Dr. Bennett is Co-Founder and managing member of MEPSS LLC, a software-based startup for decision support and automation. She has held academic, industry, and research positions for over 34 years. She has held academic, industry, and research positions for over 30 years. These positions have included Senior Vice President for Strategic and Research Initiatives and Professor at Florida Institute of Technology; and Regents’ Researcher, Associate Vice President for Research (AVPR), and Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech – GT). As AVPR at GT, she was responsible for increasing research collaboration between academic and applied research. At GT Research Institute (GTRI), she held the Glenn Robinson Chair in Electro-Optics (EO), founded the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center, and as the Director for the EO Systems Laboratory, grew research in the areas of optical imaging systems, EO modeling, and simulation, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) development for sensing, Active-EO Systems development, and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor system development.
Presently, Dr. Bennett is the Editor-in-Chief for Applied Optics, is on the Board of Trustees for Riverside Research Institute and is the 2024 Vice President for Optica. She served on the board of directors for Optica (formally OSA) and was the President for the IEEE Council on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). She is a Fellow with Optica and SPIE. She has received numerous awards including Superior Civilian Service Medal, Department of the Army, the second highest award of the Department of the Army and the Commander’s Award for Public Service, Department of the Army.
EDUCATION
Georgia Institute of Technology, Ph.D., Electrical Engineering
University of Central Florida, M.S., Electrical Engineering
University of Central Florida, B.S.E., Electrical Engineering