Rainee N. Simons (S’76-M’80-SM’89-F’00) received the B.S. degree in electronics and communications engineering from the Mysore University, Mysore, India, in 1972, and the M.Tech. degree in electronics and communications engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 1974 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, India in 1983.

In 1979, he began his career as a Senior Scientific Officer with the IIT, where he was involved with finline components for millimeter-wave applications and X-Band toroidal latching ferrite phase shifters for phased arrays. Since 1985 he has been with the Communications Technology Division (CTD), NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), Cleveland, OH, where he is currently the Chief of the Electron Device Technology Branch. While with NASA GRC, he has been involved with optical control of MESFET and high electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) devices, high temperature superconductivity, modeling of coplanar waveguide/stripline (CPW/CPS) discontinuities, CPW feed systems for printed antennas, linearly tapered slot arrays, packaging of monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs), silicon carbide (SiC) diode mixers, RF micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and GaN solid state power amplifiers. He is currently involved in the area of high efficiency space traveling wave tube (TWT) power combiners for communications from near-Earth as well as deep space. He has authored or co-authored over 130 publications in refereed journals and international symposium proceedings.

He authored Optical Control of Microwave Devices (Norwood, MA: Artech House, 1990). He also authored the chapter “High Temperature Superconducting Coplanar Waveguide Microwave Circuits and Antennas,” which appeared in Advances in High-Tc Superconductors (Switzerland: Trans-Tech Publications, 1993). He also co-author the chapter “Tapered Slot Antenna,” which has appeared in Advances in Microstrip and Printed Antennas (New York: Wiley, 1997). He also authored Coplanar Waveguide Circuits, Components, and Systems (New York: Wiley, 2001). He holds three U.S. patents.

Dr. Simons has organized workshops, chaired sessions, and served on the Technical Program Committees of several IEEE International Symposiums. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES and an associate editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION. He was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award. He is a recipient of over seventeen NASA Tech Brief Awards. He was also a recipient of the NASA Public Service Medal in 2001 for pioneering research and development of microwave printed antennas and distribution media. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.