Ralph Hiatt

Biography

Ralph E. Hiatt (IRE Member, 1947, and Senior Member, 1958) was born in Portland, Indiana, on 12 April 1910. He received the B.A. degree in physics from Indiana Central College in Indianapolis, in 1932, and the M.A. degree in physics from Indiana University in Bloomington, in 1939. Later he too several graduate courses in mathematics at Boston University.

Hiatt taught mathematics and science in Indian Public Schools until 1942. From 1942 to 1945, he was employed by the Radiation Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a Staff Member in the Radiation Laboratory Antenna Group, he worked on microwave radar antennas. Hiatt organized the Ipswich Antenna Test Station and was Chief of this installation in 1944 and 1945. He joined the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in 1945 and was Chief of the Ground Antenna Section until 1956. From 1956 to 1958, he was Chief of the Antenna Laboratory (later the Electromagnetic Radiation Laboratory). In 1958, he joined the Radiation Laboratory of The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, as Associate Head of the laboratory and he organized an experimental group in the laboratory. A few years later, he became Head of the Radiation Laboratory in 1961. The following year, he was engaged in work on radar scattering, in antenna research, and in experimental plasma studies.

Hiatt was a member of the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, and the American Institute of Physics. He was President of the AFCRC Branch of the Research Society of America in 1957-1958 and was listed in "American Men of Science."