Francesca Meneghello

• Principal Research Scientist @ Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems (INSI), Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University (United States)
  Dates: August 2025 - today
  


• Assistant Professor (RTD-A) @ Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova (Italy)
  Dates: March 2023 - July 2025
  


• Postdoctoral Visiting Researcher @ WiSeCom lab, Engineering Department, Pompeu Fabra University (Spain)
  Dates: March 2025
  


• ERASMUS+ Programme Staff Mobility combined for Teaching and Training @ Secure Mobile Networking (SEEMOO) lab, Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany)
  Dates: July 2024
  


• Affiliate Research Scientist @ MENTIS lab, Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, Northeastern University (USA)
  Dates: April-May 2024
  


• Fulbright-Schuman Research Fellow @ MENTIS lab, Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, Northeastern University (USA)
  Dates: January-July 2023
  Project title: "BeWise: Beamforming Security in Next-Generation Wireless Networks"
  


• Postdoctoral researcher @ Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova (Italy)
  Dates: November 2021 - February 2023
  Project title: "Next Generations Wi-Fi Networks - New Frontiers beyond Connectivity"
  

• Ph.D. in Information Engineering @ University of Padova (Italy)
  Graduation date: March 8, 2022
  Thesis title: "Wireless Communications and Sensing - Opportunities and Challenges in Environment Aware Networks"
  Supervisor: Prof. Michele Rossi
  


• Master of Science in Telecommunications Engineering @ University of Padova (Italy)
  Graduation date: September 10, 2018
  Thesis title: "User Identification from Smartphone Passive Traffic Inspection"
  Supervisor: Prof. Michele Rossi
  Co-supervisor: Dr. Nicola Bui
  


• Bachelor degree in Information Engineering @ University of Padova (Italy)
  Graduation date: July 18, 2016
  Thesis title: "Design and Evaluation of an Anechoic Tank for Underwater Acoustic Experiments through Sound-Absorbing Material at 18-34 kHz"
  Supervisor: Prof. Michele Zorzi
  Co-supervisor: Dr. Filippo Campagnaro
  

• G. Geraci, F. Meneghello, F. Wilhelmi, D. Lopez-Perez, I. Val, L. Galati Giordano, C. Cordeiro, M. Ghosh, E. Knightly and B. Bellalta, "Wi-Fi: Twenty-Five Years and Counting," in Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 113, no. 11, pp. 1290-1336, 2025.


• K. F. Haque, M. Zhang, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "BeamSense: Rethinking Wireless Sensing with MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Beamforming Feedback," in Elsevier Computer Networks, 2025.


• K. F. Haque, M. Zhang, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "Si-FI: Learning the Beamforming Feedback for Simultaneous Multi-Subject Sensing," in Elsevier Computer Networks, 2025.


• F. Meneghello, F. Restuccia and M. Rossi, "WHACK: Adversarial Beamforming in MU-MIMO Through Compressed Feedback Poisoning," in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 23, no. 11, pp. 17252-17265, 2024.


• F. Meneghello, K. F. Haque and F. Restuccia, "Evaluating the Impact of Channel Feedback Quantization and Grouping in IEEE 802.11 MIMO Wi-Fi Networks," in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 13, no. 12, pp. 3419-3423, 2024.


• K. Wu, J. Pegoraro, F. Meneghello, JA Zhang, J.O. Lacruz, J. Widmer, F. Restuccia, M. Rossi, X. Huang, D. Zhang, G. Caire and Y. Jay Guo "Sensing in Bi-Static ISAC Systems with Clock Asynchronism: A Signal Processing Perspective," in IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 31-43, 2024.


• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello, M. E. Karim and F. Restuccia, "SAWEC: Sensing-Assisted Wireless Edge Computing," 2024.


• J. Pegoraro, J. O. Lacruz, F. Meneghello, E. Bashirov, J. Widmer and M. Rossi, "RAPID: Retrofitting IEEE 802.11 ay access points for indoor human detection and sensing," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 23, no. 5, pp. 4501-4519, 2024.


• F. Meneghello, C. Chen, C. Cordeiro and F. Restuccia "Toward Integrated Sensing and Communications in IEEE 802.11 bf Wi-Fi Networks," in IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 61, no. 7, pp. 128-133, 2023.


• F. Meneghello, N. Dal Fabbro, D. Garlisi, I. Tinnirello and M. Rossi "A CSI Dataset for Wireless Human Sensing on 80 MHz Wi-Fi Channels," in IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 61, no.9, pp. 146-152, 2023.


