Biography

Dr. Prabhakar Misra is currently a Professor of Physics & Director of the Laser Spectroscopy Laboratory in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Howard University in Washington, DC, USA. He earned a Ph.D. in Physics (1986) from The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, an M.S. in Physics (1981) from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, and an M.Sc. in Physics (1978) and B.Sc. (Physics Honors) (1975), both from the University of Calcutta, India. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), an honor reserved for only one-half of one percent of the total APS membership. The APS Fellowship citation from the Division of Condensed Matter Physics reads: “For sustained contributions to the spectroscopy of the condensed phases and exemplary mentoring of underrepresented students.” He is also a Fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine & Surgery (ASLMS) and a Senior Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA). Dr. Misra serves as the Advisor for the Society of Physics Students (SPS) Chapter at Howard University and has advised and mentored 40 undergraduate students, 12 Ph.D. graduate students and 6 postdoctoral research associates, who have been part of his research group. Prof. Misra has edited 3 books and is the author/coauthor of more than 195 research abstracts, conference proceedings and refereed journal publications. He is a visiting scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland (2010-present), and a research affiliate at START, a DHS Center of Excellence at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD (2014-present).

Professor Misra is the editor of the book titled "Applied Spectroscopy and the Science of Nanomaterials" (New York: Springer, 2015) and has also co-edited (along with Mark A. Dubinskii) the well-known book titled "Ultraviolet Spectroscopy and UV Lasers" (Marcel Dekker/CRC Press, 2002). He has received a Certificate of Appreciation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 2008 for his commitment to advancing underrepresented minority students in STEM disciplines and his leadership in the foundation's Minority Ph.D. Program. In 2004-05, Dr. Misra was selected to be a Fulbright Scholar and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Chemical Sciences at The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India. He received the NASA Administrator’s Fellowship Program (NAFP) award (1999–2001) (administered by the United States National Research Council, NRC), which enabled him to be involved with the Vegetation Canopy Lidar mission at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1999–2000) and to serve as a Study Coordinator for the National Academy of Sciences’ sponsored study titled “Commercial Supersonic Technology- The Way Ahead” at the Aeronautics & Space Engineering Board (ASEB) (2000–2001). Dr. Misra participated in the Research Directors Conference that was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in April 2001 and over a period of two decades he has served on several important conference panels (both as a member of the program committee and as sessions chair) relating to spectroscopy and lasers. He has served as an Organizer and Keynote Speaker at the "Soft Matter" mini-symposium, which was part of The International Conference on Computational & Experimental Engineering and Sciences (ICCES 09), Phuket, Thailand, April 8–11, 2009. He was an invited keynote speaker at the ICCES 2012 meeting held in Crete, Greece, April 30-May 4, 2012, and an invited speaker at the ICCES 2017 meeting held in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal, June 26-30, 2017. Recently, he was a plenary speaker and sessions co-chair at the First North Indian Science Congress held at B.B. Ambedkar University, Lucknow, India, January 10-11, 2018. He has served as a guest referee for numerous refereed journals, which have included the Journal of Geoscience Education, Journal of Chemical Engineering Communications, Journal of Computer Modeling, Journal of Lightwave Technology, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Journal of Propulsion and Power, Physica B, and the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer and Applied Optics. Dr. Misra has reviewed research proposals for several organizations, which have included the National Science Foundation (NSF), Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is (or has been) a member of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), and a Senior Member of the Optical Society of America (OSA). During the period 1992-2007, he served as a Principal Investigator (1992–96) and an Associate Principal Investigator (1997–2007) for the $10-M Center for the Study of Terrestrial & Extraterrestrial Atmospheres (CSTEA), which was a NASA-funded University Research Center (URC) of Excellence. Dr. Misra successfully organized a Nobel Laureate Symposium on November 10, 2010 in which Dr. Douglas Osheroff, 1996 Nobel Laureate in Physics, was the invited speaker. A report of this event was written by the SPS National Organization. Dr. Misra organized a second Nobel Laureate Symposium featuring the 2001 Nobel Laureate in Physics, Dr. Eric A. Cornell, on February 22–23, 2012. Dr. Misra led a Howard University Department of Physics & Astronomy student team in a thrilling and exciting Zero-G Flight Experiment, Low Gravity Gas-Liquid Contactor, at Ellington Field, Houston, TX on November 12–13, 2013. He has been nominated for the 2016 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM), National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia, USA.

Professor Misra has maintained ties with scientists in India, specifically Prof. Sanjay Wategaonkar at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai, Prof. V.K. Jain at Amity University in Noida, and Prof. B.C. Yadav at B.B. Ambedkar University in Lucknow, India. During his Fulbright sabbatical at TIFR, he taught a graduate-level course in Laser Spectroscopy and conducted research in Chemical Physics with Prof. Wategaonkar, which led to a significant publication titled “Zero Kinetic Energy Spectroscopy of Hydroquinone-Water (1:1) Complex: A Probe for Conformer Assignment", S. Chakraborty, P. Misra, and S. Wategaonkar, The Journal of Chemical Physics 127, 124317 (2007). Prof. Misra continues to give invited talks at TIFR whenever he is visiting Mumbai, India. He has delivered invited talks at the ICRTMD meetings at Amity University, Noida, India, and an invited plenary talk in 2018 at the international conference titled "Science & Technology for Sustainable Futures" held at Ambedkar University, Lucknow, India.