Dr. Serpil Ayasli, former technical staff member and Associate Group Leader at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, received the 2008 Warren D. White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering for her contributions to ultra-wideband radar for ground and foliage penetration. This award, granted by the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society (AESS), was established "to recognize a radar engineer for outstanding achievements due to a major technical advance, or a series of advances over time, in the art of radar engineering."
Dr. Ayasli, who worked at Lincoln Laboratory from 1982 until her retirement in 2006, served as a technical staff member, assistant group leader, and associate group leader in various groups within the Tactical Systems Technology and the Sensor Systems divisions (now the Homeland Protection/Tactical Systems and the ISR Systems and Technology divisions). Her work at the Laboratory focused on air defense and surface surveillance radar research and development, including radar propagation, clutter modeling, radar system analysis, and foliage penetration (FOPEN) and ground penetration (GPEN) radar.
Dr. Ayasli and her team's work at Lincoln Laboratory led to the first successful experimental proof of the feasibility of an advanced coherent FOPEN radar system that would enable detection and tracking of targets in foliage. Recognizing the importance of keeping the scientific and user communities informed on the development of surface surveillance and FOPEN/GPEN technologies, she instituted a workshop dedicated to those technologies (most recently named Surface Surveillance Technology Workshop) that was held annually at Lincoln Laboratory from 2001 to 2005.
Dr. Ayasli has served as a member of the IEEE/AESS Radar System Panel. She was a corecipient of the IEEE/AESS 1996 M. Barry Carlton Award and was named an IEEE Fellow in 2002. She holds a BS degree in electrical engineering and MS and PhD degrees in physics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.