Group
Research Group
I am fortunate to have a great group of talented and motivated students that work with me. Please get in touch if you have any internship/job opportunities for them! Dr. Mitchell was the recipient of the 2019 New Mexico EPSCoR Mentor Award.
Research Assistant Positions Available
There are several open research positions in our group. Get in touch if you are interested in working in the exciting areas of data compression, machine learning, information theory, quantum codes, and post-quantum cryptography!
Current Students and Post-Docs
Mohsen MoradiPost-doctoral research scholar, 2025–present
Project: "Improved BP decoding for Quantum LDPC Codes."
Masoumeh AliniaPost-doctoral research scholar, 2022–present
Project: "Nested LDGM codes and belief propagation guided decimation for lossy source compression."
Vahid NouroziPhD student, 2024–present
Project: "Quantum Convolutional Codes."
Cabe RobertsonUndergraduate student researcher, 2025–present
Project: "Reinforcement learning for 6G channel decoding."
Yair BarrazaUndergraduate student researcher, 2025–present
Project: "Reinforcement learning for 6G channel decoding."
Matthew OchoaUndergraduate student researcher, 2026–present
Project: "Reinforcement learning for 6G channel decoding."
Previous Group Members
Salman HabibPost-doctoral research scholar, 2023–2024
Project: "Reinforcement learning for LDPC and GLDPC decoders." Now a lecturer at Texas A&M University Texarkana.
Worked on applying reinforcement learning to improve the performance of BP decoders, with particular emphasis on generalized LDPC codes for URLLC communication — showing significant gains in performance and convergence speed over state-of-the-art methods.
Mohsen MoradiPost-doctoral research scholar, 2023–2024
Project: "Polar codes for URLLC Communications." Now a post-doctoral research associate at Northeastern University.
Andrew CumminsPh.D., 2024
Project: "Decoders for high rate braided convolutional codes."
Investigated several novel constructions of spatially coupled turbo-like codes built from convolutional self-orthogonal codes (CSOCs) with extremely efficient and fast decoder implementations, plus contributions in spectrally efficient, rate-adaptable coding schemes for aeronautical communications.
Behrooz MosallaeiMSEE, 2024
Project: "Wireless technologies in the smart grid." Now pursuing a Ph.D. at New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Yousif YosifBSEE, 2024
Project: "Reinforcement Learning for Lossy Source Coding with LDGM Codes." Now a Software Engineer at Microsoft.
Yanfang (Vivian) LiuPost-doctoral research associate, 2019–2021
Project: "Coding for 5G and beyond." Now a Senior ECC Designer at Innogrit Corporation, working on error correcting code implementation for SSD storage systems.
Published several important theoretical papers on generalized LDPC codes, showing their suitability for URLLC in 5G communications for the first time, plus multiple hardware implementation papers for LDPC decoders in communications and biomedical applications.
Ahmad GolmohammadiPh.D., 2021
Project: "Spatially Coupled Codes for Source Compression." Now Senior Engineer at Qualcomm; previously SK Hynix and Bose.
Showed several fundamental results on spatially coupled codes for source compression, including distortion performance very close to the rate-distortion limit and notable performance improvement over existing joint source-channel coding schemes (both published in IEEE Transactions on Communications). Also received NSF funding for an industry project related to LDPC codes.
Homayoon HatamiPh.D., 2019, University of Notre Dame
Project: "An Absorbing Set Analysis of Quantized LDPC Decoders." Now Senior Modem System Engineer at Samsung.
Xaviar EnriquezMSEE, 2018, New Mexico State University
Project: "Raptor Coding for Computer Networks." Now R&D Engineer at Sandia National Laboratories; previously a Software Design Engineer at Torch Technologies.
Matthew GrimesMSEE, 2018, New Mexico State University
Project: "Improving the Performance of Nested LDPC Codes by Removing Problematic Graphical Structures." Now Project Engineer at Zia Engineering & Environmental Consultants, LLC.
Lai WeiPh.D., 2014, University of Notre Dame
Project: "Spatially Coupled LDPC Codes and Cooperative Communication." Now Staff Engineer at Qualcomm, Inc., CO.
Hua ZhouPh.D., 2013, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Project: "Analysis and Design of Low-Density Parity-Check Convolutional Codes." Now faculty at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China.
Biography (long version)
David G. M. Mitchell received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, in 2009. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Klipsch School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New Mexico State University and holds the IFT Professorship in Telecommunications. He previously held Visiting Assistant Professor and Post-Doctoral Research Associate positions in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He has also held visiting research positions at San Diego State University, the Vodafone Chair Mobile Communications Systems at TU Dresden, the Communication Theory Laboratory at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Signal Theory and Communications Department at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, and the Rhodes Information Initiative at Duke University.
He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, and his research interests lie in the areas of digital communications, machine learning, and quantum computing, with emphasis on error control coding and information theory. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2022 — NSF's most prestigious award for early-career faculty — the 2019 NMSU Early Career Award for Exceptional Achievements in Creative Scholarly Activity, and four best paper awards. He is also the recipient of the 2019 New Mexico EPSCoR Mentor Award. He holds 3 U.S. patents and has published over 100 peer-reviewed IEEE journal and conference articles gathering more than 2,000 citations. He serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications (2025–present), having previously served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2020–2024).
