Dr Sudhakar Rao, Senior Fellow at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company, has been honoured with the 2009 Judith Resnik Award -- the highest technical award given by the US-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for pioneering work in aerospace engineering.
People across the world, from television viewers to soldiers on the battlefield, benefit from Rao's technical accomplishments and innovations.
He is the world's leading authority in the areas of multiple beam and re-configurable beam antenna systems and payloads and has contributed to more than 50 satellite programs. His work on the modelling of complex satellite radiation patterns and subsequent development of radiation templates was adopted by the International Telecommunication Union as an international standard in 1992.
His 35 years of professional experience encompass conceptual design, payload trades, detailed component design, and hardware test for commercial and military satellites. He holds 32 United States patents. 
He has been working with Lockheed Martin since 2003, where he is responsible for technical aspects of new business proposals and programs and for developing the technology roadmap for advanced satellite payloads. He is an IEEE Fellow and technical program committee member for the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium for the last six years.
Rao, 58, is an alumnus of the Regional Engineering College, Warangal, Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur and IIT-Madras. He has received several awards including the Asian American Engineer of the Year, Lockheed Martin Corporate Senior Fellow Award in 2006, Lockheed Martin's inventor of new technology awards in 2005 and 2007, LMSSC's invention & publication awards in 2005, 2006, and 2007, Boeing's Technical Fellow award in 2001, and Boeing's Special Invention Award in 2002.
He lives in Churchville, Pennsylvania, with his wife Rajani and their teenage daughter Neha.
