Markus Zahn was born in Bergen-Belsen, Germany on December 3, 1946. He came to the United States with his parents in 1949 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1955. He received the BSEE and MSEE degrees in 1968 with master’s thesis entitled “Pulse Compression Using Bragg Scattering of Light by Ultrasonic Waves” as part of the MIT EECS VI-A Internship Program where he worked as an intern from 1965-68 at Raytheon Co., the Electrical Engineers degree in 1969, and the Sc.D. degree in 1970 with doctoral thesis “Space Charge Dynamics of Liquids”, all from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1970-1980 he was a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. He spent the 1972 summer as a Guest Worker at the National Bureau of Standards and spent his 1976-77 sabbatical year in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. He joined the MIT faculty in 1980 and is now Professor of Electrical Engineering working in the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems and in the MIT High Voltage Research Laboratory. He is also the Thomas and Gerd Perkins Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT and Director of the VI-A Internship Program, a cooperative work/study program with industry. He has received numerous awards for excellence in teaching and he is a Fellow of the IEEE for "contributions to the understanding of the effects of space charge and flow electrification on the conduction and breakdown properties of dielectrics".

Educational and Research Contributions

He is the author of ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD THEORY: A Problem Solving Approach (Wiley, 1979; Krieger, 1987 and 2003; including translations in Spanish and Polish) and has co-developed a set of educational videotapes on Demonstrations of Electromagnetic Fields and Energy.  He has written 10 book and encyclopedia chapters, about 115 journal publications, and about 175 conference papers.  He is co-inventor on 17 patents, for elimination of parasitic currents in batteries; a fluid stabilization method using magnetic fluids so that a less viscous fluid can stably push a more viscous fluid; an instrument for measurement of charge entrained in fluids; a process for magnetic media milling; a magnetometer and dielectrometer for detection, identification and discrimination of metallic and non-metallic buried objects such as landmines; the optimization, calibration, and display of dielectrometry signals; for field assisted ion mobility spectrometry; on a detection array for buried objects such as landmines and a method for magnetically assisted assembly of integrated circuit wafers. His fields of research and interest include electro-optical field and charge mapping measurements; high-voltage charge transport and breakdown phenomena in dielectrics; flow electrification phenomena in electric power apparatus; development of capacitive and inductive sensors for measuring profiles of dielectric, conduction, and magnetic properties of media as well as related physical properties such as moisture profiles; electrohydrodynamic and electrokinetic interactions with charged and polarizable fluids; ferrohydrodynamic interactions with magnetizable fluids for microfluidic and biomedical applications; continuum electromechanics of electrofluidized and magnetically stabilized beds; magnetic diffusion phenomena and forces in MAGLEV systems;  and magnetic field devices for micro and nanoelectromechanical system (MEMS/NEMS) applications. He is also developing web based demonstrations and animations for the enriched teaching of electromagnetism.  His video with student Cory Lorenz “Hele-Shaw Ferrohydrodynamics for Rotating and dc Axial Magnetic Fields” was a winner of the November, 2002 American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics Gallery of Fluid Motion (2003, S4).

联系人：电机系周远翔教授