Jennifer Bernhard

Prof. Jennifer T. Bernhard is the Donald Biggar Willett Professor of Engineering and the Director of the Illinois Applied Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana­Champaign. She is also the Director of the Engineering Faculty Leadership Forum in the Grainger College of Engineering, in which she facilitates a year-long leadership training program for newly-promoted faculty.

Prof. Bernhard earned the B.S.E.E. degree from Cornell University in 1988 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Duke University in 1990 and 1994, respectively. From 1995 to 1999, she was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA, where she held the Class of 1944 Professorship. Prof. Bernhard has been a faculty member specializing in applied electromagnetics in the Electromagnetics Laboratory in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois since 1999. She served as the Associate Dean for Research in the Grainger College of Engineering from 2012-2019.

Prof. Bernhard’s academic research focuses on the development of multifunctional reconfigurable antennas for sensing and communication systems; antenna synthesis and packaging techniques; and high-security physical layer-based modulation schemes. She and her students have over 300 publications and hold six patents in these areas. She has also collaborated with colleagues in seven different engineering disciplines to produce solutions for real-world challenges, from sensors embedded in concrete bridge girders to microwave regeneration of activated carbon cloth. She has advised over 70 graduate students. She is an IEEE Fellow and her research, teaching, and advising activities have been recognized with numerous internal and external awards.

Prof. Bernhard is a Defense Science Study Group (DSSG) alumna. She served as President of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society in 2008. She is a past member of the IEEE Board of Directors (2017-2018) and the ASEE Engineering Research Council Executive Board (2016- 2019). Prof. Bernhard previously served as a member of several government review committees and advisory panels, including the external review panel for the Radar Division of NRL (2010), the PCAST working group on Government-Held Electromagnetic Spectrum (2011-2012), an assessment committee for the National Science Council (2015), and as a member of the National Science Council Committee on Wind Turbine Generator Impacts to Marine Vessel Radar (2021-2022). She also served as the chair of the Engineering Review Committee for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 2018-2020 and on the Board of Directors for IEEE-USA from 2018-2020. She currently serves as a member of the Defense Science Board.