William Dale Blair is a principal research engineer with the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and a GTRI Fellow. He is senior member of the Sensors & Electromagnetic Applications Laboratory (SEAL) staff and supports the lab as a subject matter expert in multisensor-multitarget tracking, radar data processing, data fusion, modeling and simulation, and algorithm assessment. He recently completed an assignment as the Technical Director for the C2BMC Knowledge Center of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). He received the BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Tennessee Technological University in 1985 and 1987. In January 1998, he received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining GTRI, Dr. Blair was with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) in Dahlgren, Virginia. At NSWCDD, he originated two benchmark problems for target tracking and radar resource allocation. He also led a project that demonstrated through a real-time tracking experiment that modern tracking algorithms can be utilized to reduce the radar time and energy required by a phased array radar to support surveillance tracking. Since joining GTRI in 1997, Dr. Blair has led a multiorganizational team in the development of multiplatform-multisensor-multitarget benchmarks to both air defense and ballistic missile defense. His projects at GTRI focus mostly on the modeling and simulation and algorithm assessment associated with the sensor netting for the battle management, command, and control for the ballistic missile defense system.

Dr. Blair is a Fellow of the IEEE and recipient of the 2001 IEEE Nathanson Award for Outstanding Young Radar Engineer and the 2023 IEEE Warren D. White Award for major technical advances in the art of radar engineering. He served as the Editor for Radar Systems for IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems (T-AES) 1996-99 and Editor-In-Chief (EIC) for IEEE T-AES from 1999-2005. He was recently appointed founding editor of the new IEEE Open Journal of Systems Engineering. Dr. Blair also served on the Board of Governors of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society (AESS) from 1998-2003, 2005-2010, 2012-2017, and 2020-2025. While a member of the IEEE AESS BoG, he served as Vice President for Publications and Chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, originated the Target Tracking Systems Panel. Dr. Blair's research is reported in over three hundred articles which include 38 refereed journal articles. He originated and coordinates three short courses, Target Tracking in Sensor Systems, Target Tracking Concepts, and Advanced Target Tracking for Ballistic Missile Defense, for the Professional Education Department of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Blair is coeditor and coauthor of the book, Multitarget-Multisensor Tracking: Advances and Applications III, and the coauthor of chapter 18 “Radar Measurements” and author of chapter 19 “Radar Tracking Algorithms” of the new edition of Principles of Modern Radar. He has also served as the coordinator of the ONR/GTRI Workshop on Target Tracking and Sensor Fusion for 1998 through 2011.