Dr. Rashaunda Henderson
- Professor of Electrical Engineering
- Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professor (Former)
The McDermott Professorships were established in August 2017, funded by an anonymous gift, with the goal of providing early career support and recognition to faculty members who have established extraordinary records of research productivity, teaching excellence, and university service, and who show promise of being leaders of the UT Dallas faculty in the future.
“Microwave engineering education and research is at an all-time high as commercial applications are being developed in this regime. UT Dallas has established an excellent program to support radio frequency (RF) engineers for the next generation. Our students leave here making an impact in a short period of time for the greater good. I love being part of that.”
Dr. Rashaunda Henderson is not one to crave the spotlight. Nor does she say she’s in need of excessive recognition. In fact, she admits she’s quite the opposite: She’s content to play a supporting role in the accomplishments of others.
“I often tell students and colleagues, ‘I want you to be successful. How can I help you?’” she said. Her research interests include the modeling and characterization of materials and passive components for wireless applications, and the design of circuits and subsystems for radio frequency (RF) front-end modules. In addition, Henderson focuses much of her research on the development of integration techniques for CMOS circuits, using interconnects and antennas primarily at millimeter-wave frequencies.
Soon after she joined the UT Dallas faculty in 2007, Henderson established the High Frequency Circuits and Systems Laboratory with colleagues in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. In 2013, Henderson received a grant from the Office of Naval Research to build a millimeter-wave spherical antenna measurement system. The system can operate up to 500 gigahertz, and is considered unique.
“This is a critical piece of instrumentation needed throughout the world to exploit the millimeter-wave band,” Henderson said.
Henderson is known for her work with young women, supporting their efforts to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering or math.
In 2013, she was selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s Frontiers of Engineering Education to share best practices in teaching. Henderson restructured her classes to improve student understanding, splitting her engineering classes into two segments: one for teaching and the other for interactive learning modules, incorporating laboratory experiments, computer simulation and recitation.
Before coming to UT Dallas, Henderson spent eight years as a device engineer at Freescale Semiconductor (previously the semiconductor division of Motorola), where she worked on the characterization, simulation and model development of on-chip and off-chip RF and microwave passive structures.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, she received her bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Tuskegee University and her master’s degree and PhD from the University of Michigan.