Dr. Cynthia Furse is Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Utah.  Dr. Furse is a Fellow of the IEEE and the National Academy of Inventors.  Her technological innovations and patents include development of a system to locate intermittent electrical faults on aging aircraft wiring, with which she founded a successful spin off company, LiveWire Innovation.  She is also a pioneering researcher in the development of telemetry antennas for medical implants, and fast methods for predicting the statistical variation in bioelectromagnetic applications. (For more about my research see EMLab.eng.utah.edu )

Dr. Furse teaches or has taught freshman circuit design, electromagnetics, wireless communication, computational electromagnetics, microwave engineering, and antenna design. She is a leader in the flipped classroom teaching method.  She has received numerous teaching and research awards including the 2009 IEEE Harriett B. Rigas Medal for Excellence in Teaching and the 2020 Chen To Tai Distinguished Educator Award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. She was the Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Utah from 2009-2019.

Ok, that's the official stuff. A little about who I really am. I'm from Hartford, Maine, a rural farming/logging area in central Maine. I loved spending time with my grandparents and cousins in the fields and woods. I grew up in Logan, Utah, where I had a really creative group of high school friends who had a lot of good times together in orchestra (I play the violin and viola), theater (I played Laura in the Glass Menagerie, the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, and Snoopy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown), debate (I went to Nationals! The year it was in SLC, oh well), Girl Scouts, and other volunteer activities. I really wanted to change the world, so after a variety of explorations, settled on Electrical Engineering, and it's been a great journey (still is!). I came to the U for my undergrad degree, and had great professors who challenged and taught us. I loved learning about what they did in their labs, and even had a chance to join in with undergraduate research, in the lab of Prof. Magdy Iskander. That's where my love of Electromagnetics took real root. It's magical! I did my masters with Prof. Iskander, too, and quickly became attached to research -- it's so creative! That led to a PhD also at the U, with Prof. Om Gandhi, a world leader in bioelectromagnetics. I loved my undergrad degree, but the masters and PhD, where I could focus on what interested in most? Those were so cool. I started teaching as a masters student, and quickly fell in love with the experience of helping others reach the "lightbulb" moments. And the thing about changing the world? YES, it's real. I've helped develop the tools that are used to be sure cell phones meet electromagnetic (safety) guidelines, developed a system for locating intermittent faults on live wires (and founded a company that has helped build systems for aircraft maintenance, railway cable theft prevention, oil and gas exploration reliability, and more), and helped jumpstart antenna concepts for medical implants.

(For more about me, and my experiences in engineering, see https://utah.instructure.com/courses/558911/pages/fun-with-antennas)

I enjoy almost anything out-of-doors -- camping and hiking with my husband and dog, playing with our kids and grandkids, canoeing, skiing, and  horseback riding and packing. Utah has fantastic places to ride, all year round. I enjoy historical crafts -- quilting, stitchery, sewing, painting, making pysanky, etc. I play the violin (classical and fiddle) and viola, and my husband is a luthier. And I write history books in my other spare time. Life is good.

Smith Chart Quilt, 1998. My students sign this quilt when they finish their research project. (Graduate students in the middle, Undergraduates around the circle.) My daughter, now also an EE, helped me make this quilt when she was in the 3rd grade. Both of my brothers have also done projects with me, so they are here too. The pins and patches are from my travels in engineering (various conferences, projects, trips). The two red sashes are from engineering students who brought me special messages at graduation. Thank you to all of my students, you are my greatest achievement.