He is a Delegate of NZ to the meetings of ITU-R and APT and has contributed to a large number of wireless communications standards. His research interests include radio propagation, design, and performance analysis for wireless communication systems, especially antenna arrays, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), cognitive radio, and massive MIMO and mmWave systems. He has authored over 200 articles in these areas.,Dr. Shafi received the IEEE Communications Society Public Service Award in 1992 “For Leadership in the Development of Telecommunications in Pakistan and Other Developing Countries.” He was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Queens Birthday Honors 2013, for Services to Wireless Communications. He has coshared two IEEE prize-winning papers: the Best Tutorial Paper Award of the IEEE Communications Society in 2004 (coshared with D. Gesbert, D.-S. Shiu, A. Naguib, and P. Smith) for the paper, From Theory to Practice: An Overview of MIMO Space Time Coded Wireless Systems, IEEE JSAC, April 2003, and the IEEE Donald G Fink Award 2011 (coshared with A. Molisch and L. J. Greenstein) for their paper in the Proceedings of the IEEE April 2009, Propagation Issues for Cognitive Radio. He has been the Co-Chair of the ICC 2005 Wireless Communications Symposium. He has been a Co-Guest Editor for three previous JSAC editions, the Proceedings of the IEEE, and the IEEE Communications Magazine. He has held various editorial and TPC roles in the IEEE journals and conferences.