by Eva Shaw-Gill
My husband Demare Gill, Sr. and I traveled to Blacksburg Saturday, Feb. 1 to celebrate with the Scales family and close friends, Wayne Scales’ surprise birthday party. His wife Glenda with the help of some friends pulled off this surprise! Not only was Wayne surprised by his daughter Melody flying in from Xavier University for a day, but a large group of his Virginia Tech colleagues and close friends who came to celebrate his 60th birthday.
After the shock wore off Wayne’s face, the festivities began with great food and conversation. Glenda thought it would be nice to go around the room and let everyone introduce themselves and say how they knew Wayne.
Demare and I met the Scales family because our daughters were on a travel volleyball team together. But I sat in awe and shock to hear how much love and respect everyone had for this man who I thought was just a nice, sweet, quiet volleyball dad who worked at Virginia Tech. “Worked at VT” is an understatement.
Prof. Wayne Scales received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Honors Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Virginia Tech and the PhD from Cornell University in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics with focus in Space Plasma Physics.
He was awarded an American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Postdoctoral Fellowship for research study at the Space Plasma Physics Branch of the Naval Research Laboratory. He subsequently joined the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (BDECE) at Virginia Tech as an assistant professor and is currently a fully tenured professor.
Prof. Scales was founding director of the Center for Space Science and Engineering Research (Space@VT) which is an organization of 100 faculty, research and administrative staff and graduate students. Additionally, he is an affiliate professor in the Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Space@VT has a relatively broad research agenda including space weather radar, magnetospheric and ionospheric physics, space mission design including sounding rocket and cubesats, Global Navigation Satellite System GNSS science and engineering, middle and lower atmospheric science, geospace remote sensing, in situ plasma instrument development, space propulsion and power, spacecraft dynamics and control, as well as computational space plasma physics.
Prof. Scales served as co-director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program (IGEP) in Remote Sensing that is a collaboration of faculty members and graduate students from the Colleges of Engineering, Science, Natural Resources and Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He has received a number of awards for excellence in research, teaching and service in the College of Engineering.
Prof. Scales has over 100 refereed publications. His research focus is in the area of space plasma turbulence with applications to active space experiments, natural space plasma turbulence in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, dusty space plasmas and the impact on modern technology including communication and navigation systems. His research agenda involves development of advanced physics-based computational models as well as field measurements and data analysis. He has served as the Chairman of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Active Space Experiments and Dusty Space Plasmas Sub-commission.
His advisory board positions include: the National Astronomy and Ionospheric Center NAIC and the Radio Frequency RF Ionospheric Interactions Workshop. He also serves as Member-at-Large of the U.S. National Committee of the Union of Radio Science International (USNC-URSI). He serves on the Program and Issues Committee of the University Space Research Association USRA. He has served in various editorial capacities for Advances in Space Research, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, and Radiation Effects and Defects in Solids.
He has mentored and encouraged a large number of underrepresented minorities from a variety of disciplines to successfully complete either a BS MS or PhD. degree; he’s also worked on projects with various organizations as Apple Ridge Farm.
Scales with his enormous lineup of achievements is the first African American to become a full professor and to become tenured at VT’s BDECE department and the first endowed chair in the College of Engineering at VT.
He was born in Eden, NC the only child born to Bettie Geraldine Thompson Scales and the late William Thomas Scales. In his down time he loves listening to Jazz music, some of his favorite artist include: Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane; jazz singers, Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McCrae and Shirley Horn to name a few.
In honor of Black History Month, it’s only fitting to recognize such a scholar as Professor Wayne Scales–an extremely unassuming genius–humble yet with an amazing resolve to achieve heights most find unimaginable!
