Biography

Dr. Scott F. Midkiff is a Professor in the Bradley Department of Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech. From October 2012 to August 2023, Midkiff served as Virginia Tech's Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer. From August 2009 to September 2012, Midkiff was the Department Head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has served on the faculty since 1986. From September 2006 to September 2009, Midkiff was on assignment as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He has prior industrial experience at Bell Laboratories (1979-1982) and at IBM (Summer 1977, Summer 1978). He was previously a visiting research associate at Carnegie Mellon University (1985-1986).

At Virginia Tech, Dr. Midkiff conducts research in wireless networks, mobile systems, and the Internet of Things. He is the author of over 125 refereed journal and conference publications. Midkiff’s research and education initiatives have been funded by the NSF, the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Microsoft Research, Intel, IBM, Catalyst Communications Technologies, and others.

Dr. Midkiff has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate courses in networking, wireless networks and mobile systems, network applications, telecommunications, and other areas of electrical and computer engineering and computer science. He contributed to the creation of Virginia Tech’s Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Engineering and the online Master of Information Technology program. Midkiff received Virginia Tech’s XCaliber Award for teaching with technology in 2004 and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from the College of Engineering in 2005.

As Virginia Tech's Vice President for IT and CIO, Dr. Midkiff led an organization of about 400 employees which provided IT services for the university to support teaching and learning, research and innovation, and administrative and operational functions. Midkiff's work as CIO was recognized with an ORBIE Capital CIO of the Year Award in 2021.

While at the National Science Foundation, Dr. Midkiff served as a Program Director for the Integrative, Hybrid and Complex Systems (IHCS) program in the Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division in the Directorate for Engineering. He was one of the program directors establishing the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) initiative, first announced in September 2008, and co-led the team that managed the review and award process for the first year of CPS. Midkiff was the lead program director for the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program’s theme on Autonomously Reconfigurable Engineered Systems (ARES) initiated in 2007. He also contributed to the management of the review and award process for the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) program in 2008 and 2009; Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) program in 2008 and 2009; Accelerating Discovery in Science and Engineering through Petascale Simulations and Analysis (PetaApps) solicitation in 2007 and 2009; EFRI Cognitive Optimization and Prediction (COPN) theme in 2008; Engineering Virtual Organizations (EVO) solicitation in 2007; and Cyberinfrastructure Experiences for Graduate Students (CIEG) supplements in 2008. While at the NSF, Midkiff served on the NSF-wide IGERT Coordinating Committee (ICC) from 2007-2009; the NSF-wide Cyberinfrastructure Coordinating Committee (CICC) in 2009; and the Directorate for Engineering’s Cyberinfrastructure (CI) Working Group from 2007-2009, chairing the group in 2009. Midkiff received an NSF Director’s Award for Collaborative Innovation in 2008.

Dr. Midkiff received the B.S.E. degree, summa cum laude, in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Duke University (1979), the M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University (1980), and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Duke University (1985). He was an MCNC Fellow during his Ph.D. studies at Duke. Midkiff is a Life Senior Member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Midkiff serves on the IEEE Committee on Education Accreditation Activities (CEAA) and is an ABET Program Evaluator. He was a founding editorial board member and Education department editor for IEEE Pervasive Computing magazine. He has been a technical program committee chair and member for numerous technical conferences in networking and pervasive computing. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Tau Beta Pi, and Eta Kappa Nu, and Omega Alpha honorary societies.