Alumnus Stimak Named "Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year"

ECE alumnus George Stimak (MS ’76, MBA ’83) has been named "Top Navy Scientist and Engineer of the Year." He was one of 34 scientists and engineers recognized at the third annual Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientists and Engineers of the Year awards ceremony at the Pentagon on May 19.

Additional award recipients included ECE alumni Jonathan Neumann (Ph.D. '05), who was advised by Prof. Patrick O'Shea, Richard Fischer (B.S. '84, M.S. '86), who currently serves as a research scientist and engineer in the Laser Physics Section at the Naval Research Laboratory, and Kevin A. Boulais, a 1996 ECE Ph.D. graduate.

Stimak, a program officer at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), was honored for breakthrough research that yielded the world’s first-ever ship degaussing system to use high temperature superconducting (HTS) materials. Degaussing is the process of making a steel ship’s hull nonmagnetic by producing an opposing magnetic field, protecting it from magnetically activated mines.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from The Cooper Union School of Engineering in 1971, Stimak started his career with the Magnetic Silencing Group at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, White Oak Laboratory (formerly the Naval Ordnance Laboratory). There, he began his work designing ship degaussing systems and degaussing ranges for the U.S. Navy. Stimak served as a member of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Tactical Electronics Warfare Directorate from 1994 to 2001 before joining ONR as a program officer. Stimak holds two master’s degrees, one in electrical engineering and another in business administration, both from the University of Maryland.

As an ONR program officer, Stimak invests and develops revolutionary science and technology (S&T) for the Navy and Marine Corps of the future. Learn more about the technology he works on at http://www.onr.navy.mil/media/article.asp?ID=187.

Published June 1, 2009