Juan F. Arratia
Deputy Director, Arecibo Observatory
Juan F. Arratia was born in Pomaire, Chile. He graduated from Universidad T†йcnica del Estado with a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1973. He was awarded an MSc in Engineering from Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana, in 1979, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri in 1985. He has taught and conducted research at universities in Chile, Puerto Rico and the US mainland, Washington University, St. Louis, and Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, Louisiana.
He was the Director and Principal Investigator for ten years of the Model Institutions for Excellence (MIE) Project, a National Science Foundation sponsored program based at Universidad Metropolitana in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since 2007, he is the Executive Director of the Ana G. M†йndez University System (AGMUS) Student Research Development Center, designed to disseminate MIE best practices to Universidad del Turabo and Universidad del Este. In November 2007 he was awarded the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring at a ceremony in the White House in Washington DC. He is the Director and Principal Investigator of the following NSF grants: 1) AGMUS Institute of Mathematics; 2) Caribbean Computing Center for Excellence; 3) MRI: Advance Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR); and 4) Puerto Rico Atmospheric Major Research Laser Instrumentation Program. Since October 1st, 2011, he is the Deputy Director of the Arecibo Observatory and Director of the †Бngel Ramos Foundation Visitor Center.
He is totally dedicated to mentoring and motivating undergraduates, graduates, and pre-college students to become Ph.Ds., as well as, implementing research projects in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, especially in robotics and automation, green energy, medical devices, expert system technology, laser systems and environmental issues. He has established a worldwide network of research mentors in the STEM fields for economically disadvantaged minority students from Puerto Rico in US mainland universities and in Japan, China, Australia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia, France, Sweden, Lithuania, Jordan, South Africa, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Italy and New Zealand.