Morris B. Cohen has been selected for the Santimay Basu Prize, an award given by the International Union of Radio Science (URSI). Given once per every three years to a person under the age of 35, the award will be presented at the Opening Ceremony of the URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium in Beijing, China on August 17, 2014.

Cohen was chosen for this award “for contributions to ELF/VLF radio wave instrumentation, propagation, and generation in the ionosphere and magnetosphere, and for initiating and fostering an international network of young scientists in developing countries.”

One achievement for which Cohen is being honored is a low-frequency radio receiver known as AWESOME (Atmospheric Weather Electromagnetic System for Observation Modeling and Education), which he developed with his Ph.D. advisor and colleagues while in graduate school at Stanford University. The AWESOME has formed the basis of a global lightning geolocation network, and separately, an international network under the auspices of a United Nations/NASA-sponsored program to form global collaborative communities between developing and developed countries.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, Cohen was appointed AAAS Science Policy Fellow at the National Science Foundation, where he worked on the fast-growing trend of crowdfunding and open access policies for the Engineering directorate.

Cohen joined Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty in October 2013, where he leads the Low Frequency Radio Group. He and his group study the natural electricity of the Earth, including lightning, the electrically charged upper atmosphere, and the radiation-filled space environment. They use radio waves at low frequencies measured all around the world to understand them, and they develop resulting practical applications.

Cohen has been involved with URSI activities since 2006, including chairing and convening many conference sessions at URSI meetings. He is an associate editor of Radio Science and an author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal publications. Cohen has been an elected member of URSI Commissions F (propagation and remote sensing) and G (ionospheric radio and propagation) since 2011. He won several URSI best student paper honors, and in 2011, he received the Young Scientist Award from the URSI General Assembly.