Prabhakar Misra

Prabhakar Misra
File:Misraful.jpg
Born	Lucknow, India
Nationality	U.S.
Alma mater	Carnegie Mellon University, Ohio State University
Known for	Spectroscopy
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Howard University

Prabhakar Misra is a noted American physicist, who is currently researching and teaching at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Born and raised in India, he came to the United States to pursue graduate studies in physics. He earned an M.S. in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1981 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), followed by a Ph D. in Physics in 1986 from The Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio). After a post-doctoral fellowship at the Laser Spectroscopy Facility of The Ohio State University, he joined Howard University in 1988, and was a Visiting Scholar in 1990 at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. He currently resides in Maryland with his family.

Prabhakar Misra has been an active researcher for the past two decades in areas relating to: (i) the detection and spectroscopic characterization of free radicals, stable molecules and molecular ions of relevance to combustion and atmospheric phenomena employing excimer and tunable dye lasers; (ii) laser optogalvanic spectroscopy; (iii) high resolution molecular spectroscopy in the infrared employing a Fourier Transform infrared spectrometer and in the ultraviolet employing Czerny-Turner spectrographs; and (iv) absorption of short-pulsed (ns and ps) Nd:YAG laser radiation in the form of high energy pulses by liposomes and the subsequent conversion into release of organic dye molecules either encapsulated in the internal volume or bound in the membrane bilayer of liposomes.

Prabhakar Misra is the co-editor (along with Mark A. Dubinskii) of the well-known book titled Ultraviolet Spectroscopy and UV Lasers (Marcel Dekker/CRC Press, 2002).

Misra is a recipient of the 2009 DC Space Grant Consortium NASA Summer Faculty Fellowship award and spent the 2008 Summer on a NASA Astrobiology Institute MIRS & Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) Fellowship at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. He has received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2008 for his commitment to advancing underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines and his leadership in the foundation's Minority Ph.D. Program. During the Summer of 2007, he was a NASA ESMD Faculty Fellow at Langley Research Center, VA, and Goddard Space Flight Center, MD. He was a Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, as a Fulbright Scholar (2004-05). He was a recipient of the NASA Administrator's Fellowship Program (NAFP) award (administered by the United States National Research Council, NRC) and was a visiting faculty fellow at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center during the 1999-2000 academic year and an NRC faculty fellow at the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC during the 2000-2001 academic year. He has also successfully completed the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Research Directors Conference (April 19-20, 2001). He has established a state-of-the-art 1500 sq. ft Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Howard University. He has been a Member of Conference Program Committees and Session Chair of 15 invited and contributed paper sessions on spectroscopy and lasers. He has served as an Organizer and Keynote Speaker at the "Soft Matter" mini-symposium, which was part of The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (ICCES 09), Phuket, Thailand, April 8-11, 2009. He has also served as a guest referee for the Journal of Geoscience Education, Journal of Chemical Engineering Communications, Journal of Computer Modeling, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Propulsion and Power, Physica B, and the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer. Dr. Misra has reviewed research proposals for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is (or has been) a member of the American Physical Society (APS), Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Optical Society of America (OSA) and the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), and is a fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery (ASLMS), Inc.. He has been a Principal Investigator (1992-96) and an Associate Principal Investigator (1997-2007) for the NASA-funded Center for the Study of Terrestrial & Extraterrestrial Atmospheres (CSTEA). Dr. Misra has advised and mentored 30 undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral research associates who have been part of his research group.

Honors and Awards

NASA DC Space Grant Consortium Fellowship (2009).

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Certificate of Appreciation (2008).

NASA ESMD Fellowships (2007, 2008).

NASA Astrobiology Institute Minority Institution Research Support (NAI-MIRS) Program Fellowship.

Fulbright Scholar Award (Dec 2004 - Aug 2005), J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, Washington, D.C.

NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program Award (July 1, 1999-August 15, 2001), National Research Council, Washington, DC.

Johnetta G. Davis Student Service Award (May 1998), Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC.

Professional Profile Cited in Marquis Who's Who in Science & Engineering (1992-93) and in Who's Who Among America's Teachers (1996, 2007).

Researcher of the Month (April 1993), BIOS, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Howard University, Washington, DC.

External links

• Biography of Dr. Misra from Howard University's Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Howard University Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory managed by Dr. Misra