Biography

My house and parents in Chios, Greece (from 1997-2004 DK eyewitness travel guide for Greek Islands)

Dr. John L. Volakis (S’77–M’82–SM’89–F96) was born in Chios, Greece, on May 13, 1956, and immigrated to the U.S.A. in 1973. He received the B.E. degree (summa cum laude) from Youngstown State University, Youngstown, OH and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from The Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1979 and 1982, respectively.

Dr. Volakis is an IEEE, ACES, AAAS, and NAI Fellow and has a research career that spans more than four decades. He carried out research on antennas, medical sensing, computational methods, electromagnetic compatibility and interference, propagation, design optimization, RF materials and metamaterials, RFIDs, millimeter waves and terahertz, body-worn wireless technologies, and multi-physics engineering. His publications include nine books. His papers include more than 450 journal papers, nearly 1,000 conference papers, and 30 book chapters. He has also written several well-edited coursepacks, and has delivered short courses on antennas, numerical methods, and frequency selective surfaces. He has mentored nearly 110 Ph.D. students, Post-Docs, and has co-authored 43 papers with them that received “best student paper” awards.

His service to professional societies includes serving as the President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (2004), Chair of the International Union Radio Science-B (2020-2023), Chair of the U.S. URSI-B (2015-2017), twice the general Chair of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium, co-Chair of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society conference (2019), and the Chair of the International Workshop on Antenna Technologies (2019). He also served as an IEEE APS Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE APS Fellows Committee Chair, IEEE-wide Fellows committee member & Associate Editor of several journals. Among his awards are: 1) Univ. of Michigan College of Engineering Research Excellence award (1993), 2) IEEE Tai Teaching Excellence award (2011), 3) IEEE Henning Mentoring award (2013), 4) IEEE APS Distinguished Achievement award (2015), 5) Ohio State Univ. Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), and 6) Ohio State ESL Sinclair award (2016).

Dr. Volakis started his career at Rockwell International in 1982, now called Boeing Phantom Works. In 1984, he joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as Assistant Professor, becoming a full Professor in 1994. He also served as the Director of the Radiation Laboratory from 1998 to 2000.

On January 2003 he joined the Ohio State University (OSU) as the Roy and Lois Chope Chair Professor of Engineering and served the Director of the ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) from 2003 to 2016. During his tenure as the director of ESL, the lab’s funding more than tripled to approximately $15M per annum from FY2003 levels and the number of graduate students increased He oversaw the growth of ESL’s personnel to reach nearly 170 people, including 30 faculty and researchers, eight support staff. Number of graduate students increased from 50s to nearly 100, several of whom won many best paper awards annually. He also completed the capital campaign and the construction of a 40,000 ft² new ESL building with an occupancy in 2011. He established several new laboratories by leading initiatives and equipment proposals of ~$17M in millimeter waves, terahertz, microfabrication, cognitive sensing, RFIDs, RFICs, textile electronics, and medical sensing. He pursued Fellowship funding from AFRL, Raytheon, Harris, Northrop-Grumman and enabled five start-up companies from ESL. He also mentored several senior and junior faculty members, helping them identify new mechanisms for career development.

Between 2017 and 2023, Dr. Volakis served as the dean of FIU’s College of Engineering and Computing, the 15th largest engineering college in the nation with nearly 8,300 students, including more than 1,200 graduate students and with annual research expenditures crossing $60 million. Under his leadership the number of engineering & computing faculty grew by 25%. The college has received several large team research awards (MURIs, MRIs, DARPA) in sensing, novel materials, medical engineering and security. He established a fully equipped RF and Communications laboratory with nine faculty and more than 60 graduate students. He also helped establish a $10M AFOSR program on origami antennas at FIU. CEC’s annual research awards increased nearly 150%, reaching $64M in 2023; and tech-transfer licenses grew to 28 over the past five years. Most notably, the college’s overall enrollment grew nearly 50% since 2017 with its undergraduate female enrollment increasing by 64% and it’s 4-year graduation rate is approaching 60%. In terms of rankings, CEC jumped more than 50 points in the U.S. News and World Report graduate program rankings, reaching #61 among public engineering colleges. As of 2023, the College has eight top-50 (public) rankings, including #35 M.S. in Engineering (U.S. News Online) and #42 in Electrical Engineering (U.S. News Global). In addition, CEC also received major gifts to enhance computer science, computer engineering and construction management with overall fundraising that reached $125M over the past four years.

Full Resume/Vita

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