Susan Hagness, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The Philip Dunham Reed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Maria Stuchly Professor of Electrical Engineering, and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hagness is one of 130 U.S.-based and 28 international members elected to the academy’s 2026 class.
NAE members are among the world’s most accomplished engineers and are chosen for their significant contributions to engineering research, practice or education.
The academy recognized Hagness for distinguished contributions to the engineering profession, specifically for contributions to computational electromagnetics and its biomedical applications.
Hagness joined UW-Madison in 1998. Her early work on finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) computational electromagnetics techniques—including co-authoring a significant FDTD textbook—continues to be influential. It has helped FDTD become a ubiquitous simulation tool not only for scientific discovery across the electromagnetic wave spectrum, but also for the design and optimization of new electromagnetic engineering technologies, including biomedical applications of microwaves, which is a primary focus of her research group. She and her students investigate basic science and applied technologies related to microwave interactions with human tissues. This work has led to innovations in detecting and treating breast cancer and in therapies for many other varieties of cancer.
Hagness and her students have worked to understand and catalog the dielectric properties of human tissue at microwave frequencies, undertaking large-scale spectroscopy studies and developing specialized probes to measure healthy and malignant tissues. This work has helped Hagness to develop mathematical models of breast tissue, high-fidelity breast phantoms, and tissue-mimicking materials used extensively in computational simulations and experimental laboratory studies of cancer detection and treatment techniques. She has also pioneered microwave imaging techniques that measure breast density and detect tumors. Her work in microwave remote sensing has expanded into the field of agriculture, where Hagness has used similar techniques to develop tools, for example, to estimate yields in cranberry bogs.
Hagness’ work has also moved into the surgical suite; a miniature flexible antenna she and her students and collaborators developed can deliver microwave energy and ablate (destroy with heat) tumors in difficult-to-reach areas of the human body. She and her students also are developing techniques to use thermoacoustic signals to monitor microwave ablation in real time, which could make the therapy safer and more efficient.
Hagness has earned many high honors for her work. She is a fellow of IEEE, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the National Academy of Inventors. Among her numerous awards are the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Early Career Achievement Award, the IEEE Education Society Mac E. Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award, the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Issac Koga Gold Medal, and the USNC-URSI Impact Award.
Over her career, Hagness has served in several leadership roles, including College of Engineering associate dean for research and graduate affairs. She has been chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2018 and is a past president of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association.
Hagness is also an ardent advocate for women in engineering, mentoring more than a dozen women through their graduate studies and recruiting a strong cohort of women researchers to the ECE faculty.
She is among three living NAE members from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, joining Professor Emeritus Thomas Jahns and Professor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, who is also UW-Madison vice chancellor for research.
Photo of Susan Hagness by Todd Brown