Engineers Select Air Force Basic Research Program Manager for Fellowship

  • Published
  • By Maria Callier
  • AFOSR Public Affairs (Quantech)
ARLINGTON, Va. --  The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. recently selected an Air Force Office of Scientific Research program manager here as a Fellow for its class of 2007.

IEEE selected Dr. Harold Weinstock, AFOSR's Quantum Electronic Solids Research Program Manager, on factors that included leadership and research in the field of superconducting magnetometry, a tool for analyzing metallic structural integrity.

"I was one of the originators of using superconducting magnetometry for non-destructive evaluation which I first did during a sabbatical when I was a professor of physics at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago," said Dr. Weinstock. "I also did it while on sabbatical at the Naval Research Laboratory."

Weinstock said being selected for the fellowship was a pleasant surprise. "I had been an IEEE member for only five years, the minimum time required to be eligible. I also was somewhat overwhelmed by the number of people from around the world who took the trouble to congratulate me on receiving this honor," he said.

The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the board of directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments. The total number selected in any one year cannot exceed one-tenth percent of the total voting institute membership. This year there were 268 individuals elected to IEEE Fellow, the highest grade of membership and recognized by the technical community as a prestigious honor and an important career achievement.

The IEEE is the world's largest technical professional society with 365,000 members in 150 countries. The society is a leading authority on a wide variety of areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics.

Weinstock has been a member of the IEEE Council on Superconductivity for several years and participates in its annual meetings. "I did actually suggest an educational outreach program to IEEE for schoolteachers in the area of superconductivity, and although I had no role in implementing this suggestion, it has been acted upon favorably and handled by others in the academic community," he said.

Weinstock, who joined AFOSR in mid 1986, currently manages a portfolio that focuses on materials that exhibit cooperative quantum electronic behavior, with the primary emphasis on superconductors, and on any conducting materials with surfaces that can be modified and observed through the use of scanning tunneling and related atomic-force microscopic techniques, the ultimate goal being the creation of new nano-devices and structures. He continues to conduct his own research in electronics and electronic materials that relate to superconductivity, magnetism and nanostructures. Originally, he began his work in superconducting magnetometry because he found it an "intriguing and important phenomenon."

By funding research programs such as the superconducting magnetometry, AFOSR continues to expand the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Air Force's basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFOSR supports Air Force's mission of control and maximum utilization of air, space and cyberspace. Many of the technological breakthroughs enjoyed by millions today, such as lasers, GPS, and the computer mouse trace their scientific roots to research first funded by AFOSR.