GRSS President 1981
Fawwaz T. Ulaby (Fellow, 1980) is the Emmett Leith Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan. Between 1999 and 2005, he served as Vice President for Research, with responsibility for an 800-million dollar research enterprise. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of AAAS, and a member of several scientific boards and commissions. Between 2000 and 2006, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Proceedings.
Since joining the University of Michigan faculty in 1984, Professor Ulaby has directed large, interdisciplinary NASA projects aimed at the development of high-resolution satellite radar sensors for mapping Earth’s terrestrial environment. He also served as the founding Director of a NASA-funded Center for Space Terahertz Technology.
His involvement with the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society extends over a period exceeding three decades, including service as the first President of the Society (1979 and 1981), Editor of its Transactions, General Chairman of its first and seventh IGARSS (1981 and 1987), and in other capacities. He also served on several IEEE-wide boards and committees.
Professor Ulaby has authored 14 books and published some 700 scientific papers and reports. His undergraduate textbook on Applied Electromagnetics has been adopted by some 150 universities across the United States and by a comparable number of universities in other countries. Several of his books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and other languages.
He is the recipient of numerous awards including the NASA Group Achievement Award (1990), the University of Michigan Regents Medal for Meritorious Service (1996), and the IEEE Millennium Medal (2000). Over his 30-year academic career, he has supervised 115 M.S. and Ph.D. graduate students. In 2002 he received the William Pecora Award, a joint recognition by NASA and the Department of the Interior, and in 2006 he received the IEEE Thomas Edison Medal, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the American University of Beirut, the Distinguished Educator Award from the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, and the EECS Professor of the Year Award from EKN. (Date: Jan. 2024)
