Denise Thorsen, Ph.D.

Professor, Department Chair and Associate Dean for Academics - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Alaska-Fairbanks
Director, Alaska Space Grant and Alaska NASA EPSCoR programs

Denise Thorsen is director of the Alaska NASA EPSCoR program. She completed her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois (UIUC) in 1985,where she was nominated for the Harold L. Olesen Award in 1991 for “Excellence in undergraduate teaching by graduate students.” She continued her studies at UIUC where she obtained her Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1996.

Thorsen’s other research interests include: Development of digital instrumentation and computer interfaces for acquisition of radar backscatter data; scattering mechanisms and propagation of radio signals through random media; radar techniques for observing the middle atmosphere, including neutral atmospheric wind motions, turbulence, temperature, and electron densities; wave dynamics and their interaction with the background atmosphere, including coupling of atmospheric regions, interactions between large-scale and small-scale wave motions, and global scale energy flux distributions. Read more here.

“The NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development seed grants provides a large return on investment both for the state and for NASA.” – Denise Thorsen, Ph.D.

Foundation Board
Term Expires: 2025