EECS Alumna Jamesina Simpson (Ph.D. 07'), Elected Vice Chair (2015-17) and Chair (2018-20) of Commission B - Fields and Waves of the U.S. National Committee of International Union of Radio Science

Congratulations to EECS alumna, Prof. Jamesina Simpson (BSEE 03', PHD 07'), Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Utah, on her election as Vice-Chair (2015-17) and as Chair (2018-20) of Commission B (Fields and Waves) of the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI).

"This is a very-well-deserved honor for Jamesina," said Alan Sahakian, Professor and Chair of EECS.

Dr. Simpson obtained her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northwestern University in 2003 and 2007, respectively. Her Ph.D. advisor was Allen Taflove, Professor and Graduate Director of EECS, while her Ph.D. dissertation was titled, “3-D FDTD Modeling of Impulsive Electromagnetic Propagation in the Global Earth-Ionosphere Waveguide below 30 kHz” (View PDF).

Prof. Taflove, said, "Excellent News! This is one of the top professional positions in engineering electromagnetics."

As a graduate student, Dr. Simpson was a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, and also received fellowships, awards, and grants-in-aid from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S), IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), McCormick School of Engineering, and Intel Corporation. She worked through a grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Prof. Heyno Garbe's Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab at the University of Hannover, Germany in summer of 2002. In summers of 2003 - 2006, she worked as an engineering intern at Intel Corporation in Hillsboro, OR.

From August 2007 to June 2012, Dr. Simpson was a tenure-track assistant professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of New Mexico (UNM). In July 2012, she joined the ECE Department at the University of Utah as an associate professor. Her research lab encompasses the application of FDTD to modeling electromagnetic phenomena at frequencies over 15 orders of magnitude (~1 Hz vs. ~600 THz).

Prof. Simpson's research activities have been funded by NASA, Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Labs, Intel Corporation, the Department of Energy, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has received research and teaching awards, including a 2010 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award (entitled “3-D Global Full-Maxwell's Equations Modeling of the Effects of a Coronal Mass Ejection on the Earth”), a 2011 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship, and the 2012 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Donald G. Dudley, Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award. From 2010 - 2014, she was an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

Current and former students in Prof. Simpson's Computational Electrodynamics Research Lab have earned awards such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Pre-Doctoral and Doctoral Research Awards, the American Association of University Women Fellowship, and the National Consortium MASINT Research Scholarship. Graduates from her lab have accepted positions in industry and with the government, including Intel Corporation, Singapore's Institute of High Performance Computing, and the National Nuclear Security Administration's Future Leaders Program.

Other recent awards Prof. Simpsons has received, include:

• 2012 Elevated to Senior Member of IEEE

• 2012 Donald G. Dudley, Jr. Undergraduate Teaching Award of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society

• 2011 IEEE-Albuquerque Outstanding Engineering Educator Award

• 2011 UNM ECE Distinguished Researcher Award

• 2011 UNM School of Engineering Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award

• 2011 Air Force Summer Faculty Fellowship

• 2010 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award