Dr. Serpil Ayasli, former Associate Group Leader at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory, received the 2008 Warren D. White Award for Excellence in Radar Engineering for her contributions to ultra-wideband radar for ground and foliage penetration. This award, granted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society (AESS), was established "to recognize a radar engineer for outstanding achievements due to a major technical advance, or a series of advances over time, in the art of radar engineering.” Dr. Serpil Ayasli has been recognized as the first woman scientist, worldwide, to receive this award.
After her work at MIT as post-doctoral fellow in astrophysics from 1979 to 1982, Dr. Ayasli worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1982 until 2006. Her work at the Laboratory focused on air defense and surface surveillance radar research and development, including foliage penetration (FOPEN) and ground penetration (GPEN) radar. Dr. Ayasli and her team's work at Lincoln Laboratory led to the first successful experimental proof of the feasibility of an advanced coherent FOPEN radar system that would enable detection and tracking of targets in foliage. Recognizing the importance of keeping the scientific and user communities informed on the development of surface surveillance and FOPEN/GPEN technologies, she instituted a workshop dedicated to those technologies that was held annually at Lincoln Laboratory from 2001 to 2005.
Dr. Ayasli served as a member of the IEEE Radar System Panel. She was a corecipient of the IEEE/AESS 1996 M. Barry Carlton Award and was named an IEEE Fellow in 2002. She holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey.
Dr. Ayasli is co-founding trustee of Turkish Cultural Foundation (TCF). In addition to TCF, her efforts focused on Turkish Coalition of America (TCA), ARMAGGAN, and NAR Gourmet between 2006 - 2016. In 2012, she and her husband Dr. Yalcin Ayasli, through the Turkish Cultural Foundation, donated the Ayasli Research Center to their alma mater, the METU Engineering Department.
