Dr. Robert H. Bishop, Dean of the College of Engineering, the University of South Florida (Since August, 2014).
In 2010, Dr. Robert Bishop became the Opus Dean of Engineering at the College of Engineering, Marquette University. Dr. Bishop was a faculty member for twenty years in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin where he served as Department Chairman for six years. He held the Joe. J. King Professorship and was a Distinguished Teaching Professor. Previously, Dr. Bishop was a practicing engineer on the technical staff at the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
Dr. Bishop is a specialist in the application of systems and control theory to modern engineering products. He is currently working with NASA on techniques for achieving planetary precision landing to support human and robotic missions. His current research involves advanced navigation algorithm development with fast-to-flight characteristics. He recently delivered navigation algorithms to NASA for use on the Morpheus flight test vehicle. Dr. Bishop also initiated several picosatellite projects focusing on autonomous rendezvous and quick access to space. He launched his first picosatellite aboard the Space Shuttle STS-127 in July 2009. He was selected twice as a Faculty Fellow at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he conducted basic research in the observability of interplanetary spacecraft utilizing ground-based radiometric measurements. The Boeing Company selected him as a Welliver Faculty Fellow to work with their astronautics business units to learn about the needs of industry and to apply knowledge gained in the university environment to educate the next generation of engineers.
Dr. Bishop co-authors one of the world’s leading undergraduate textbooks in control theory, and has authored two other textbooks, edited two handbooks, and authored/co-authored over one hundred and twenty-five journal and conference papers. His undergraduate textbook Modern Control Systems (co-authored with R. C. Dorf) is extensively adopted worldwide and has been translated into ten languages. His book on graphical programming entitled Learning with LabVIEW is the reference textbook delivered with all copies of the student edition of LabVIEW. Dr. Bishop developed and edited the Mechatronics Handbook and the spin-off book Mechatronics: An Introduction.
Bishop earned his Ph.D. (1990) at Rice University in Electrical and Computer Engineering, his M.S. (1980) and B.S. (1979) in aerospace engineering at Texas A&M University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Fellow of the American Astronautical Association.