Ulrich Rohde, N1UL (ex-KA2WEU), has been named by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to receive the prestigious I. I. Rabi Award for 2015. The award recognizes outstanding contributions related to the fields of atomic and molecular frequency standards, and time transfer and dissemination. The author of some 200 scientific papers and books, including several QEX and QST articles, Rohde was cited specifically for “intellectual leadership, selection, and measurement of resonator structures for implementation in high-performance frequency sources, essential to the determination of atomic resonance.”

“I am really in disbelief and overwhelmed by this totally unexpected honor close to my 75th birthday,” Rohde said in thanking Gregory Weaver, the 2015 Awards Chair of the IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium (IFCS) Standing Committee. “Not even in my wildest dreams would I have assumed to deserve this important scientific award. Since the age of 16, I have been fascinated with oscillators as well as their performance and their influence on atomic standards. Some of the results of my research are still the basis of all really high-performance oscillators.”

Last year Rohde was the recipient of another singular IEEE IFCS honor, the C.B. Sawyer Memorial Award, which recognizes “entrepreneurship or leadership in the frequency control community; or outstanding contributions in the development, production or characterization of resonator materials or structures.”

Rohde, who is the chairman of Synergy Microwave Corporation and President of Communications Consulting Corporation, will receive the Rabi Award at the 2015 Joint Conference of the IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium and European Frequency and Time Forum, held April 12-16 in Denver.

The award’s namesake, physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, received the Nobel Prize in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging.