BIOGRAPHY IN A NUTSHELL

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Me at the South Pole Station in Antarctica.

 Somehow, I just always look cold.

A little bit more about my background.  I have been married for nearly twenty-five years to Philip Oakley.  We met when we were both working together at the South Pole Station in Antarctica.  We have two daughters as well as two adopted sons who are originally from Kosovo.  I started studying engineering much later than many engineering students, because my original intention had been to become a linguist.  I enlisted in the U.S. Army right after high school and spent a year studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey California.  The Army eventually sent me to the University of Washington, where I received my first degree–a B.A. in Slavic Languages and Literature.  Eventually, I served four years in Germany as a Signal Officer, and rose to become a Captain.  After my commitment ended, I decided to leave the Army and study engineering so that I could better understand the communications equipment I had been working with.

Five years later I received a second degree: a B.S. in Electrical   Engineering.  In the meantime, I worked several fishing seasons as   a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers up in the Bering Sea.  I wrote a book about that experience–Hair of the Dog: Tales from a Russian Trawler.  As one of my captains used to enjoy reminding me: "You know too much, it's time to kill you."  (It rhymes in Russian.) 

I also spent a season as the radio operator at the South Pole Station in Antarctica, where Philip and I met.  (We were married as soon as we got ‘off the ice,’ in New Zealand.)  With the electrical engineering degree in hand I settled down and spent three years working as a instrumentation and controls engineer at a laser research and development firm near Seattle. We moved to the Detroit area in 1989.  I worked for Ford briefly, and then began doing consulting and attending Oakland University part time while our children were

                               Oakley offspring and relatives in the                                  small.  I received a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering   in   1995, and a Ph.D. in

                        ancient city of Prizren, Kosovo, June, 2002.                                          Systems Engineering in 1998.  I was   hired  after my graduation to continue on as a

                                                                                                                  professor  at Oakland University.   

On the Soviet trawler 'Tigil,' Bering Sea, summer of 1983.

I look cold.

Philip and I at the Salt Works at Lake Grassmere, Marlborough, New Zealand, right after our marriage.

EDUCATION

PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATION

Registered professional engineer in the state of Michigan: 

         License Number 44379.    

AWARDS AND HONORS

Throwing a live grenade ~age 20. 

A good way to learn focus.

Yes, there really is a barber pole at the South Pole.

A dump truck loaded with the last of the year's seal kill on the Pribilof Islands.  We are standing well away from the truck–the tradition is for children on the trucks and in the cars of the 'parade' to pelt passers by with bits of seal flesh.

         A favorite Antarctic picture.  The South Pole Station is

barely visible on the horizon.

Herd Your Horses is a game I created with some friends.  It's a perennial best-seller

and was selected as a top-100 game by

Games Magazine.

The daughters Oakley on the Ligurian Coast of Italy, near Genova, during the IEEE EMBS 2002 Special Topic Conference on Nanobioscience.

Irfan, Winter, 2003

Bafti, Summer, 2002

Philip Oakley after 10 minutes in -70 ºF, 60 mph winds at Siple Station, Antarctica.

He doesn't even look cold.