Tentzeris and Nauroze received the award with their colleagues Hafid Griguer of Smartilab EMSI (Morocco) and M'hamed Drissi of INSA de Rennes, IETR (Rennes, France) for their research that led to the development of a novel, ultraflexible absorber of electromagnetic waves. This work could find numerous applications ranging from minimization of health effects caused by handheld and wearable wireless devices to IoT smart surfaces, smart houses, and smart cities being able to harvest ambient energy for truly autonomous operability. In addition, this approach could minimize interference in urban areas, while being able to be placed on virtually every curved surface, such as autonomous cars, as a paper-based "green" sticker featuring a flex-independent/polarization-independent "smart skin" performance.

Tentzeris and Nauroze are both affiliated with the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Tentzeris holds the Ken Byers Professorship in Flexible Electronics and leads the Adaptive Techniques in Hybrid Electromagnetic Numerical Applications Group, where Nauroze works as a Ph.D. student and graduate assistant.