Professionals Committee. In these roles, she represents nearly 135,000 IEEE members.

Additionally, she is an active member of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society, where she currently serves as a young professional liaison.

Her involvement with the IEEE has boosted her professional confidence, she says.

“IEEE didn’t directly give me promotions in my day job, but it gave me leadership skills, networking opportunities and the ability to work with people from all over,” she says.

These experiences now shape his collaborations at TNO, where international teamwork is essential.

The IEEE-HKN Outstanding Young Professional Award recognizes this combination of technical excellence and community impact, she says.

Looking back, Inácio sees a clear thread connecting her childhood curiosity, her international career, and her leadership at IEEE: Engineering, she says, is ultimately as much about people as it is about technology.