Susan Hagness honored with IEEE AP-S Distinguished Achievement Award

The IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society has selected Susan Hagness, the Philip Dunham Reed Professor, Maria Stuchly Professor, and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for its 2026 Distinguished Achievement Award.

The society cites Hagness for sustained pioneering innovations in microwave diagnostics, imaging, and therapeutic technologies, and for foundational contributions to time-domain computational electromagnetics and their transformative applications.

Hagness’s research focuses primarily on electromagnetic interactions with tissue for medical applications. Her work spans applied research involving diagnostic and therapeutic technology development as well as basic research, such as the dielectric properties of breast tissue at microwave frequencies that establishes the physical basis for those technologies. Her group has developed non-ionizing sensing and imaging techniques and tools as well as new techniques for non-invasive microwave hyperthermia and minimally invasive ablation of tumors. Recently, she has expanded her work into electric-pulse delivery to enhance gene therapy.

Besides chairing ECE, she is also a faculty affiliate of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the UW Carbone Cancer Center. She served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs in the College of Engineering at UW-Madison between 2014 and 2017.

Hagness is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). She has held a variety of professional society appointments and elected leadership roles within the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, and the U.S. National Committee (USNC) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI).

Over her career, she has graduated 30 Ph.D. students, published over 115 peer-reviewed journal papers, and is an inventor on 13 U.S. patents.

The society will officially present the Distinguished Achievement Award at the 2026 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and North American Radio Science Meeting (AP-S/URSI) in Detroit, Michigan, in July 2026.