Professors Prescott and Minden become Life Members of IEEE

IEEE bestows IEEE Life membership on its members as proof of their strong sustained commitment to the profession. In January 2017, EECS Professors Gary Minden and Glenn Prescott will become Life Members of IEEE. They have each made long term contributions to the profession.

Professor Minden has been an IEEE member for 42 years. He joined the faculty of Electrical Engineering at The University of Kansas in 1981 and led the implementation of a new Computer Engineering program. From June 1994 through December 1996 he was a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Technology Office in the area of high performance networking systems. He has served on three Defense Science Board Task Forces: Tactical Battlefield Communications, Spectrum Management, and chaired the Wideband RF Modulation task force. He has served on a National Research Council (NRC) review panel for the Army Research Laboratory, has contributed to several DDR&E review panels, and has contributed to a NRC report on future tactical radio systems. Minden has lead several research projects in high performance wide area networks, mobile wireless systems, adaptive computational systems, and innovative networking protocols.

Professor Glenn Prescott has been a member of the IEEE for 34 years. Prescott’s professional career began as an Air Force radar technician during the Vietnam era. After completing his degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech, he received an Air Force commission and became a communications-electronics officer. In this capacity worked as a satellite communications engineer and later as commander of a NATO radio-relay base in Italy. While on active duty, he completed his Master’s degree from the University of Missouri and a Ph. D. from Georgia Tech – all in electrical engineering. At the end of his military career he was a faculty member at the Air Force Institute of Technology where he worked with various components of the Air Force Research Laboratories at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, and Rome AFB in New York. Upon retiring from the Air Force in the rank of Major in 1989, Prescott joined the faculty of EECS and began a career in research and teaching. His research area is radar and communication systems, covert communications, digital signal processing for communications and radar, and software radio systems. Prescott served for 11-years as a NASA Program Executive for Technology in the Earth Science Technology Office on a part-time appointment with NASA. He was responsible for building research programs that helped sustain NASA’s Earth science program at NASA Headquarters and Goddard Space Flight Center. Following the NASA appointment, he served as Chairman of the EECS department from 2008 until 2014.