Professor of Electrical Engineering and Planetary Science
Dr. Elachi received the B.Sc. (’68) in Physics from the University of Grenoble, France; the Dipl. Ing. (’68) in Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute, Grenoble and the M.Sc. (’69) and Ph.D. (’71) degrees in Electrical Sciences from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. He also has a M.Sc. (’83) degree in Geology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MBA (’79) from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He joined JPL in 1970. He is the Professor of Electrical Engineering and Planetary Science at Caltech.
He has been a principal investigator on a number of research and development studies and flight projects sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He is the author of over 230 publications in the fields of active microwave remote sensing, electromagnetic theory, and integrated optics, and he holds several patents in those fields.
As the Director for Space and Earth Science Programs at JPL from 1982 to 2000, he was responsible for the development of more than 45 flight missions and instruments for Earth observation, planetary exploration, and astrophysics. In 1989, Asteroid 1982 SU was renamed 4116 Elachi in recognition of his contribution to planetary exploration.
In 1989, Dr. Elachi was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and has served on a number of academy committees. He has chaired a number of strategic planning committees for NASA. He has lectured in more than 20 countries about space exploration and Earth observation. He participated in a number of archeological expeditions in Egypt, Oman, and China.
Dr. Elachi has received numerous awards. His most recent include the Takeda Award (2002), the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (2002), the Wernher Von Braun Award (2002), the Dryden Award (2000), and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal (1999). He is a fellow of the IEEE and AIAA and a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the International Academy of Astronautics.