Timothy Pratt, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been conferred the title of “professor emeritus” by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

The title of emeritus may be conferred on retired professors and associate professors, administrative officers, librarians, and exceptional staff members who are specially recommended to the board of visitors by Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger. Nominated individuals who are approved by the board of visitors receive an emeritus certificate from the university.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1981, Pratt was principal or co-principal investigator on grants and contracts researching the propagation of signals through the earth’s atmosphere from communication satellites. He also was a faculty member of the Wireless@VT research group.

He co-authored the leading text book on satellite communications and was a consultant to many industry and government organizations. He jointly held with others 14 patents in the area of position location systems.

Pratt taught both undergraduate and graduate engineering courses at Virginia Tech and taught graduate engineering students across Virginia through the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program.

He received Virginia Tech’s William E. Wine Award for excellence in teaching and three Certificates of Teaching Excellence from the College of Engineering.

Pratt directed 15 doctoral students and more than 60 master’s degree students. He served on more than 30 doctoral dissertation committees.

Pratt received his bachelor’s degree and his doctoral degree from the University of Birmingham (Great Britain).

Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech takes a hands-on, engaging approach to education, preparing scholars to be leaders in their fields and communities. As the commonwealth’s most comprehensive university and its leading research institution, Virginia Tech offers 240 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to more than 31,000 students and manages a research portfolio of $513 million. The university fulfills its land-grant mission of transforming knowledge to practice through technological leadership and by fueling economic growth and job creation locally, regionally, and across Virginia.

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