Electrical & Computer Engineering

Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware

The University of Delaware, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dennis Prather earns named Chair

Dec. 8, 2006

A member of the nanoelectronics, electromagnetics and photonics research group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Prather is involved in the development of micro-, meso- and nano-photonic devices, applied optics and electromagnetic research, developing imaging technologies in the millimeter-wave (mmW) part of the spectrum so that they can be seen and interpreted by the human eye. This has applications for helicopter pilots, for example, who are flying though thick cloud cover or landing in whirling sand.

Prather also has been awarded a grant from the Department of Defense for a project that will help enable computers to get closer to operating at the speed of light.

His research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Laboratory and industrial sponsors.

The author or coauthor of 24 U.S. patents and more than 250 publications, Prather is a fellow of the Optical Society of America and the Society for Photo-Instrumentation Engineers. He received the Outstanding Junior Faculty of Engineering Award in 2000-01, a National Science Foundation Career Award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award and the W.J. Kastner Technical Achievement Award.

Prather received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Maryland and joined the UD faculty in 1997.