Demetrius T. Paris

Biography

Demetrius T. Paris was born in Stavroupolis, Greece, in 1928, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1947 to attend Mississippi State University, where he received a B.S. in electrical engineering. From 1952 to 1998, he worked at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation and the Lockheed-Georgia Company. While working full-time, Paris earned an M.S. in 1958 from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. In 1959, he joined Georgia Tech's School of Electrical Engineering, now the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty, and simultaneously pursued a Ph.D., which he earned in 1962. Paris was a professor and as the school's director from 1969 to1989, he hired sixty-three tenure-track faculty. He also established the Microelectronics Research Center and the graduate co-op program. From 1989 to 1995, he served as vice president for Research and Graduate Programs at Georgia Tech, and in 1995, he returned to ECE as research programs coordinator.

During his career, Paris made primary technical contributions to the areas of antennas and antenna measurements, including the classic textbook "Basic Electromagnetic Theory. He served on the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), most recently as the chair of its international activities committee. A Fellow of both the IEEE and ABET, he was recently chosen to receive the Meritorious Award for Accreditation Activities from the IEEE Educational Activities Board. In 1984, he received the IEEE Centennial Medal.

Demetrius T. Paris, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 29 August 1998. He was survived by his wife of forty-six years, Elsie Edwards Paris; a daughter, Cheryl Dorsett Thompson; a son, James Ola Dorsett; and six grandchildren.