Robert Kouyoumjian. Robert Gordon Kouyoumjian (April 26, 1923 – January 3, 2011) was an American electrical engineer and physicist who was a professor emeritus at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Ohio State University. He is best known for the development uniform theory of diffraction with his doctoral student Prabhakar Pathak.

Biography
Robert Gordon Kouyoumjian was born on April 26, 1923, in Cleveland, Ohio. During World War II, he served in the United States Army Air Forces as a captain, and was trained in meteorology. Attending electronics lectures at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was involved early development of radar meteorology during this period. After the war, he completed his undergraduate education at Ohio State University, receiving a degree in engineering physics in 1948. He subsequently completed his doctoral studies under Victor H. Rumsey, receiving a PhD degree in physics in 1953 from Ohio State University. In the following year, he joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the same institution. He was promoted to full professorship in 1962 and retired in 1982 becoming a professor emeritus. While he remained active as an instructor for some years following his retirement, he continued his research work almost until the end of his life. He died on January 3, 2011, and was survived by three children and four grandhcildren.

Kouyoumjian's early work during the 1950s involved the development of variational solutions for certain classes of electromagnetic problems, which went on the become early forerunners for method of moments. His other work during this period also featured the areas of radar cross sections, antenna polarization analysis, thermal properties of electromagnetic waves, and underwater acoustics. During the 1960s, his work gravitated towards asymptotic high-frequency methods, and he sought to extend the geometrical theory of diffraction, developed by Joseph Keller. Following a series of works on the topic with multiple doctoral students, he introduced the uniform theory of diffraction with his doctoral student Prabhakar Pathak in the 1970s. The theory was subsequently used in the analysis of various electrically large radiation and scattering problems in engineering, such as indoor and outdoor radio propagation. In 1995, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, "for contributions to the development of the uniform geometric theory of diffraction and the analysis and design of antennas and scatterers." He has received IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984, Antennas and Propagation Society Distinguished Achievement Award in 1999, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000. He was a member of the Commission B of the International Union of Radio Science.

Selected publications
Book chapters
 

Journal articles

References

External links
 Robert G. Kouyoumjian at National Academy of Engineering official website

Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering
1923 births
Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences alumni
Ohio State University faculty
American electrical engineers
American telecommunications engineers
Microwave engineers
American people of Armenian descent
IEEE Centennial Medal laureates
20th-century American engineers
21st-century American engineers
20th-century American physicists
21st-century American physicists
Scientists from Cleveland
Academics from Columbus, Ohio
2011 deaths
Fellows of the IEEE