Akira Ishimaru

Biography

Akira Ishimaru is currently Professor Emeritus in the department of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is recognized mostly for his work in electromagnetics.

Ishimaru received his bachelor's degree from the University of Tokyo (1951) and his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Washington (1958). Before joining the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington in 1958, Ishimaru worked with the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tanashi, Tokyo, and Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey.

Ishimaru has authored many articles as well as two books in the course of career: Wave Propagation and Scattering in Random Media (1978; reissued in 1997) and Electromagnetic Wave Propagation, Radiation, and Scattering (1991). He has also been honored by numerous organizations such as the Optical Society of America, the Acoustical Society of America, the National Academy of Engineering, and the IEEE. One of Ishimaru's more recent awards was the 1999 IEEE Heinrich Hertz medal.