Dr. Steffes received the S.B. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA in 1977, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, CA, in 1982. His doctoral research at Stanford University concentrated on microwave radio occultation experiments using the Voyager and Mariner spacecraft, with specific interest in microwave absorption in planetary atmospheres.
In 1982, Dr. Steffes joined the faculty of Georgia Tech and is currently a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research focuses on microwave and millimeter-wave remote sensing and radio astronomy and has been sponsored by NASA, the NSF, the SETI Institute and by industry. He has been involved with numerous NASA missions, including Pioneer-Venus, Magellan, the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS), the High Resolution Microwave Survey (HRMS), and Juno (Jupiter Polar Orbiter).