Mitchell Thornton, Ph.D.

Cecil H. Green Chair of Engineering

Executive Director of Darwin Deason Institute for Cyber Security

Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Professor of Computer science (by Courtesy)

Office Location: Junkins 328

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Education

Ph.D. Computer Engineering, ��ϲ�Ԥ��

Biography

Mitchell A. (Mitch) Thornton is currently the Cecil H. Green Chair of Engineering and Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at ��ϲ�Ԥ�� in Dallas, Texas. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Darwin Deason Institute for Cyber Security, a research-only unit, and as Program Director for the interdisciplinary M.S. in Data Engineering degree program within the Lyle School of Engineering at ��ϲ�Ԥ��. His past industrial experience includes full-time employment at the Amoco Research Center, E-Systems, Inc. (now L3Harris Technologies Inc.), and the Cyrix Corporation. He is an author or co-author of five books and more than 300 technical articles. He is a named inventor on over 20 US/PCT/WIPO patents and patents pending. During his career as an academic researcher, he has performed sponsored research for numerous federal government agencies and industrial organizations that, in total, exceeds $10M in combined research support. He has also practiced as an independent professional engineer since 1993 and holds P.E. licenses in the states of Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas. His professional practice areas include digital/embedded systems design and analysis, cyber security, quantum informatics and data processing algorithms/systems. In addition to his P.E. licenses, he holds a General Radiotelephone Operator License (GROL) with a Radar Endorsement from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. He received the PhD in computer engineering from ��ϲ�Ԥ�� in 1995, MS in computer science from ��ϲ�Ԥ�� in 1993, MS in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1990, and BS in electrical engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1985.

Honors and Awards

Rotunda Outstanding Professor Award, nominated by students/colleagues at ��ϲ�Ԥ��, May 23, 2022
IEEE Technical Community on Multiple-Valued Logic (TCMVL), Long Term Contributor Award, May 20, 2022, named to TCMVL “Multiple-Valued Logic Researcher Hall of Fame,” June 2022.
IEEE-USA Citation of Honor, December 2009.
Inventor Recognition Award, Semiconductor Research Corporation, April 2009.
HOPE (Honoring Our Professors Excellence) Professor, three times in Spring 2006, Fall 2006, and Fall 2009 awarded by students on behalf of the ��ϲ�Ԥ�� student residence organization.
2005 Gerald J. Ford Senior Research Fellow at ��ϲ�Ԥ��.
Texas Instruments Outstanding Researcher in the Department of Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Arkansas, (two times in 1996-1997 and 1997-1998).

Research

Cyber Security

Quantum Informatics and Quantum Photonics

Data Engineering Applications

Recent Publications

H. Shahoei, I.G. Achu, E.J. Stewart, U. Tariq, W.V. Oxford, M.A. Thornton and D.L. MacFarlane, , Applied Optics, vol. 61, no. 16, June 2022, pp. 4927-4931.

X. Wang, T. Liu, S. Guo, M.A. Thornton and P. Gui , IEEE Transactions on VLSI, vol. 28, iss. 1, pp. 12-22, January 2020, ( August 13, 2019, .

K.N. Smith and M.A. Thornton, , ACM Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, vol. 16, no. 1, article 3, 21 pages, October 2019, .

J.M. Henderson, E.R. Henderson, A. Sinha, M.A. Thornton and D.M. Miller, Automated Quantum Oracle Synthesis with a Minimal Number of Qubits, SPIE 12517, Quantum Information Science, Sensing, and Computation XV, April 30-May 4, 2023, 1251706 (18 pp.), publication date June 13, 2023, (with).

C. Peters and M.A. Thornton, , IEEE Aerospace Conference (AERO), March 4-11, 2023, 13 pp.

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