Faculty Directory

Biography

Atef Z. Elsherbeni received an honor B.Sc. degree in Electronics and Communications, an honor B.Sc. degree in Applied Physics, and a M.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering, all from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1976, 1979, and 1982, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Manitoba University, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1987. He started his engineering career as a part-time Software and System Design Engineer from March 1980 to December 1982 at the Automated Data System Center, Cairo, Egypt. From January to August 1987, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Manitoba University. Dr. Elsherbeni joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in August 1987 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering. He advanced to the rank of Associate Professor in July 1991, and to the rank of Professor in July 1997. He was the Associate Dean of the College of Engineering for Research and Graduate Programs from July 2009 to July 2013 at the University of Mississippi. He then joined the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department at Colorado School of Mines in August 2013 as the Dobelman Distinguished Chair Professor. He was appointed the Interim Department Head for EECS from 2015 to 2016 and from 2016 to 2018 he was the Electrical Engineering Department Head. He spent a sabbatical term in 1996 at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and was a visiting Professor at Magdeburg University during the summer of 2005 and at Tampere University of Technology in Finland during the summer of 2007. In 2009 he was selected as Finland Distinguished Professor by the Academy of Finland and TEKES.

Dr. Elsherbeni is an IEEE Life Fellow and ACES Fellow. He is the Editor-in-Chief for ACES Journal, and a past Associate Editor to the Radio Science Journal. He was the Chair of the Engineering and Physics Division of the Mississippi Academy of Science, the Chair of the Educational Activity Committee for IEEE Region 3 Section, and the general Chair for the 2014 APS-URSI Symposium and the President of ACES Society from 2013 to 2015. Dr. Elsherbeni is selected as Distinguished Lecturer for IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society for 2020-2023. He is the recipient of the 2023 IEEE APS Harington-Mittra Award for his contribution to computational electromagnetics with hardware acceleration and the recipient of the 2025 Computational Electromagnetics Award from ACES society.

Education

• B.S. Electronics and Communications, Cairo University, 1976
• B.S. Applied Physics, Cairo University, 1979
• M.S. Engineering Physics, Cairo University, 1982
• Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, University of Manitoba, 1987

Research

• Propogation and scattering of EM plane and vortex waves
• Computational EM using FDTD
• Field visualization/software development for EM education
• RFID/sensor integrated RFID systems
• Reflector/printed antennas & antenna arrays

