Two Engineers Among 2020-2021 Distinguished Scholar-Teachers

Two Clark School faculty members, Professors Thomas Murphy and Derek Paley, have been selected as 2020–2021 Distinguished Scholar-Teachers by the University of Maryland. The Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Program, established in 1978, honors a small number of senior faculty who have demonstrated outstanding success in both scholarly accomplishment and excellence in teaching.

Distinguished Scholar-Teachers make a public presentation on a topic within their scholarly discipline and receive an honorarium of $5,000 to support their professional activities.

Thomas Murphy
Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics

Lecture Title: "Optics and Electronics in Flatland: The Surprising Capabilities of 2D Materials"
Date: Friday, November 20 at 3:30 p.m.
Register online

Murphy’s research interests include terahertz and microwave photonics, two-dimensional optoelectronics, integrated optics, nonlinear and ultrafast optics, electrooptics, and nonlinear dynamical systems. His research broadly aims to explore new devices and techniques that improve the speed, sensitivity, resolution, and efficiency of optical communication and sensor systems. Murphy has been recognized for excellence in both teaching and research at Maryland before; he is a recipient of the Junior Faculty Outstanding Research Award and E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award, both from the Clark School, and the George Corcoran Award from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Derek Paley
Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering and Institute for Systems Research
Director, Maryland Robotics Center

Lecture Title: "Collective Behavior in Bioinspired Autonomous Robots"
Date: Thursday, October 22 at 4:00 p.m.
Register online

Paley directs the Collective Dynamics and Control Laboratory and is the faculty advisor of the Autonomous Micro Air Vehicle Team, a student competition team that recently took second place in the Vertical Flight Society’s competition. Paley’s wide research interests cover three main areas. In the field of dynamics, estimation, and control he explores the cooperative control of autonomous vehicles, particularly groups of autonomous robotic fish. In the field of mobile sensor networks he conducts research into the adaptive sampling of spatiotemporal processes. He is also interested in biocomplexity and bioinspiration, particularly the quantitative modeling of animal groups and behavior.

Published May 18, 2020