Karen Burnham

Biography:

Karen holds a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston with strong emphasis in electromagnetics and signal processing, and a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Northern Arizona University. She is an IEEE senior member, a licensed amateur radio operator (KE8GVH), and is an iNARTE certified EMC engineer.

Karen has served as the Vice President of Standards for the IEEE EMC Society, as well as Chair of the Technical Committee 3 (Electromagnetic Environments), and Technical Committee 4 (Electromagnetic Interference Control). She sits on standards committees for IEEE, ANSI, and
SAE. Karen served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Society from 2022-2023, giving talks on EMC topics in half a dozen countries across three continents. She is a regular columnist on the InCompliance magazine website.

Since July of 2024, Ms. Burnham has been President and Chief Engineer of EMC United, a consulting firm. Clients have included companies in the automotive, aerospace/defense, and consumer electronics industries. Projects have included troubleshooting radiated emissions and
immunity issues, educating teams on EMC fundamentals, and evaluating spacecraft for risks from ESD and space charging environments.
From 2020 - 2024, Ms. Burnham was a Principal Scientist at Electro Magnetic Applications in Denver, CO. She served as project manager for many programs across different industries and managed the RF/EMC team for the company. She was Principal Investigator on a Phase I and II STTR effort for the US Navy, collaborating with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop and validate a novel algorithm for predicting vehicle-level interference from component- level radiated emissions data.

Prior to her time at EMA, Ms. Burnham was a senior EMC engineer at Ford Motor Company.  She had responsibility for several vehicle lines and was able to practice troubleshooting on PHEVs as well as traditional ICE vehicles. For a time she chaired Ford's EMC Technical Review Board.  Before working in the automotive industry, Ms. Burnham spent time as a test director at the Northrop Grumman facility near Baltimore, MD, working with components designed for the F-35.  She was the lead Electromagnetic Compatibility engineer on the crewed version of the Dream Chaser spacecraft for Sierra Space.

She got her start in EMC working with Dr. Bob Scully at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), joining his group after spending time in the electrical power (EP5) and pyrotechnic systems (EP3) branches as an electrical engineer. Working with Dr. Scully she was involved with the
Orion spacecraft EMC control plan as well as research into the radiated susceptibility of NASA Standard Initiators (NSIs). Prior to her time at NASA, Ms. Burnham worked in radar signal processing algorithm design for Northrop Grumman in Huntington Beach, CA, focusing mainly
on ground based missile defense.

Address:Denver, Colorado, United States

Bob Scully

Biography:

Bob holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Arlington in Electrical Engineering with strong emphasis in electromagnetics, is an IEEE Fellow, a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Texas, a licensed commercial (PG-12-27194) and amateur (N9RCS) radio operator,
holds various EMC certifications from the University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) and iNARTE, and is a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu.

Bob has served as the President of the IEEE EMC Society, the VP of Technical Services, Chair of the Technical Activities Committee, Technical Committee 1, and Technical Committee 4. Bob served as an Associate Editor for the EMC Society Transactions for several years, is currently
serving as an Associate Editor for Letters on Electromagnetic Compatibility Practice and Applications, and was the founder and until 2019 the Chair of the Galveston Bay/Houston EMC Chapter.

Since February of 2024, Dr. Scully has been supporting the NASA Engineering Safety Center (NESC) out of the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia as an EMC Specialist consultant. Tasks have included investigative support for GPS system anomalies observed on Space-X
missions and unexplained electrostatic vehicle charging of military rotary wing aircraft.
 
In mid-2019, Dr. Scully retired from federal civil service and was hired by JPL as a Principal EMC Engineer. During his tenure with JPL, Dr. Scully served as the Lead EMC Engineer for the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) and the SPHERE-X satellite projects, and
the JPL designed and fabricated Ventilator (used to support those infected with COVID). Dr. Scully also provided technical support to the Europa project, and various other projects of similar nature.
 
Prior to coming to JPL, Dr. Scully served as the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) Group Lead Engineer, from 2000 until mid-2019. He was at the same time the lead for the Community of Practice for Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC)
within the Agency. Dr. Scully was directly instrumental in defining EMC requirements for the Space Shuttle Program, the International Space Station Program, the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle Program, and the Commercial Crew Program. He provided expertise and guidance in
the development of tailored electromagnetic compatibility specifications, including control plans,  interference control testing methodologies, Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) control, spacecraft charging control, lightning protection and test, general electronic design, dc/dc converter design, filter design, and electrical bonding and grounding methods and applications.
 
Prior to working for NASA, Dr. Scully was employed at Bell Helicopter/TEXTRON for 12 years as a Senior Engineer Specialist in the EMC & Lightning Factors Group, part of Research & Engineering, Avionics Systems Integration. Dr. Scully was the Lead Electromagnetic Compatibility Engineer for military programs at Bell Helicopter and provided technical and design guidance for, and analysis of, platform systems including avionics, electrical, fuel, hydraulic, propulsion, communication, navigation, and electronic warfare systems to determine design mitigation of unacceptable levels of electromagnetic interference susceptibility, and to determine/establish isolation, system sensitivity, performance and system interoperability.