Frounchi is a Ph.D. student in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and is a member of the Silicon-Germanium Devices and Circuits Group. He is advised by John Cressler, who holds the Schlumberger Chair in Electronics in the School of ECE.  

This predoctoral achievement award is for Frounchi's Ph.D. research on “Millimeter-Wave Quadrature Receivers for Atmospheric Sensing and Data Communications.” His designs take advantage of highly balanced quadrature signal generation techniques and novel integrations of front-end RF circuits to provide a low noise solution for CubeSat-based radiometry and next-generation communication applications.

Frounchi received the bachelor's degree (with honors) from the University of Tabriz, Iran, in 2012, and the master's degree from the Sharif University of Technology, Iran, in 2014. He recently received the 2020 MTT-Sat Challenge Award, given by the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, and has published 22 peer-reviewed papers in academic journals.