Pahlavan started doing research on Wi-Fi when it was in its infancy,[1][2][3][4][5][6] and has worked on wireless indoor geolocation,[7][8] and Body Area Networking.

He began his academic career as an assistant professor at the Northeastern University, Boston, in 1979, before joining the faculty at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in 1985.

At WPI he founded the world's first academic research program in wireless local area networks (WLAN), commercially known as Wi-Fi (1985).

Pahlavan has also acted as a consultant to many firms in the wireless industry, including Nokia, Apple, DEC, Honeywell, Electrobit, JPL and NTT.

[13] He was elected as a fellow of the IEEE (1996) for contributions to data communication with particular emphasis on wireless office information networks,[14] was selected as a member of the Evolution of Untethered Communications Committee, National Research Council (1997),[15] was the first Fulbright-Nokia scholar (2000), and was awarded the WPI's Board of Trustees' Outstanding Research and Creative Scholarship Award (2011).