Nader Behdad (S’98-M’06-SM’12-F’17) received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2000 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from University of Michigan – Ann Arbor in 2003 and 2006, respectively. Currently he is the McFarland-Bascom Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research expertise is in the area of applied electromagnetics with particular focus on electrically small antennas, phased-array antennas, bio-electromagnetics, microwave ablation, microwave periodic structures, and high-power microwaves. He has 23 U.S. patents in these areas. Dr. Behdad has served as a consultant on topics related to designing antennas and phased arrays to industry. He has also served as a consultant and an expert witness for different U.S. law firms on topics related to intellectual property disputes as well as cell phone record analysis and historical cell site analysis. Over the years, his research has been sponsored by various U.S. Federal agencies including the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, National Science Foundation, and the Defense Health Agency among others.
Dr. Behdad has graduated 29 Ph.D. and 15 M.S. students so far and served as the research advisor of 33 other post-doctoral research fellows and visiting scholars. He is the recipient of the 2025 John Kraus Antenna Award, the 2021 H. A. Wheeler Prize Paper Award, the 2014 R. W. P. King Prize Paper Award, and the 2012 Piergiorgio L. E. Uslenghi Letters Prize Paper Award of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. He also received the Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication, Harvey D. Spangler Faculty Scholar Award, the H. I. Romnes Faculty Award, and the Vilas Associates Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2011, Dr. Behdad received the CAREER award from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Young Investigator Award from the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Young Investigator Award from the United States Office of Naval Research. He is serving as a member of the Fellow Election Committee of IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society and served as the 2020 chair of the paper awards committee of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. He also served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (2011-2015) and as the co-chair of the technical program committee of the 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting.