01/25/2007

OXFORD, Miss. -- A University of Mississippi professor of electrical engineering has been accorded the prestigious rank of fellow in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Atef Elsherbeni was conferred the fellowship by the IEEE Board of Directors for his contributions to computational electromagnetics, antenna and microwave applications. The total number of IEEE fellows selected in a single year does not exceed 0.1 percent of the total voting institute membership. Only 268 members were selected to the 2007 class.

"I knew that I had been nominated, but receiving the award is a completely different experience," said Elsherbeni, who joined the UM faculty in 1987. "This is the highest recognition in our field. The only thing left for me to do is plan for my retirement."

Elsherbeni is the fifth member of the electrical engineering faculty to receive the honor. Others include Kai Fong Lee, dean of the School of Engineering; Allen Glisson, chair and professor of electrical engineering; and John Daigle and Ahmed Kishk, professors of electrical engineering.

"This is a well-deserved recognition for Dr. Elsherbeni," Glisson said. "The IEEE committees which select fellows consider their many outstanding contributions that have made and continue to make a lasting impact upon society. Atef has been making such contributions for a long time."

"Congratulations to Dr. Elsherbeni for this outstanding accomplishment," Lee said.

Elsherbeni said it is unusual for a department of this small size to have such a high percentage of IEEE Fellows.

"I believe our recognition will be beneficial to the electrical engineering department and the School of Engineering in general," he added.

Elsherbeni is to be officially recognized during both the IEEE Antennas and Propagation International Symposium and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques International Symposium, to be held in June in Hawaii.

Elsherbeni received his doctoral degree from the University of Manitoba in 1987. At UM, he has advised 37 graduate students, made more than 250 presentations around the world, worked on more than 60 research grants, participated in the development of 15 educational software packages, consulted for more than a dozen businesses and written nearly 200 journal publications, technical reports and book chapters. He is the co-author of two books on radar systems and antenna design.

He is editor in chief of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Journal, was chairman of the IEEE Region 3 educational activity committee and editor of the Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications.

A member of the Applied Computational
Electromagnetics Society Board of Directors and vice president of the society, Elsherbeni served as chair for the 2003 ACES meeting in Monterey, Calif., and co-chair for both the 2004 ACES meeting in Syracuse, N.Y., and the 2005 ACES meeting in Hawaii. He is the Technical Program Chair for the 2007 ACES conference to be held in Verona, Italy.