Publications

• P. Nayeri, A. Z. Elsherbeni, and F. Yang, “Radiation analysis approaches for reflectarray antennas,” IEEE Antennas Propag. Magazine, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 127 – 134, Feb. 2013.
• Payam Nayeri, Fan Yang, and Atef Elsherbeni, “Bifocal Design and Aperture Phase Optimizations of Reflectarray Antennas for Wide-Angle Beam Scanning Performance,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 4588-4597, September 2013.
• Payam Nayeri, Fan Yang, and Atef Elsherbeni, “Design of Single-Feed Reflectarray Antennas with Asymmetric Multiple Beam using the Particle Swarm Optimization Method,” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 61, no. 9, pp. 4598-4605, September 2013.
• Khaled ElMahgoub, Atef Z. Elsherbeni, and Fan Yang, “Dispersive Periodic Boundary Conditions for Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method,” Trans. IEEE Antennas Propag., vol. 60, no. 4, April 2012.
• Veysel Demir and A. Z. Elsherbeni, “CUDA-OpenGL Interoperability to Visualize Electromagnetic Fields Calculated by FDTD,” Journal of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), vol. 27, no. 2, February 2012.
• Bijaya Shrestha, Atef Elsherbeni, and Leena Ukkonen, “UHF RFID Reader Antenna for Near-Field and Far-Field Operations,” IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (AWPL), vol. 10, pp. 1274-1277, 2011.
• T. A. Elsherbeni, K. ElMahgoub, L. Sydänheimo, L. Ukkonen, A. Z. Elsherbeni, and F. Yang, “Survey of Laboratory Scale Fabrication Techniques for Passive UHF RFID Tags,” ACES Journal Special Issue on Computational and Experimental Techniques for RFID Systems and Applications, part 1, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 561-596, 2010.
• Atef Elsherbeni and Veysel Demir, The Finite Difference Time Domain Method for Electromagnetics with MATLAB Simulations, SciTech Publishing Inc., Raleigh, NC, 2009.
• M. J. Inman, A. Z. Elsherbeni, J. G. Maloney, B. N. Baker “Practical Implementation of a CPML Absorbing Boundary for GPU Accelerated FDTD Technique,” Journal of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), vol. 23, no. 1, March 2008.
• Veysel Demir, Dalia A. Elsherbeni, Darko Kajfez, and Atef Z. Elsherbeni, “Wideband Tapered Power Divider,” Journal of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 318-324, November 2006.
• Mohamed H. Al Sharkawy and A. Z. Elsherbeni, “Multi-Grid Technique for Solving Two Dimensional Quasi-Static Electromagnetic Structures,” ACES Newsletter, vol. 21, no. 1, March 2006.
• M. J. Inman and A. Z. Elsherbeni, “Programming video cards for computational electromagnetics applications,” IEEE Antennas Propagation Magazine., Vol. 47, Issue 6, pp. 71-78, 2005.
• B. R. Mahafza and A. Z. Elsherbeni, MATLAB Simulation for Radar Systems Design, CRC Press, December 2003.
• Mohammed Eleiwa and Atef Z. Elsherbeni, “Debye Constants for Biological Tissues from 30 Hz to 20 GHz,” Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 202-213, November 2001.
• Chun-Wen Paul Huang, A. Z. Elsherbeni and C. E. Smith, “Analysis and Design of Tapered Meander Line Antennas for Mobile Communications,” Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society (ACES), Special Issue on Wireless Communications, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 159-166, November 2000.
• V. Rodriguez-Pereyra, A. Z. Elsherbeni, and C. E. Smith, “A Body of Revolution Finite Difference Time Domain Method With Perfectly Matched Layer absorbing Boundary,” Journal of Electromagnetic Waves and Applications, Summary, vol. 13, pp. 1653-1654,1999.
• A. Elsohly and A.Z. Elsherbeni, “Characteristics of a Helical Tape Antenna Embedded in a Multilayer Dielectric Coated Cylinder,” Journal of The Franklin Institute, vol. 331B , no. 3, pp. 229-250, 1994.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni, “A Comparative Study of Different Two-Dimensional Multiple Scattering Techniques,” Radio Science, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 1023-1033, 1994.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni, “High Gain Cylindrical Reflector Antennas with Low Sidelobes,” AEU-Archive Fur Elektronik Und Ubertragungstechnik- International Journal of Electronics and Communications, vol. 43, no. 6, pp. 362-369, Nov./Dec. 1989.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and H. A. Auda, “Electromagnetic Diffraction by Two Perfectly Conducting Wedges with Dented Edges Loaded with a Dielectric Cylinder,” IEE Proc., Part H, vol. 136, no. 3, pp. 225-235, 1989.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni, J. Stanier and M. Hamid, “Eigenvalues of Propagating Waves in a Circular Waveguide with an Impedance Wall,” IEE Proc., Part H., vol. 135, no. 1, pp. 23-26, February 1988.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and M. Hamid, “Hybrid Modes in a Circular Waveguide with an Impedance Wall,” J. of Applied Physics, vol. 62, no. 6, pp. 2572-2573, September 1987.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and M. Hamid, “Novel Cylindrical Wave Spectrum for Analysis of Scattering by Multiple Bodies,” IEE Proceedings, Part H., vol. 134, pp. 35-44, February 1987.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and M. Hamid, “Diffraction by a Wide Double Wedge with Cylindrically Capped Edges,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-34, no. 7, pp. 947-951, July 1986.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and M. Hamid, “Scattering by a Cylindrical Dielectric Shell with Inhomogeneous Permittivity Profiles,” Int’l J. of Electronics, vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 559-562, June 1985.
• A. Z. Elsherbeni and M. Hamid, “Diffraction by a Wide Double Wedge,” IEEE Trans. Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-32, no. 11, pp. 1262-1265, November 1984.

Complete list of publications

Additional Information

Personal website
ARC Research Group website