Dr. Robert Fischl
Drexel alumnus Alan Evans has been elected to become a 2013 Fellow of the Institute of Navigation (ION). Evans received the award at the annual awards program Jan. 29, 2013 at the International Technical Meeting in San Diego, CA. ION elected Evans after recognizing his work at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), where he was the Principal Investigator for research and development projects sponsored by the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). His career in navigation has spanned more than 30 years and he has contributed to both military and civilian applications.
The nomination from ION highlighted that together with other Naval Service Warfare Center personnel, Evans demonstrated the very first basic use of the GPS phase measurements to achieve high accuracy position changes. The Stanford Telecommunications receiver, capable of one-measurement-per-minute, single satellite tracking, was used to obtain centimeter-level accurate position changes as the satellites moved across the sky.
“My graduate school training at Drexel enabled me to understand and directly contribute to applied research and development projects throughout my career. The faculty at Drexel were at a high academic level and they had high expectations of their engineering students,” says Evans. “The Teaching Assistantship Program motivated me to learn and understand technical concepts to properly explain the concepts to undergraduate students. And probably most important, my advisor of the Electrical Engineering Department, provided the time and support, through technical discussions I believe we both enjoyed, to enable me to complete the doctoral program.”
Evans received his master’s in Electrical Engineering at Drexel University in 1967 and his doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering in 1972. His professional experience includes teaching at the U.S. Naval Academy as an Assistant Professor; serving as an Electronic Engineer and Project Manager at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), Surface and Space Concepts Development and Assessment Branch (formerly Space and Geodesy Branch), Warfare Analysis and Advance Concepts Division; and working as a Consulting Engineer at The Penn State University Applied Research Laboratory, Navigation Research and Development Center where he continues consulting today after retiring from the Navy.
Evans has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career including the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award, Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award and the U.S. Defense Mapping Agency Research and Development Award. He has six navigation-related U.S. Patents and has authored or co-authored 64 papers (100 presentations) at national, or international, navigation and geodetic conferences; including 37 ION conferences (3 Best Presentation Awards) and seven invited papers in academic journals. Evans is also a member of several engineering associations including Sigma Xi, Beta Kappa Nu, IEEE and ION.