• C. Chen, H. Song, Q. Li, F. Meneghello, F. Restuccia and C. Cordeiro, "Wi-Fi Sensing Based on IEEE 802.11bf," in IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 121-127, 2023.


• G. Perin, F. Meneghello, R. Carli, L. Schenato and M. Rossi, "EASE: Energy-Aware Job Scheduling for Vehicular Edge Networks With Renewable Energy Resources," in IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 339-353, 2023.


• F. Meneghello, D. Garlisi, N. Dal Fabbro, I. Tinnirello and M. Rossi, "SHARP: Environment and Person Independent Activity Recognition with Commodity IEEE 802.11 Access Points," in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, vol. 22, no. 10, pp. 6160-6175, 2023.


• I. Labriji, F. Meneghello, D. Cecchinato, S. Sesia, E. Perraud, E. Calvanese Strinati and M. Rossi, "Mobility Aware and Dynamic Migration of MEC Services for the Internet of Vehicles," in IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, vol.18, no. 1, pp. 570-584, 2021.


• J. Pegoraro, F. Meneghello and M. Rossi, "Multiperson Continuous Tracking and Identification From mm-Wave Micro-Doppler Signatures," in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, vol. 59, no. 4, pp. 2994-3009, 2021.


• F. Meneghello, M. Rossi and N. Bui, "Smartphone Identification via Passive Traffic Fingerprinting: A Sequence-to-Sequence Learning Approach," in IEEE Network Magazine, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 112-120, 2020.


• F. Meneghello, M. Calore, D. Zucchetto, M. Polese and A. Zanella, "IoT: Internet of Threats? A Survey of Practical Security Vulnerabilities in Real IoT Devices," in IEEE IoT Journal, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 8182-8201, 2019.

• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello, J. Ashdown and F. Restuccia, "BANDWEAVE: Enhanced Channel Estimation in MIMO Networks with Multi-Band Fusion," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Tokyo, Japan, May 2026. - Best paper award


• L. Traverso, F. Gringoli, F. Restuccia and F. Meneghello, "Crafting Adversarial Attacks to MU-MIMO OFDMA Transmissions in Wi-Fi Networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, NV, USA, January 2026.


• M. Abdi, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "Semantic Multiplexing," arXiv preprint, 2025.


• G. A. Alghisi, G. Perin, F. Meneghello and F. Gringoli, "Let It Beam: Enabling Selective and Secure CSI-based Sensing via Beamforming," in Proceedings of ACM WiNTECH workshop of the Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (MobiCom), 2025.


• S. Fontana, F. Meneghello, J. Link, F. Restuccia, M. Hollick and F. Gringoli, "Breaking the Barrier to Downlink Packet Capture in OFDMA Wi-Fi Networks," in Proceedings of ACM WiNTECH workshop of the Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (MobiCom), 2025.


• K M Rumman, F. Meneghello, K. F. Haque, F. Gringoli and F. Restuccia, "SHRINK: Reducing MIMO Feedback Overhead in Wi-Fi with Dynamic Data-Driven Channel Sounding," in Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing (MobiHoc), Houston, TX, USA, October 2025.


• T. Hassan, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "AdvO-RAN: Adversarial Deep Reinforcement Learning in AI-Driven Open Radio Access Networks," in Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth International Symposium on Theory, Algorithmic Foundations, and Protocol Design for Mobile Networks and Mobile Computing (MobiHoc), Houston, TX, USA, October 2025.


• F. Meneghello, F. Gringoli, M. Cominelli, M. Rossi and F. Restuccia, "How to BREAK MU-MIMO Precoding in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi Networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), London, UK, May 2025. - Best paper award


• M. Abdi, K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello, J. D Ashdown and F. Restuccia, "PhyDNNs: Bringing Deep Neural Networks to the Physical Layer," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), London, UK, May 2025.


• F. Meneghello, K. F. Haque, and F. Restuccia, "Radio Fingerprinting of Wi-Fi Devices Through MIMO Compressed Channel Feedback," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) - DeepWireless Workshop, London, UK, May 2025.


• K. F. Haque, K M Rumman, A. Elyasi, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "MAGIC: Meta-Learning Adaptive Gesture Recognition with mmWave MIMO CSI," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WoWMoM), Fort Worth, TX, USA, May 2025.


• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "m3MIMO: An 8×8 mmWave Multi-User MIMO Testbed for Wireless Research," in Proceedings of ACM WiNTECH workshop of the Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (MobiCom), Washington D.C., DC, USA, November 2024.


• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "Integrated Sensing and Communication for Efficient Edge Computing," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), Paris, France, October 2024.


• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "BFA-Sense: Learning Beamforming Feedback Angles for Wi-Fi Sensing," in Proceedings of IEEE WiSense workshop of the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications (PerCom), Biarritz, France, March 2024.


• K. F. Haque, F. Meneghello and F. Restuccia, "Wi-BFI: Extracting the IEEE 802.11 Beamforming Feedback Information from Commercial Wi-Fi Devices," in Proceedings of ACM WiNTECH workshop of the Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (MobiCom), Madrid, Spain, October 2023.


• D. Sweet, E. Zangrando and F. Meneghello, "HIJACK: Learning-based Strategies for Sound Classification Robustness to Adversarial Noise," in Proceedings of IEEE SmartSys workshop of the IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing (SMARTCOMP), Nashville, Tennessee, USA, June 2023.


• F. Meneghello, A. Blanco, A. Cusano, J. Widmer and M. Rossi, "Wi-Fi Multi-Path Parameter Estimation for Sub-7 GHz Sensing: A Comparative Study," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), Montreal, Canada, USA, June 2023.


• F. Meneghello, F. Restuccia and M. Rossi, "DeepCSI: Rethinking Wi-Fi Radio Fingerprinting Through MU-MIMO CSI Feedback Deep Learning," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Bologna, Italy, July 2022.


• F. Meneghello, D. Cecchinato and M. Rossi, "Mobility Prediction via Sequential Learning for 5G Mobile Networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), Thessaloniki, Greece, Oct. 2020.


• J. Pegoraro, D. Solimini, F. Matteo, E. Bashirov, F. Meneghello and M. Rossi, "Deep Learning for Accurate Indoor Human Tracking with a mm-Wave Radar," in Proceedings of the IEEE Radar Conference (RadarConf20), Florence, Italy, Sep. 2020.


• F. Meneghello, F. Campagnaro, R. Diamant, P. Casari and M. Zorzi, "Design and evaluation of a low-cost acoustic chamber for underwater networking experiments," in Proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems (WUWNet), Shanghai, China, Oct. 2016. - Best student paper award

• F. Meneghello, G. Perin and M. Rossi, "Machine Learning Techniques for Context Extraction and User Profiling in 5G Mobile Systems," book chapter in CNIT technical report 07- Machine Learning and 5G/6G Networks: Interplay and Synergies, S. Barbarossa and A. Zanella, Eds. Texmat, Jul. 2021.

• MIMO in IEEE 802.11ac/ax networks as part of the Tutorials on Telecommunications organized by Fondazione RESTART
  

• PhD Summer School of Information Engineering (SSIE) organized by the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Padova and the IEEE Italy section. The video of the school presentation is available at this link
  Editions: 2024, 2025, 2026
  

• Data Access and Web - Computer Networks @ Department of Public, International and Community Law, University of Padova
  Degree: Bachelor in Law and Technology
  Academic year: 2021-2022, 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025
  


• Machine Learning for Human Data @ Department of Mathematics, University of Padova
  Degree: Master in Data Science
  Academic year: 2024-2025
  


• Human Data Analytics @ Department of Mathematics, University of Padova
  Degree: Master in Data Science
  Academic year: 2023-2024
  

• Human Data Analytics @ Department of Mathematics, University of Padova
  Degree: Master in Science in Data Science
  Academic year: 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, 2022-2023
  


• Telecommunications @ Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova
  Degree: Bachelor in Information Engineering
  Academic year: 2017-2018, 2018-2019
  


• Computer Science @ Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova
  Degree: Bachelor in Information Engineering
  Academic year: 2017-2018
  

• AI/ML in Wireless Networks: Yes, But... @ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University, USA (online)
  Date: November 2025
  

• How to Use Wireless Networks to Sense the Environment @ Summer School on Advanced Topics in 5G/6G Communications (Cuenca, Spain)
  Date: July 2025
  

• How to BREAK MU-MIMO in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi Networks @ Telefónica (Barcelona, Spain)
  Date: March 2025
  

• How to Use Wireless Networks to Sense the Environment @ University of Trento (Trento, Italy)
  Date: November 2024
  

• Toward Integrated Sensing and Communications in Wi-Fi 8 @ IEEE PIMRC Special Session "How Wi-Fi 8 Will Look Like in 2028?" (Valencia, Spain)
  Date: September 2024
  

• IEEE 802.11 Multi-Antenna Systems @ Secure Mobile Networking (SEEMOO) lab, Technical University of Darmstadt (Darmstadt, Germany)
  Date: July 2024
  

