Apr 27, 2021Julianne Hill
Allen Taflove, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northwestern Engineering who conducted pioneering work in the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, passed away at age 71 on April 25, 2021. He will be remembered for his groundbreaking research and dedication to education and advising.
Taflove’s roots at the McCormick School of Engineering ran deep, receiving his bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD here. After serving as a researcher at IIT Research Institute, Taflove returned to Northwestern and became a full professor in 1988.
In research, Taflove developed fundamental theoretical approaches, algorithms, and scientific and engineering applications of the FDTD method computational solutions of the fundamental Maxwell's equations of classical electrodynamics. He was celebrated by the IEEE, becoming the first fellow for FDTD technique work as well as receiving the group’s Electromagnetics Award. His groundbreaking research has been applied to a vast array of problem areas from interactions of electromagnetic waves with tissues, to low-observable (stealth) aircraft, to fundamental physics.