Biography: Dr. Michael Newkirk is a member of the Principal Professional Staff at The Johns Hopkins University - Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) in Laurel, Maryland. He joined JHU/APL in 1996 and is currently a Group Supervisor in the Air and Missile Defense Sector. His areas of expertise include radio frequency (RF) propagation and clutter modeling, RF propagation environment characterization, radar and communications systems performance modeling and simulation (M&S), and Test and Evaluation (T&E) planning and execution, all primarily applied to US Navy radar and weapons systems. Prior to joining JHU/APL, Dr. Newkirk held a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship with the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland, where he conducted research on millimeter wave radiometric imaging.

Dr. Newkirk is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), member of the Antennas and Propagation Society (IEEE-APS) and former member of the Standards Association (IEEE-SA). He is a member of the Student Paper Competition (SPC) Committee for IEEE-APS and former member of the Antennas and Propagation Standards Committee (APSC). He is a former Virginia Tech (VT) Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Bradley Fellow, where he received his BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in 1998, 1990 and 1994, respectively; a past Chair of the VT ECE Industrial Advisory Board; and 2015-2017 Chair of Propagation and Remote Sensing Commission (F) of the US National Committee to the International Union of Radio Scientists (USNC-URSI). He was the Chair of USNC-URSI from 2022-2023 and transitioned to Immediate Past-Chair of the organization in 2024.

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