• The role of machine learning in the interplay between communication and sensing in next-generation wireless networks @ IEEE ComSoc's Future Networks Technical Community's AIML Working Group (online)
  Date: October 2023
  

• Communication and Sensing in Next-generation Wireless Networks @ SUSTAIN Workshop (online)
  Date: October 2023
  

• Smart cities: data management and IoT infrastructures @ EPIX – Eco-System Partnership for Interclusters and Smart Cities Exchanges (online)
  Date: October 2023
  

• Smart lighting for smart cities @ BRILLIANT ClusterXchange, ELCA European Lighting Cluster Alliance
  Available on: YouTube
  Date: April 2021
  

• Best Paper Award @ IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Tokyo, Japan, May 2026. Paper title: "BandWeave: Enhanced Channel Estimation in MIMO Networks with Multi-Band Fusion".


• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Global Postdoctoral Fellowship granted by the European Commission for the project MIMOSA, 2026-2028.


• Best Paper Award @ IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), London, UK, May 2025. Paper title: "How to BREAK MU-MIMO Precoding in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi Networks".


• Window of Science (WOS) travel support granted by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Apr. 2024.


• Seal of Excellence recognized by the European Commission for the project proposal submitted under the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions call MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2023, Apr. 2024.


• Winner of the Fall 2022 IEEE DataPort Dataset Upload Contest in the Machine Learning category based on unique dataset views as measured by Google Analytics and a review from a committee of IEEE volunteers, for the dataset CSI Dataset for Wireless Human Sensing on 80 MHz Wi-Fi Channels.


• Best Ph.D. Thesis Award @ GTTI (Gruppo Telecomunicationi e Tecnologie dell'Informazione) awards for Ph.D. Theses in the field of Communication Technologies 2022, Sept. 2022.


• Fulbright-Schuman Fellowship - visiting scholar program, Jan.-June 2023 @ Northeastern University (Portland, Maine, USA). Project title: "BeWise: Beamforming Security in Next-Generation Wireless Networks".


• Young Researcher Travel Grant @ the 42nd IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Bologna, Italy, July 2022.


• Honorary Mention @ IEEE ComSoc Student Competition 2019, Nov. 2019.


• Best Student Presentation Award @ IEEE Italy Section Summer School SSIE 2019 "AI and Machine Learning for ICT Applications", Brixen, Italy, July 2019. Video of the school.


• Best Student Paper Award @ 11th ACM International Conference on Underwater Networks & Systems (WUWNet), Shanghai, China, Oct. 2016. Paper title: "Design and evaluation of a low-cost acoustic chamber for underwater networking experiments".
  

• Wi-Fi 8 and Beyond: Exploring the Future of Wireless Connectivity
  Francesca Meneghello, PhD, Francesc Wilhelmi, PhD, Cheng Chen, PhD, Katarzyna Kosek-Szott, PhD, Mukulika Maity, PhD
  Submission deadline: May 15, 2026
  
  

• Connections in the Air
  Part of the RESTART Invisible Connections Series. The video is available at this link.
  


• MIMO in IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi networks
  Part of the RESTART Tutorials on Telecommunications. The video is available at this link.
  


• Author interview: Wi-Fi 25 years and counting
  The video is available at this link.


• Author interview: Downlink Packet Capture in OFDMA
  The video is available at this link.


• Che cosa fa un Ingegnere delle Telecomunicazioni?
  Part of the scientific communication projects of the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova. The videos are collected in a playlist available at this link.


• Cosa posso fare con il Wi-Fi? A parte connettermi a Internet!
  Part of the DEI cube scientific communication project of the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova. The video is available at this link.


• N2 Women Event: Inclusive Excellence - What does it actually mean?
  Panel at IEEE SMARTCOMP 2023. Abstract and details here.


• ICTea - scientific divulgation project
  Two formats: 10/20-minute videos describing the information and communication technology world adopting a simple language; 40-minute interviews to researchers in other scientific and humanistic field. Take a look at our videos on YouTube! Other links: La Stampa article, Il Mattino di Padova article.
  Live events with the GEDI News Network group: Autonomous driving (starting at 35'), Next generation infrastructures (starting at 53').
  Other videos: About 5G with ICTea, About the ICTea project.


• Women in Information Engineering
  Project led by Laura Crosara to demystify the figure of women in engineering. The video is available at this link.

fr.meneghello@northeastern.edu

MENTIS research group - Institute for Intelligent Networked Systems
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Northeastern University
360 Huntington Ave, 02115, Boston (United States)