Eric Walton named 2018 George Sinclair winner at ESL Annual Awards

The Ohio State University’s ElectroScience Laboratory (ESL) celebrated its top faculty and staff accomplishments of 2018 during its annual awards event Dec. 6 at the Blackwell Inn on campus.

Find pictures from the event here.

Based on Kinnear Road, ESL is a major center-of-excellence in Ohio State’s College of Engineering. Established in 1942, it remains one of the largest radio frequency and optics research laboratories in the world. 

ESL’s most distinguished annual honor, The George Sinclair Award, went to retired Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Scientist Eric Walton. 

According to the center, Walton’s work over the years contributed major technical advancements toward automotive radars and antennas, noise radar (an area he pioneered), scattering signature analysis, processing of antenna/RCS test range probe data, wavelet-based time-frequency analysis (a major breakthrough), and near-field focusing of range probe data for mapping stray signals in antenna/RCS test ranges (a new territory in range diagnostics). 

ECE alumnus Eugene Lee said it was an honor to work under Walton’s mentorship as a graduate student at Ohio State for almost a decade.

“I spent six years as his graduate student and many years as his research colleague. Eric has been there for me, not only professionally, but personally as well. I am the engineer I am today because of Eric Walton,” Lee said.

ECE alumna Dana Kohlgraf-Owens said she was an undergraduate working with Walton in 2004-2005. His mentorship helped her on the path toward an engineering career she has enjoyed ever since.

Alumnus Adam Hueve said Walton had a tremendous impact on his career in RF engineering.

“At the time I really didn’t have any clear career direction,” he said. “(He) really showed me a new field that I didn’t know anything about.”

Today, Hueve is an RF engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, still using many of the skills Walton taught him. 

Walton is a distinguished Fellow of IEEE, Fellow of Antenna Measurement Techniques Association, and received AMTA’s Distinguished Achievement Award. He is also respected for his mentorship of many graduate and undergraduate students, as well as junior researchers.

The George Sinclair Award recognizes an individual for distinguished technical contributions and service to ESL. Criteria includes faculty who display international recognition for outstanding technical contributions, leadership on large ESL projects, administrative and leadership toward moving ESL into new research areas, as well as facilitating funding to meet current and future challenges of electromagnetic technology.

Students, faculty and staff at ESL were also highlighted for their achievements in 2018 through the following honors:

Best Dissertation Award:

Jeonghwan Park, “Investigations of GNSS-R for Ocean Wind, Sea Surface Height, and Land Surface Remote Sensing.” Park is advised by ECE Professor Joel Johnson.

Best Paper Award:

L. Duncan, Brian Dupaix, J.J. McCue, B. Mathieu, M. LaRue, V.J. Patel, M. Teshome, M-J Choe, Waleed Khalil for their work, “A 10-bit DC-20-Ghz Multiple-Return-toZero DAC with >48-db SFDR,” published in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

Best Paper Award -Runners Up:

R.K. Rasel, CE Zuccarelli, QM Marashdeh, LS Fan, FL Teixeira for the work, “Toward Multiphase Flow Decomposition Based on Electrical Capacitance Tomography Sensors,” published in the IEEE Sensors Journal.

K. Ren, J Chen, RJ Burkholder, for the work, “A 3-D Uniform Diffraction Tomographic Algorithm for Near-Field Microwave Imaging Through Stratified Media,” published in the IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

Above and Beyond Staff Award:

Jennifer McCord, Human Resources Associate at ESL, whose efficiency, reliability and positive interactions with faculty and staff were spotlighted this year.

Above and Beyond Student Award:

ESL Graduate Research Associate Matthew Buchanan was selected for his efforts and accomplishments in remote sensing investigations and international conference participation throughout 2018. Faculty pointed out his ability to foster a community at ESL, as well as his sense of humor as well.

Above and Beyond Researcher Award:

Alexandra Bringer was selected for her excellent service to the ESL community and contributions to the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) program. 

The ESL awards committee this year was made up of Research Scientist Chris Ball, Nima Ghalichechian, Teh-Hong Lee and Christopher Neese.

ESL faculty, research scientists, and students are involved in all aspects of electromagnetic and RF technologies, including satellite and ultra-wide-bandwidth communications, optics, remote sensing, ground penetrating radar systems. antenna engineering, electromagnetic compatibility and interference, as well as computational methods and measurements.