Akhlesh Lakhtakia received the BTech (1979) and DSc (2006) degrees from the Banaras Hindu University and the MS (1981) and PhD (1983) degrees from the University of Utah. In 1983 he joined the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University as a post-doctoral research scholar, where he became a Distinguished Professor in 2003, the Charles Godfrey Binder Professor in 2006, and the Evan Pugh University Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics in 2018. His current research interests include electromagnetic scattering, surface multiplasmonics, bioreplication, forensic science, solar energy, sculptured thin films, mimumes, and international higher education in STEM disciplinesHe has been elected a Fellow of Optical Society of America (1992), SPIE-The International Society for Optics and Photonics(1996), Institute of Physics (UK) (1996), American Association for the Advancement of Science (2010), American Physical Society (2012), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (2016), Royal Society of Chemistry (2016), Royal Society of Arts (2017), and Sigma Xi (2023). He has been designated a Distinguished Alumnus of both of his almae matres at the highest level. Awards at Penn State include: Outstanding Research Award (1996), Outstanding Advising Award (2005), Premier Research Award (2008), and Outstanding Teaching Award (2016), and the Faculty Scholar Medal (2005). He received the 2010 Technical Achievement Award from SPIE, the 2016 Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, the 2022 Smart Structures and Materials Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2022 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award, and the 2022 Radio Club of America Lifetime Achievement Award. He is presently a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer (2022-24) and a Jefferson Science Fellow at the US State Department (2022-23).
Dr. Cynthia Furse is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah. She received her B.S. in electrical engineering with a mathematics minor in 1985, M.S. in electrical engineering in 1988, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Utah in 1994. She applies her expertise in electromagnetics to sensing and communication in complex lossy scattering media such as the human body, geophysical prospecting, ionospheric plasma, and aircraft wiring networks. She has taught electromagnetics, wireless communication, computational electromagnetics, microwave engineering, antenna design, and introductory electrical engineering, and she has been a leader in the development of the flipped classroom. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and the National Academy of Inventors. She is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation (AP) Society, an Associate Editor for the Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, a past AdCom member for the IEEE AP Society, and past chair of the IEEE AP Education Committee. She has received numerous teaching and research awards including the 2020 IEEE Chen To Tai Distinguished Educator Award. She is a founder of LiveWire Innovation, Inc., a spin-off company commercializing devices to locate intermittent faults on live wires.
Tom G. Mackay is the Professor of Applied Electromagnetic Theory in the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and also an adjunct professor in the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics at The Pennsylvania State University. He graduated from the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Strathclyde. His research has been supported by awards from the Carnegie Trust for The Universities of Scotland, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Nuffield Foundation, Royal Academy of Engineering/Leverhulme Trust, and Royal Society of Edinburgh/Scottish Executive. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), Optica (formerly OSA), and SPIE-The International Society for Optics and Photonics. His current research interests include homogenization, complex materials, and surface waves.
