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Theresa Maldonado
Ph.D., P.E.
Deputy Director, Texas Engineering Experiment Station
Texas A&M University System.
Associate Dean for Research, Dwight Look College of Engineering.
Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering,
Texas A&M University.

 

 

Education

Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1990
M.S.E.E. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982
B.E.E. with Highest Honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1981
A.S. (Mathematics), Macon Jr. College, 1979

Biosketch:

Theresa A. Maldonado, Ph.D., P.E. is Associate Dean of Engineering for Research, Texas A&M University, and Deputy Director of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station. In addition to serving as the chief administrator for engineering research and extension activities, Dr. Maldonado is also Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Prior to joining Texas A&M in 2003, Dr. Maldonado served as Associate Vice President for Research (2002–03) at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).  In this role, she also served as Director of the Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research and Teaching, a university-wide initiative to facilitate collaborative research, teaching, and research facilities.  Previously, she was Assoc. Dean for Research (2001–02) and Professor of Electrical Engineering at UTA (1990–2003).  From 1981 to 1986 she was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories.  She took a detour in 1999 and served as an Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program Director in the Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation (1999–2001), where she was recognized with the Director’s Award for Program Management Excellence and the Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration for her services on the CAREER Coordinating Committee. She also received a Certificate of Appreciation for Distinguished Service in the development of the NSF ADVANCE Program.

Dr. Maldonado earned the Ph.D., M.S.E.E., and B.E.E. with Highest Honors degrees in Electrical Engineering, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and she is a registered professional engineer in Texas. Her current research interests include developing new dye-doped polymer materials with tailored second order optical nonlinearities. These materials are used to fabricate nonlinear optical thin films, gratings, and optical fiber structures by the ionic self-assembled monolayer technique to be integrated into electro-optic and photonic devices.

Dr. Maldonado is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator award.  She was an invited participant at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering and the German-American Frontiers of Engineering meetings. She was appointed to the NAE Committee on Diversity of the Engineering Workforce, NSF Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, and the NSF Committees of Visitors for the ERC program and for the Math and Physical Sciences Directorate.  She was inducted into the Inaugural Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni at Georgia Tech in 1995. Dr. Maldonado serves on several national and state boards.  She is a senior member of the IEEE and member of the Optical Society of America, SPIE, Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi.