Calvin Swift

Calvin T. Swift received the S.B. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959, the M.S. degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute in 1965, and the Ph.D. degree from the College of William and Mary in 1969.

He was employed as a research engineer by North American Aviation from 1959-1962 where he worked on a variety of defense and space‑related problems. In 1962 he was employed by NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, where he initially conducted research on plasma‑ covered antennas. After 1970, he was involved in microwave remote sensing of the Earth, and assumed leadership responsibility of a microwave radiometer group at Langley. From 1981 to 2001, he was Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Director of the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory. He is now Professor Emeritus.

Professor Swift is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) He was elected vice‑chairman and later chairman of U.S. Commission F (Radio and Non‑ Ionized Media) of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). He was twice elected to the Administrative Committee (AdCom) of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP‑S), serving as Meetings Chairman, Secretary‑Treasurer, Membership Chairman and Chairman of Long Range Planning. He was also elected twice to the AdCom of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRS‑S) and was president of the Society in 1985. He has served as a reviewer for many journals and was Guest Editor for the AP‑S/JOE (Journal of Oceanic Engineering) special joint issue on Radio Oceanography. He is a past Editor of the Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing and a former Associate Editor of JOE. In 1984, he was awarded a centennial medal from the IEEE. He was also awarded the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Distinguished Achievement Award in 1994. In 2010, he was recipient of a group award from the American Meteorological Society for development of a Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) for “improved hurricane intensity advisories, and saving countless lives”. Also, in 2010, he was the recipient of the COSPAR/Chinese Academy of Sciences Jeoujang Jaw “for pioneering contributions to promoting Space research.”