Profile of Dr. Prabhakar Misra

Dr. Prabhakar Misra is a Professor of Physics and Director of the Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Howard University, Washington, DC. Dr. Misra earned his M.Sc. (Physics) degree in 1978 from the University of Calcutta, his M.S. (Physics) degree in 1981 from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and his Ph.D. degree in 1986 from the Ohio State University, Columbus.

Dr. Misra is a past recipient of the Johnetta G. Davis student mentoring award given in 1998 by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Howard University. He has been a visiting scholar at Northwestern University (1990), and a recipient of the NASA Administrator’s Fellowship award (1999-2001), which enabled him to conduct mission-related research at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, and to serve as a Study Coordinator for the Committee on Breakthrough Technology for Commercial Supersonic Aircraft at the Aeronautics & Space Engineering Board of The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. He has been a Principal Investigator and a Co-Investigator on more than 20 external and internally-funded research and instructional projects that have totaled in excess of $12.0 M, which has included the multi-million $$ NASA-funded Center for the Study of Terrestrial & Extraterrestrial Atmospheres (CSTEA), 1992-present. His research expertise is in the area of Experimental Laser Spectroscopy.

Dr. Misra has published over 120 scientific and technical papers, abstracts and conference proceedings relating to laser spectroscopy, atomic & molecular physics and chemical physics. He is the co-editor of the book Ultraviolet Spectroscopy and UV Lasers, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, 2002. He serves as a Physics Reader for the Advanced Placement Program of the College Board and The Educational Testing Service (2003-04). He is (or has been) a member of Sigma Xi, American Mensa, Sigma Pi Sigma Honor Society, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the New York Academy of Sciences, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of University Professors, and is a fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery.