Dr. Bishop, who specializes in the areas of spacecraft control and navigation, and aircraft tracking, earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in aerospace engineering from Texas A&M University and his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Rice University. From 1980 to 1990 he served on the engineering staff of the MIT Charles Stark Draper Laboratory until he joined the UT Austin faculty in 1990.
He has received many honors for both research and teaching. He was twice named a faculty fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory—where he conducted ground-based basic research on the observability of interplanetary spacecraft, using radiometric measurements—and he was selected as a 1996 Welliver Faculty Fellow by the Boeing Company. Other research sponsors have included NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Johnson Space Center, facilities in Switzerland and Japan, and The University of Texas Chancellor’s Council, which awarded him a grant for his work on navigation for Mars missions.
He has authored, co-authored or edited a half-dozen books, including widely-adopted undergraduate textbooks on control systems and graphical programming, published over 75 refereed journal articles and conference papers, and served on the editorial boards of several influential journals within his profession.
A dedicated teacher of both undergraduates and graduate students, he has supervised the undergraduate research projects of 14 students, often in conjunction with the Equal Opportunity in Engineering Office within the College of Engineering at UT Austin. On the graduate level, he has supervised ten Ph.D. and 16 M.S. students.
His numerous honors received at UT Austin include the Eyes of Texas Award for Excellence in Service to The University of Texas at Austin; the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Departmental Faculty Leadership Award; the Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Departmental Teaching Award; and the college-wide Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching. On the national level, he received the 1999 John Leland Atwood Award given by the American Society of Engineering Educators and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, to “a leader who has made lasting and significant contributions to aerospace engineering education.” He was inducted into UT Austin’s Academy of Distinguished Teachers in 2002.
He succeeds Dr. David Dolling, professor of aerospace engineering, and holder of the E.C.H. Bantel Professorship for Professional Practice, as departmental chair. Dr. Dolling will return to research and teaching within the department after serving two terms as chairman.
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