A Tribute to the Legacy of Ross Stone: from Hertz Cylindrical Reflector Antenna to Novel Remote Sensing Antennas

There are certain people in one's life that you always rely on and admire. Ross was for sure one of them. His knowledge of so many diverse topics and his abounded dedication to stay engaged and contribute so unselfishly were beyond anyone's expectation. He was for sure the encyclopaedia of our USNC-URSI and IEEE AP-S organizations. I am humbled and delighted to present this invited talk in this special session at the 2024 50 th Anniversary of USNC-URSI Boulder Colorado Meeting dedicated to the professional life of the late Ross Stone (1948–2023). I knew Ross for nearly five decades and had many fruitful technical and professional interactions on all kinds of EM topics including inverse scattering, non-uniqueness, remote sensing, etc. As a matter of fact, the 1973 USNC- URSI/IEEE AP-S conference held in Boulder, Colorado, was our first conference where I delivered my first paper. What I clearly remember is Ross' keen interest in managing edited publications by bringing outstanding contributors together and producing first rate special issues on diverse topics with historical content. Ironically we shared some similar experiences by participating in enormous numbers of national and international conferences and contributing to many committee meetings together and the list goes on and on. We all lost an exceptional editor, technical contributor and a dear friend.