Gerardo J. Meléndez is a

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan ( , ; Spanish for "Saint John the Baptist, John") is the capital city and most populous Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality in the Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the ...

-born scientist who served as Director of the Armaments Research Development Engineering Center ( ARDEC) headquartered at

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from 2010 until his

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retirement in May 2014. During his civilian career with the U.S. Army, which began in 1983 as an electronics engineer for the U.S. Army Communications and Electronics Command in New Jersey, Meléndez was a strong advocate of incorporating commercial technological advances in military applications, including equipment based on consumer products generated by companies such as

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and

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. He also served as chief of the Automatic Target Recognition Team for the Product Manager Tactical Endurance Synthetic Aperture Radar, as well as chief of the Intelligence and Information Warfare Directorate’s Battle Space Identification Branch. in 2014 he retired after 31 years of Army civilian in ceremony at

. He is a graduate of

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, where he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in

biomedical engineering Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare applications (e.g., diagnostic or therapeutic purposes). BME also integrates the logica ...

in 1980, and

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, where he obtained a Master of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1983, and he obtained his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at

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in 1993. He subsequently earned a master's degree in strategic studies from the Army War College.

Awards and distinctions

• Department of the Army Distinguished Civilian Service Award (2014) • Department of the Army Fellowship (1987–1993) • United States Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center Director Award for Technical Excellence (1989) • United States Army CECOM Leader of the Year Award (1998) • Executive Excellence in the Military awarded by Maj. Gen. Nick Justice at the 2010 Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference (2010) • Keynote speaker at the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Conference, Washington, D.C. (2010) • College of Engineering Alumni Circle of Distinction (2012)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melendez, Gerardo Drexel University alumni Living people Scientists from San Juan, Puerto Rico Puerto Rican people of Spanish descent Tulane University alumni United States Army War College alumni Year of birth missing (living people)